I needed to hear this today, so I’m sharing it with anyone else struggling with perfectionism.
Your first draft is going to suck.
Your second draft? Probably sucks too.
Mine certainly did. And if you wait until it stops sucking to publish… you’ll never publish anything.
The painful truth about perfectionism:
It’s not protecting your reputation. It’s stopping you from building one.
The pros don’t wait for perfection. They iterate in public.
• Hemingway’s first drafts were terrible.
• Stephen King calls his “vomit drafts.”
• Heinlein said, “Refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.”
Fix what’s broken. Ship it. Stop endlessly polishing.
You don’t need perfect to be heard. You just need to start.
—Bryan Collins (shared just in case you needed this reminder today!!)
Now your turn: What’s the worst first draft you’ve ever written? Share it below. No judgment, just encouragement! ♡ ♡