Yesterday I posted a quote about writing (from William Stafford) – “When you get stuck, lower your standards.”  This is an interesting thought that, as I understand it, goes to the heart of what writing is.

He didn’t say, “When you get stuck, put out your CD/upload/publish/record (with lower standards) anyway.”  He’s talking about writing.  And writing almost always involves writing the not-so-good stuff to get to, hopefully, the good stuff.

So, as I understand it, he’s saying, ‘Write something, no matter how bad/unrecordable/ unpublishable…”  Why?  Because it may lead to something that you can put out there.  And, in most cases, writing nothing at all (other than when you just need a break) leads to… nothing at all.

Remember, I’m not suggesting (and I doubt that Stafford is saying) lowering the standards of what one puts out for people to listen to, read, or watch.  It’s just about the – private – writing part.

Sometimes writing is just going down blind alleys, following false leads, experimenting, fooling around… I think that at those times it can be useful to have almost no standards at all.  Just let it come out, unfiltered by quality control.  There might be a couple of notes, chords, or words in there that really work.  Do the quality control later.

I do believe that, in writing, Something is usually Better than Nothing.  To once again quote the great John Cleese, “Any drivel may lead to the breakthrough”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijtQP9nwrQA