Some writers suggest you write sloppy, “vomiting” the words onto the page. They think all writers need to start with “shitty first drafts.”
But sloppy writing means you need several drafts to clean up the sloppiness. To me, that's like waiting until the end of coding to write and run any tests at all. (Been there, done that, have the gray hair.)
Worse, these words tell you that you are a terrible writer.
Instead of creating a terrible draft or thinking you're a terrible writer, you can keep your writing clean as you go. And when you do, you might think and learn faster.
How excited are you to go to the keyboard when you describe it in words such as sloppy, vomit, or poop?
Words Reinforce How We Feel and What We Do
Think about these words:
- Sloppy writing
- Vomiting words onto a page
- “Shitty” first draft
If you write like that, what happens? You might edit as you proceed. Or, interrupt yourself with yet more words.
How easy is it for you to finish a piece? In my experience, sloppy writing means sloppy thinking and learning—an essential part of nonfiction writing.
And sloppy writing means you must edit—probably way too early.
And who likes the smell of vomit or poop? I certainly do not! Why would I use those words to describe my writing efforts?
Now, contrast that with these words:
- Clean writing
- Integrate thinking and learning.
- Cycling to clarify ideas
When I write clean, I often need to cycle to clarify the ideas, but not the words. I can finish faster—because I'm integrating my thinking and learning.
I feel great about my work.
Best of all, I can wait to edit until the end, when I don't have much to edit.
I like cleanliness, learning, and integrating my thinking and learning as I proceed. That's the essence of a lot of effective product development.
If this sounds like what you want to do, learn and practice with me in my upcoming writing workshop.
Practice How You Want to Write
If you really enjoy sloppy writing or vomiting words onto a page, okay. I wish you much writing success.
But if you wish you could write faster and better, and not spend nearly as much time on editing, please join me in the next writing workshop. (That's the main workshop page.)
You'll learn to write clean and feel good about everything you write. Because writing clean is part of writing fast, you can finish faster.
I focus this workshop on shorter pieces, but if you're writing a book, the same ideas apply to chapters.
Free your inner nonfiction writer. Learn to write clean and fast—and enjoy it! I hope to see you there.
See all the posts in this intermittent series of “writing secrets.”
I’ve tried to write perfect prose (and also perfect code) on the first attempt, but it didn’t work for me: I never finished anything. Now, I have a set of minimal standards that I always adhere to (correct facts, grammar, spelling, puntctuation) but I allow myself, not to be perfect.
It’s surely not helpful to think about ones own work in terms of shit, poo and vomit but what is wrong about writing a sketch or a draft?
Clean is not perfect. Your minimal standards are what I consider clean. Without even seeing your prose or code, I bet I could read it.
Because I write clean, I can see when my logic goes haywire. But without writing clean, I first have to sift through the trash to find the gems. Sometimes, I don’t have the patience to do that!
I do use freewriting, which means to write forward without editing. Sometimes, that writing turns into a sketch about what I want to say because I don’t know how to say it. But I keep that clean, too. I want to make writing something I look forward to, without all the icky smells that other people seem to think is a good idea. But, that’s me.