A thread about garbage words.

Writing first drafts is hard for me. I completely believe that getting a first draft out is essential, even if its filled with words I need to change or delete. That belief is helpful but not sufficient. Here are some tricks that help me : https://twitter.com/aznchew/status/943570522406903809

1. I write placeholders and keep going. Especially for introductions and transitions:

- Intro tk here.

- Smooth transition tk here.

- Paragraph about X tk here.

2. Tk is my go-to placeholder. It means “to come” as in “I’ll handle this later.” It’s easy to control-F for “tk.”

I learned tk from @krgpryal, a skilled + *prolific* writer. I’m lucky to count her as a friend, mentor, and co-author. A sampling: http://katieroseguestpryal.com/writing/ 

3. If I notice that I’m stuck because I’m feeling bad about a turn of phrase or a word I can’t quite catch or the sneaking suspicion that my whole piece might be awful, I just write those feelings out into my draft and keep going.

4. I write notes to myself to try to keep focused on a task that is easy to stray from. The garbage-words note has been on my laptop for two days.

5. I lie to myself about how much easier revising and editing will be than writing a first draft.