Everything you’ve learned how to do once took great effort and lots of failure. From walking to learning how to ride a bike, navigating the internet to the skills you use on the job, you didn’t spring from the womb excellent at everything you’ve ever tried.

So why do you expect to write a great first draft of a story you’re still trying to figure out?

What if, instead, you let yourself fail at it? What if you let yourself write in clunky passages with cliché examples and so much telling even you cringe reading it through?

Writing about writing counts more than not writing at all because you’re too scared to make a mistake. You’ll never get where you’re going if you don’t let yourself fail along the way.