Perfection is fiction—writing is revision.

There’s a paradox in writing: the only way to get better is to write. But self-doubt can keep you from starting.

Many writers hesitate when the words aren’t quite right—when an idea feels incomplete. They don’t want to write something bad so they wait. Writers tinker with first sentences, convincing themselves they will write more sentences when they’re ready. This is a prison sentence.

Perfection is an illusion—no first draft is flawless. Writing well starts with writing adequately. Sometimes these early attempts are populated with the darlings that Stephen King advises us to kill, but most great books and brilliant short stories began as something unfinished, messy, and imperfect.

Anne Lamott calls perfectionism “the voice of the opressor.”

“It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.”

Salman Rushdie believes it is a kind of stasis and could not possibly be the goal of art.

“Instead, imperfection made meaning possible, made story possible, made life possible.”

And Bradbury compared early drafts to vomiting on the page. Just get it all out so you have something to work with later.

Writers who do the work and do it well begin to succeed when they are willing to embrace imperfection. They accept that a first draft isn’t meant to be good. They understand they can revise a flawed page but they can’t revise a blank one.

“There’s a crack in everything,” says Leonard Cohen, “that’s how the light gets in.”

So, give yourself permission to write mediocre sentences. Let clichés enter your train of thought and spread their legs on the subway seat. Let it be awkward, rambling, incomplete. Revision will fix it later. But the words have to manifest first.

If you sit down to write and hear that critical voice whispering, This isn’t good enough, remind yourself: it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to write something perfect.

You just have to write.