As I got to work today, all the repellent implications of Caroline Paul's "sometimes you have to approach writing like cleaning the toilet" became clear to me. If writing is like kneeling on the floor with a round-headed brush, then what exactly are the words in my first draft? Nothing I didn't already know they were, I guess... But here's the good thing I've discovered: if you approach writing as cleaning, then the bad stuff, the feculence that must be effaced, is at least part of a job. For the first time I can welcome lousy sentences. That ridiculously self-conscious opening paragraph that strains to create a mood of urgency but says nothing concrete...it doesn't mean I failed! It means another piece of glittering porcelain to be revealed! Which means that I don't have to be afraid of...of...producing bad writing. I owe it to myself! (I was going to say I don't have to be afraid of putting out crap. But every metaphor has to know when to stop.)
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