For Aron: What Do You Do When Your Writing's Not So Good

Aron said: I can't write a good blog post! I don't know why, but the last 7 or so posts I wrote have been so bad that I scraped them. I sit down and try to write, but what comes out on "paper" I'm not happy with. Maybe I'm being a perfectionist, but what I write now seems to be at a lower quality then what I wrote before. Help, please. I have 2 hours a day scheduled to blogging, one hour for writing, one hour for community efforts. But, even if I spend two hours on a post, they still reek.

Take a breath, Aron. I don't know anyone who writes regularly who isn't plagued by this kind of thing, myself included. Everyone who writes has had days when an idea that sounded great when you were thinking about it just didn't ring true when put on "paper."

Sometimes, it's because the ideas themselves are lacking. That happens to everyone. Eventually, a good idea or concept will hit you. More often, and this is the most common, you are just too critical and that could be proximity (you're just too close), currently feeling down on yourself or just not feeling in the mood for what you're writing. And, sometimes, and this happens to everyone, one's writing just reeks.

There are two basic ways of dealing with it. One is to back off writing until you start to write things you like again (or get some distance on what you have written so you can read it objectively). You might use the "time off" to get some inspiration, reading something that you aspire to emulate. You might find something different to do with your time, something that relaxes you like indulging in some other creative function (music or art) or losing yourself in mindless entertainment like video games or sports. Maybe it's your mind's way of telling you to take a break. For me, this is what this kind of thing usually means. When I start writing crap (and when I write crap, it's REALLY bad), it's usually a sign for me that I need to regroup.

However, for some, the appropriate response is to continue to write through their craptastic phases. either because they can only beat the blahs by writing through them or because it's not as bad as they think and they won't know until they get some distance or because, by writing forward, they can get past the part they don't like and keep the story (or whatever going). Then, they can go back and fix what's broken once the rest is in place. That's less compelling for blogs, but, for some, writing through the dry patches is how they bring the dry patches to an end.

I'm, personally a proponent for the first for myself, but each writer has to decide what works best for them (and it might involve trying both methods to see what works). My sister works the second method and it's the one for her.

I can't cure it, but I can tell you that most dry patches are not life long. I can also tell you that you are far from alone in struggling with your writing at times.

Good luck. I hope you find your way out of the blahs and back into the world where you like your writing as much as we do.