Embracing Messy Writing

Most people want their writing to be good, tight, polished, perfect. They tweak sentences, delete entire paragraphs, and stare at the blinking cursor waiting for divine intervention. The result? A lot of wasted time and, more often than not, no writing at all. Perfectionism isn’t a high standard. It’s self-sabotage.

The truth is, good writing doesn’t start good. It starts ugly, messy, awkward, borderline embarrassing. And if you can’t stomach that, you’ll never get to the part where your writing actually gets better.

The biggest mistake writers make is trying to get it right the first time. That’s not how creativity works. That’s not how anything works. You don’t walk into a gym for the first time and deadlift 400 pounds. You grunt your way through bad form, struggle under the weight, and then eventually you get stronger.

Writing is no different. You have to be willing to churn out bad sentences, incoherent paragraphs, and ideas that make you cringe. Because only by getting the bad stuff out can you find the good stuff inside.

I spent a year studying sketch writing, and here’s the first rule: put something on the page. No filtering, no hesitation. The worst thing you can do is freeze, waiting for a great idea. Because the great idea comes after the bad one.

Same with writing. Do you think Tina Fey wrote perfect SNL sketches on the first pass? No. She wrote drafts that probably weren’t funny at all. Then she rewrote them. Then she rewrote them again.

SEO works the same way. The best-performing content online doesn’t start optimized. It starts with an idea. You publish, test, analyze, refine. You don’t sit there obsessing over a perfect headline for six hours.

Writers love to edit mid-sentence. It feels productive. It’s actually destructive. It kills momentum, turns writing into an exhausting grind, and guarantees you never finish anything.

There’s a time for editing, but it’s not while you’re writing. First drafts should be a disaster. Think of it like cooking. You don’t plate a dish while the ingredients are still raw. You throw everything into the pan first, make a mess, then refine.

The best writers aren’t the ones with the best first drafts. They’re the ones who finish their drafts. Because they know writing isn’t about looking smart in the moment, it’s about showing up, putting words down, and trusting the process.

Write ugly. Write fast. Write badly. Just write. The magic happens in the mess.