There is a rush of excitement from writing, especially that which comes fresh from inspiration. I love it.
But I also know that this is just the start of the process. Too many novice writers believe that this initial spurt is the whole thing. Their process is all too frequently INSPIRATION!, write, publish.
It’s a sad state, but most of the personal sites are operated this way. Far too few people understand that the work of writing is rewriting, thinking, and rewriting again. And then it goes to editing before rewriting once again. Then we can talk about when to publish.
From my perspective there is only one arena for fast writing and publishing: breaking news. Even that should be rewritten as time allows (as long as changes are noted) AND overseen by an editor.
For every other form of writing there is little excuse for writing once and publishing.
I’ve said this before: you are not a genius. You, like me, might have moments of genius, but for all other times you need to do the work.
Here’s the hard truth: if you think that what you toss off and immediately publish is good enough you are deluded. You could do better, you can do better. In fact, you probably don’t know how good you could be. Just because you’re writing about your thoughts and feelings doesn’t mean that you couldn’t write about them BETTER if you worked with an editor.
Think about that just a moment: you could be a much better writer than you are right now if you’d work with an editor.
My mission here is to help people and businesses to learn to write better, more easily, and to enjoy it. Clear writing, writing that really works, not just for the moment, but when thought about and examined closely, is a wonderful thing. Don’t sell yourself short by deluding yourself and thinking that what you write in a rush is “Good Enough.” It’s not good enough. You can do better.
The The Deluded Writer: Fast and Spontaneous, But Not Good Enough by Randy Murray, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.