1) Rather than stop and start over again and again, when you allow yourself to write a truly awful, lousy first draft from beginning to end, you actually finish a draft all the way through.
2) Until you write the end, you do not have a clear grasp of what comes earlier.
3) You accomplish what you set out to do.
4) Once you have a skeleton in place, a writer is able to stand back and “see” her story in an entirely new light
5) One of the greatest benefits of writing a truly awful, lousy 1st draft is that it’s all up from there…
For more on the benefits of writing a truly awful, completely lousy 1st draft:
So true.
Hooray for truly awful lousy first drafts! (I like to call them poopy first drafts.) They're the only way to take the pressure off and enjoy the writing process and I've found I write so much faster when I give myself permission to be lousy.
Wow, you have no idea how badly I needed this! I have been bleeding my way through a first draft of a novel for months, and I'm only a few chapters in. I definitely need to crack down and just write. Embrace the suckiness. I'm not doing NaNoWriMo, but anyone who is definitely needs to read this. Thanks for the great advice!