Writing for the recycling bin.

Many of us writers tend to censor and self-edit as we write. While this may make for well-polished prose, self-editing while you write can really stymie ideas. When you are writing, particularly in early drafts, you want to allow for as much of a free-flow of ideas as possible. I often urge my students to first make a mess, then clean it up later (hopefully after the ideas have had a chance to simmer). At its best, writing can be a messy, unwieldy process. It can’t stay that way forever (you will have a reader eventually and s/he deserves to have some clear direction of where you’re headed), but in the initial phases, it’s okay to write for yourself.

Better yet, write for the recycle bin. What I mean when I offer this advice, is that you should write as if your writing mattered to no one, not even to you. This attitude allows you to approach your writing with complete abandon. When you write for the recycling bin, you write without judging your work and yourself. You can approach your work with kindness and creativity. Sometimes you will recycle your work and the exercise will serve to stimulate your creative juices. At other times, you can keep your work –maybe sit on it for a while– and revisit it . When you revisit your work, I urge you to do so with great kindness and curiosity. “What are the ideas here?” “Where can I go with this?” “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” This detached approach not only allows you to be kind to your work, it allows you to be kind to its creator. Always a good thing.

Happy writing!

-Dr. Kirschner