your first draft does not suck.

This is my first post here, and I want to lead with something I feel very strongly about:

Your first draft does not suck.

How many times have you heard that your first draft sucks? Don’t worry. Everyone writes a shitty first draft. Even seasoned authors.

No, they don’t. And you don’t either.

A first draft is this, and only this: an unfinished work of art.

Imagine you have a friend, a painter, whose work you admire. They have a following, people who buy their art. They have gallery shows and their paintings are critically acclaimed. One day you go to their house and have coffee with them in their studio. You see a canvas propped up of their latest work in progress. It’s a scribbling of pencil lines, maybe some swipes of paint, something taking shape in one corner, a bunch of sticky notes tacked up on the edge.

Do you look at that canvas and think, Oh, that’s shitty. That’s crap.

No, you don’t. Because it’s not. It’s not done. It’s a work in progress. It’s an idea with life, a heartbeat, and potential.

Those things are not crap.

As writers, we are already surrounded by negativity regarding our art. We deal with massive amounts of rejection from gatekeepers. Critical, unhelpful reviews from readers. Imposter syndrome. Self-doubt. Creative blocks. The lack of time to do what we love. Why pile on more negativity?

But it’s not just about adopting positivity for the sake of being positive. It’s about reframing the idea that an unfinished piece of art is…simply unfinished.

Your draft is beautiful, raw material. It’s a piece of marble waiting for you to sculpt it. It’s a pile of words that need to be sorted and sewn into amazing patterns. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t call anything that has the potential to be great art crap, at any stage of the process.