We all do it. And that’s ok.

So much writing advice strives to remind us that this is only the first draft and it’s going to be Not That Great. Yet so many writers joke and angst about their inner editors berating them for every run on sentence, fragment, and wrong word choice that finds its way onto paper in that first draft.

Neil Gaiman wrote, “You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

It's an eternal struggle between attempting perfection on the first try and just letting your ideas out on paper. First drafts should be messy and imperfect and off the wall. They should be playgrounds and sandboxes. But our dirtbag brains want to insist that every sentence and word should be on point, exactly as they appear in your head, characters well developed and three dimensional, plot devoid of clichés - in short, a polished final draft on the first go.

It is the most difficult thing for a writer to do, letting go of their perfectionist tendencies and allowing themselves to create. Even writing this article I've stopped and started a dozen times, writing a handful of words each time. I've gone back through and changed things before finishing. Time was wasted researching mundane facts. I’ve made audible disgusted noises at some of the things here.

This is the essence of writer's block, rather than lack of inspiration or ideas. The ideas are there, in the back of your mind. And inspiration doesn't wait until the critical, perfect moments to strike. Each writer is a perfectionist in their own way. Even when they do have the ideas and the inspiration, the words simply won’t flow, because the writer has already decided they won’t be perfect.

So each writer should have a mantra to repeat, a poster on their wall, hung over their workstation, embroidered on a pillow, written on sticky notes and stuck on their foreheads. It goes like this: It’s only the first draft. It will be garbage. Most of it will go away during editing. However, that is for later. Now is the time to get the words and the story out, and to simply create.

Put more succinctly, Relax. And create.

Go out there and make trash. Write clichés. Write something unoriginal. Write cardboard characters and stilted dialogue - you have permission. These are all things that can be fixed later. No one even has to see these things before they’re fixed. The only thing a writer needs to have during their first draft is fun. As long as it’s enjoyable, who cares? You can worry about all the work and sweat and tears and crippling self doubt and fear of failure later.