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Practice makes progress

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I’m dusty. After my #aprildaily burst, when I posted a ten-minute write every day during the month of April, I fell off the writing wagon. I’ve been lying on the side of the road ever since.

This week, I creaked and groaned to a standing position. I brushed the dirt off my composition book and started scratching words on the crusty pages. Since I started writing again, I’ve been fascinated by how noticeable my lack of practice is. My word choices are vague, I don’t pull thoughts together coherently, I read what I’ve written and think, “Wow, that’s pretty bad.”

But where I previously strived for perfection — I wouldn’t post anything to my blog unless I had proofed and polished and gotten every last word, every last punctuation mark, as close to perfect as my skills would allow — perfection is not my goal anymore. Progress is.

Posting a ten-minute write every day in April was liberating. With a full time job and full time family, I didn’t have time for endless editing, so every day I wrote for ten minutes, then I closed my eyes and hit Publish. My pieces weren’t perfect — far from it — but they got me writing, they got me publishing, and in practicing, I improved. My words came together more gracefully. Pressing Publish became less scary. I wrote fiction for the first time.

While I write non-stop at work, which I LOVE about my job, the writing I do is mainly communicative: helping customers with their WordPress.com sites, joking around with coworkers, and conveying information across the company via internal blogs. This week, I found myself needing to write more creative type pieces — a pitch for a conference I’m helping organize, a blurb for a WordCamp speaker application. I needed to get my mind in that imaginative place: I needed to start free-writing again.

So I did. I started ten-minute writes again this week. Most of them weren’t great, and I thank you for bearing with my brain dump yesterday. However, whereas “Wow, that’s bad” writing used to make me feel awful about myself, this week I feel awesome. I feel awesome because even if the words aren’t perfect, my creative juices are flowing again.

I’m shaking off the dust. I’m loosening up my joints. And best of all, the free writes not only helped me write two pitches that I feel good about, but I’m writing again. I don’t need to be perfect. I just want to practice — and progress.

 

20 thoughts on “Practice makes progress”

  2. Hello Andrea 🙂

    It’s a great piece of advise(though it looks more like your personal account.)

    I wish you a great weekend and luck in writing.

    Annad 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  3. This helps me validate my effort. I’m constantly writing, either in my journal, on word, or attempting to transfer my pieces here. I shy from posting because the work isn’t ‘perfect.’

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Hey! NEW ONE HERE!! 🙂
    I’m just getting started in blogging and writing at the same time, and this piece was useful and heartwarming! You said you help people with their new wordpress sites at job. How can I get your help?
    Thanks already..
    Hope I have a new writerfriend soon.. Bye!

    Liked by 1 person

  5. I completely relate to this. The key is just to sit down and work. I have a habit of switching back and forth between visual art and writing when I feel stagnant in one or the other. It’s amazing how the two processes end up informing each other and keep my mind in a creation mode. I used to feel like if I wasn’t writing I was failing, but now as long as I’m creating something, I know I’ll be able to write again because my brain is already primes to create. I wish you luck in keeping up with your free writes in your busy life. Loom forward to reading some. Great post , thanks for sharing!

    Liked by 1 person

  12. I can relate to most everything you said – only not in writing but in photography. Your last paragraph sums up my own situation “…but I’m writing again. I don’t need to be perfect. I just want to practice — and progress” except that I’m “taking pictures again”; it puts things in perspective for me, so thank you for that!

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  13. I hear you Andrea. I’ve just recently jumped back into corporate life and combined with family commitments I know what a struggle it can be to find time to blog. Last week I think I found the perfect compromise – the 100 day haiku challenge. If all else fails I hope I’ll have the discipline to at least post haikus to my instagram feed. Not perfect, but achievable. Keep writing. You’re inspiring.

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  14. Reblogged this on A page of thoughts and experiences. and commented:
    ” I don’t need to be perfect. I just want to practice — and progress.”

    I always believe that I was born to write that’s why I’ve come up to the idea of making my own blogspot. (This’s actually the third one. Hoping this’ll be the permanent place wherein I can share my thoughts and true feelings). I started to write short stories, poems at young age, 13. And even though I’ve been writing since then, there are still times that I find myself lacking of words. Regardless, I am still practicing to express through words the juices I have in mind.

    Thanks for this post! I loved it trully. ♥

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  15. Nice use of the alliterative Ps. And I can totally relate to the perfectionism. It is common among artists since time memorial.

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  16. Goodness. It’s always nice to hear another frustrated voice out there. But it seems like going through good and bad writing phases is just part of being a writer. I’m still waiting to become an “excellent” writer. When will that phase hit?

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  17. I often fight this battle in my head around what’s the point of this writing malarky….but keep trying to spur myself on in amongst it all. I try to write about something completely different about my corporate world as a way to grow and do something different. The topics are there in my head….just can’t get them out. Time and peace in a busy house are my excuses. Really nice you wrote this and inspiring from the point of view ….if someone at auttomatic needs to give themselves a push. Then it’s ok! I just need to get in the driving seat and go for it. Thanks

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  18. …I love your enthusiasm!!! ^_^ ….I can soooo relate to the crusty writer’s mode… :/ #noLie

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