Stick it out
I wrote 4.3 million words in the last 4 years. But when I compare it to my output the result isn’t great. I have only published 124 pieces of content in the past 15 months combining X, LinkedIn, Medium & my Newsletter.
Separating the clients' work which alone would have been some million words, when I go through my personal writing I have about 350 unfinished pieces. Pieces that are half baked and left in the middle. Or 70% in but just not publish ready. I feel ashamed of this kind of output. I could have done so much better.
So this weekend when I was reading about John Keats, I figured out my biggest bottleneck. It’s my judgement filter that doesn’t let half of the work get across.
When Keats decided to devote his life to writing poetry. He decided to write a 4000 lines long poem. The poem was to revolve around the ancient Greek myth of Endymion. He wrote to a friend, “Endymion” will be a test, a trial of my power of imagination and chiefly of my power of invention — by which I must make 4000 lines of some circumstances & fill them with poetry.
He gave himself an almost impossible deadline of 7 months and a task of writing 50 lines a day until he had a first draft. But three-quarters of the way in, he hated the poem he was writing. But did he quit? No. He chose to stick it out, willing his way to the end and meeting the deadline he had set for himself.
What he did not like about Endymion was the flowery language and the overwriting. But by finishing it, he figured out what actually worked for him.
That's when it clicked for me. I need to stick it out till the end. Some pieces need time to get better, sure. But others? I just need to power through and get them done. First drafts will be shit, see that and move on. Trust myself that I can make it better and by the time it’s publish ready, I can make it good enough.
In Endymion Keats wrote, “I leaped headlong into the sea and thereby became better acquainted with the soundings, the quicksands, & the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore and… took tea and comfortable advice.”
After writing what he considered a mediocre poem, Keats had some invaluable lessons he had learned:
1. Never again would he suffer from writer’s block: He had trained himself to write past any obstacle. He had practiced the habit of writing quickly, with intensity and focus — concentrating his work in a few hours.
2. Revise after he has written it, not before: He had learned how to criticize himself & his overly romantic tendencies. He could look at his own work with a cold eye.
3. Discover ideas by writing: He had learned that it was in the actual writing of the poem that best ideas would often come to him and he had to boldly keep writing or he would miss such discoveries.
So, here's my new game plan: Finish first, judge later.
It’s time for me to write, to complete, to publish.