Permission to Write Badly
I have not been in the mood to write lately.
In my early twenties, this would have been a hall pass for me. No mood? No words? No problem. I’d sit around and wait for inspiration to strike. I am tempted to call that a luxury, but—on second thought—I’m going to call it what it really is: a severe lack of discipline.
Nowadays, I know better. I know being in the mood is not a prerequisite to write. I know putting my butt in the chair is.
Or is it?
Because I’ve been putting my butt in the chair every single day for weeks and all I’m writing is garbage. I keep typing and deleting, typing and deleting. Hannah Brencher calls this bringing a chainsaw into the writing room. She forbids it. But Hannah, I want to tell her, I love my chainsaw. In fact, I am becoming a chainsaw connoisseur of sorts. I have one for unimpressive words, one for poorly-written sentences, and one for dumb ideas. Just yesterday I took a chainsaw to half a page I had written mere moments prior.
Poof, gone. Like a dead tree.
Good riddance.
***
Every Saturday I write in my bedroom from 9am-12pm.
This used to be a saving grace of quarantine, a gift, the thing I looked forward to most in any given week. Lately, though, I find myself dreading Saturdays. I am not in the mood to write. I am exhausted from the week. I am tired of distance learning, the dishes, people bickering on social media, the dishes, trying to work in a house full of people, did I mention the dishes? Sitting outside sipping a smoothie seems like a better option than holing up in my room like a hermit for three hours taking a chainsaw to my own crappy work.
I read this quote last week by Julia Cameron:
Most of us are willing only to write well, and this is why the act of writing strains us. We are asking it to do two jobs at once: to communicate to people and to simultaneously impress them. Is it any wonder that our prose buckles under the strain of this double task?
This is forever and always my problem. Writing badly is the gateway to writing at all, but I’d rather sit in a chair for three hours deleting every other word than write unfiltered and let the true mess of my mind spill out on the page. It is embarrassing to admit how much of my ego is wrapped up in this process, how far I’d go to not look my own first drafts in the face.
Mid-writing (or should I say mid-chainsawing?) last Saturday, my children knocked on the sliding glass door that separates my writing cocoon from their morning circus.
“Mommy! Watch this!” my oldest shouts, as the three of them proceed to do a Conga line across the path in front of me, my toddler at the front singing along.
I cannot help but laugh and take a picture.
They go back to their morning, one that doesn’t include me. For a minute, I consider giving up, forfeiting my time for the day, slamming the laptop shut and joining them in the sunshine.
Is this even worth it?
What will I have to show for myself at the end of these three miserable hours?
***
A few months into distance learning, I am genuinely surprised at how well my son’s kindergarten teacher is corralling a bunch of five-year-olds through pixels. They begin and end every day with music, songs I now know by heart. I can count on the teacher’s sing-song voice to carry through the house at 9am and 11:45am Monday through Friday.
All of their assignments—a mix of phonics, math, reading and writing—are given through videos in an app called Seesaw. My son conducts school in the living room, which means I inevitably hear snippets of the videos as I pick up toys, shuffle laundry around, check emails at the dining room table.
“And remember,” Miss Julie says at the end of every video, pausing for emphasis, “always try your best—it doesn’t ever have to be perfect.”
***
Everett, my third grader, begins school the same way every morning: he must respond to a journaling prompt for 15 minutes before the first zoom call.
The first few weeks of school, Everett struggled with the prompts. He’d run out of his room with panicked eyes, dramatically huffing and puffing, “But I don’t know what to write aboooouuuut!”
I’d do my best to talk him off the ledge, offer a few ideas, coax him back into the chair.
“Just write, Ev,” I’d tell him, as if those two words mean anything to a writer struggling to get words on the page.
At one point, the panic waned, but that’s when I realized he was only writing one sentence each morning. Unsatisfied with his work, I emailed the teacher and asked how long his responses should be. She told me the purpose of the daily journal write is to help build writing stamina and get the kids focused for the day. As long as he is writing for about 10-15 minutes, that's what is important. I will not be collecting their journal entries, but I won't tell them that.
I relayed this message to Everett, and, sensing it might help his anxiety, decided to let him in on the secret. Your teacher isn’t going to look at this, I told him.
For the next few days, I reminded him every morning—your butt needs to be in the chair for 10-15 minutes; nobody is going to see what you write.
By the following week, he was writing half pages for every prompt, occasionally running out of his room to tell me what he wrote about. One day I overheard his zoom call as I walked by his room. The teacher had just asked if anyone would like to share their journal writing with the class. Everett was the first to volunteer.
***
I am halfway through the Artist’s Way, a book which touts Morning Pages as an essential practice. The concept is simple:
Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning. *There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages*–they are not high art. They are not even “writing.” They are about anything and everything that crosses your mind– and they are for your eyes only. Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. Do not over-think Morning Pages: just put three pages of anything on the page … and then do three more pages tomorrow.
Struggling to wrap my head around this concept, I texted two friends of mine who were further along in the book when I started.
These morning pages … tell it to me straight. You just sit and … write? Whatever comes to mind?
They confirm: yes. The morning pages are “garbage”—throw away writing—you’d be mortified if anyone saw it.
Huh.
I don’t adopt the practice right away, still skeptical of its use, concerned it’s a massive waste of time. Why spend time writing stream of consciousness pages that nobody will ever read when I could be chipping away at essays, blog posts, Instagram captions, a book proposal? What is the point of writing three pages of garbage each morning when I could be working on actual, real drafts of something important?
***
It started with one slip: an M&M McFlurry.
We were twelve days into Whole30 and I’m the one who broke. I knew it wouldn’t take much to convince my husband to cheat. A single sentence. A hint. A well-timed gif over text.
It was a Saturday, and we had just wrapped up a horrible, no good, very bad week. He had worked something like 60 hours. Our daughter was teething. Distance learning was taking its toll on all of us. Our laundry room was under construction, which meant we had literal piles of dirty clothes all over the living room.
And to top it all off: we had not consumed an ounce of sugar the entire week. We had gotten in 17 arguments. I had just started my period. I think this is what people call a perfect storm.
That Saturday night, after we got the kids down, I climbed into bed with my heating pad and Netflix while Brett settled into the living room with his laptop.
I texted him from the bedroom: I can’t stop thinking about McFlurries.
We exchanged a few hilarious gifs and three minutes later he was en route to the McDonald’s drive-thru.
After that night, it became easier to cheat. A little bit of coffee creamer here. A couple of yogurt-covered pretzels there. I went out to dinner with friends one night and didn’t even bother trying to order a compliant meal, opting for a bacon burger with fries and a cocktail instead.
Once you fall off the wagon, it’s easy to just stay on the ground.
***
I have a deadline looming—one I’ve been working toward all year in spite of my own crippling insecurity, a global pandemic, and the children being home 24/7.
The closer I get to turning it in, the more tempted I am to take a chainsaw to the whole thing. The closer I get to turning it in, the more Netflix I want to watch.
It started with one episode of Emily in Paris.
Then two and three and next thing you know, it’s Saturday morning and I am supposed to be writing but I’m locked in my bedroom and nobody is bothering me and I’m a horrible writer anyway so maybe just this once I’ll curl up under the weighted blanket and use the first 29 minutes to relax with episode four.
There I am again. Off the wagon. Curled up on the ground.
***
Sometimes I wonder what my kids think, looking through the sliding glass door every Saturday morning to find their mom holed up next to a candle, brows furrowed, rotating between typing and staring at the wall.
I wish they knew how hard this is for me, how much wrestling is involved, how much fortitude is required to keep my butt in this chair wrangling words out of my head and onto the page. I wish they knew how much this looming deadline is hanging over my head like a rain cloud.
Is this even worth it?
I have to believe it is. Because every time I’ve chosen faith over fear, God has done something with that work. And don’t I want to model that for my kids? Don’t I want my children to witness this obedience, this discipline, this God-ordained courage? Don’t I want them to see me stay the course? Don’t I want them to watch me steward every creative gift I possess, not for the sake of the end product but for what the actual process is doing to my heart, my soul?
I doubt they can sense the magnitude of what’s happening with their mom at that desk, but maybe one day I’ll tell them what it was like.
Until then, I’ll be here. With my butt in this chair. Every single morning. And every single Saturday. Reminding myself in Miss Julie’s sing-song voice that all I need to do is try my best. It doesn’t ever have to be perfect.
// Writing + Journaling Prompts //
Write about a bad writing day. Lay out the scene. Where are you? What’s going through your head?
Write about a time you fell off the wagon. Any wagon. How’d you get back on?
Do you write better when you’re in “the mood” or when you are disciplined? How has this changed since becoming a mother?
Write a permission slip for yourself to write badly. Sign and date it. Tack it to the wall above your desk.
Try Morning Pages for a week. How do you feel?
