Allowing Yourself to Suck

Q. How do you deal with writers’ block?
A. I just give myself permission to suck. I delete about 90% of my first drafts (the only exception to this rule so far has been Will Grayson, Will Grayson) so it doesn’t really matter much if on a particular day I write beautiful and brilliant prose that will stick in the minds of my readers forever, because there’s a 90% chance I’m just gonna delete whatever I write anyway. I find this hugely liberating.

I also like to remind myself of something my dad said to me once in re. writers’ block: “Coal miners don’t get coal miners’ block.”
-John Green

Oh John Green, Thank you for giving me a motto to live by through all of November and the craziness that is NaNoWriMo. This piece of advice struck me, since I firmly believe that my writing is the suckiest of all suck. It's the Suck Queen of the Suck Empire. But I've never thought about giving myself permission to be a sucky writer.

In the months since discovering the Vlogbrothers, John Green has intrigued me particularly. I've never found an author that communicates with their readers so much. While communicating with his brother through YouTube videos, he also lets his fans know him as a person. I know a lot more about him than I do about some of my all time favorite authors, and it's because of this relationship that he creates with his readers that these books are so amazing. Well that, and John Green is clearly a genius. Or insane.

John Green. Author. Nerdfighter. Youtuber. Person insane enough to sign all first edition copies of his new book The Fault in Our Stars (that you can buy here). Thank you for reminding me that it's okay to allow myself to suck.

(Another thing that is going to get me through NaNoWriMo? This song.)

That all being said, with NaNoWriMo just around the corner, I'm using this piece of advice as my personal motto for the month of November. I may not finish NaNoWriMo, but I'm definitely going to try, and going to give myself permission to suck at it. Which won't be too difficult.

If you want follow my progress, feel free to add me as a writing buddy here.