Hello, dear writer,

When should you half-ass your writing? 

All the time. 

All the dang time. 

Of course, as you know, I’m a full-time professional writer. That means I rise before dawn and pad outside to admire the sunrise and compose a sonnet or two. I make a decadent cappuccino before I stretch into lyrical yoga asanas. Once my spirit and body are settled for the day, I sit at the desk, and I don’t stand up until I’ve written 2,000 really beautiful words. I’d never half-ass a thing. 

Hahaha4eva 😂 (I don’t even know how to use my wife’s espresso machine and I almost put my back out picking up dog poop this morning.)

Lord, we writers are a bunch of perfectionists, aren’t we? 

For good reason! We have great taste, like Ira Glass says, so we know immediately that our writing isn’t great reading (yet). It feels like crap when that happens. So we avoid the writing. It hurts less that way.

And hey, in our real lives, perfectionism is an excellent way to live! My attention to detail means I almost never accidentally drive into lakes and I rarely eat meat that expired a month ago. 

For important things in my life, I naturally try to take great care. 

Writing is a Very Important Thing in my life. (And probably in yours, since you’re here.)

Therefore, sometimes that feeling of needing to be really careful about writing is magnified about eighty-squillion times. 

What if I try to do this thing I’m desperate to do, and I don’t do it right? What if I choose the wrong thing to write? What if I start it in the wrong place? What if I just need to learn a little more before I start? 

To all of these (normal) worries, I offer you: 

What if you just half-ass it? 

Yep. You’re not only allowed to half-ass your writing, but you’re encouraged to. 

This is the biggest secret professional writers keep: We’re all doing the barest of crappy bare minimum. Weirdly, this method is how we finish books.

What would half-assing your writing look like? 

Here’s what mine looks like:

• I try to write for about an hour a day, five days a week. 

That’s been my simple routine for twenty years now. My goal is usually for more (or I set other weird goals because this gal LURVES a goal).

I almost never hit any goal I set. 

But on average, since I was first published in 2010, I’ve written about two books a year, books I’m proud of, so goals are getting hit, even if I hit them later than I want to.

And guess what? I often toss even my bare minimum out of the window. I’m teaching right now, so on my teaching day, I don’t usually have the energy to write (teaching is creativity turned up to 11, as many of you know). So I write more like four days a week.

Often, I don’t even make it a full 60 minutes because 45 is a kinder amount of time. For me, 45 minutes of writing is perfect. It’s long enough to go deep, to make some messy trouble on the page, and to get that smug heck-yesI-wrote-today joy. When I put an hour on the clock, it feels like forever (cue me whining like a nap-deprived toddler who wants more cotton candy). But 45 minutes flies right by. 

So yeah. I hella half-ass it. And I still feel I need a brass band to celebrate my small accomplishments at full volume.

Importantly, when I’m half-assing, I’m writing poorly. That’s the point. I write my first drafts so badly (most writers do), and my second drafts are like ink explosions that still make very little sense. I don’t even try to write well until I’m late in a 3rd or 4th revision. Until then, I’m half-assing so hard I only need half a pair of trousers to be decent in public.

You don’t need to write well. 

You probably WON’T write well, most of the time. 

And still, that’s how our good books are (eventually) made. 

How will you half-ass your writing this week? 

Onward!

Rachael

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PS - If you haven’t seen Hank Green talking about doing only 80%, you’re missing out. Please rectify that now. I watch this at least once a year. This will blow your mind.

PPS - If you’re interested in lots more support like this, do consider joining us in Ink Village. We’re actively writing over there. Badly. 😁