There's not enough time to do it right, there is enough time to do it over

That's the modus operandi for many software houses. However, others miss their window of opportunity because they're trying to make it perfect. I've seen both, but the latter is rarer because ... well, the product of their labours never see light of day.

Same goes for writing. Once upon a time, I used to draw. Sketch, then ink. It was never good enough to get published, but it was fine for character sketches in table-top role-playing games. (Notice how everything seems to revolve my past life as a gamer? That's because I didn't have a life when I was a gamer.)

At any rate, back to my point. People would sometimes come up to me and ask, "How'd you learn to draw so good?" (They were also gamers. We may love stories, but we didn't much care for grammar.) My stock reply is, "First, you must learn to make the perfect paper snowball."

Same here with writing. I can't find my early stuff. (That's a mercy for us both, trust me.) Still, I wrote lots of crap. Lots and lots. Some of it I made the 'mistake' of showing others.

Best mistake I ever made, if I was in the right frame of mind, that is. In the wrong frame of mind, I got all defensive, rejecting their criticism, constructive or otherwise. In the right frame of mind (and with the right heart behind the criticism) I learned a great deal. I learned how to write, how to accept critique, how to select my audience, how to present my work -- and when.

Mind you, I was in the wrong frame of mind for years. I've been trying to write since I was ... 12? Old enough to push the keys of a manual typewriter consistently so the words didn't fade out. I've been inflicting my writing on people since I was 14.

I took a break -- discovered table-top role-playing about that time. (There's that meme again.) I used role-playing to tell my stories. When I started, the player characters were my captive audience. Them being real people, they didn't much appreciate the role they played. Like everything else, with practice, I got better at it. Toward the end, I was telling some damned fine stories and getting the players and their characters very involved, very invested.

Did so until college (and college was a prolonged affair for me because my priorities were first, you guessed it, RPGs.) Married SpouseKitty right after college, and real life took over. Spend a decade or so pining for the good old days, then finally took up writing again.

There's a mercy to thinking yourself a great anything - author, artist, actor, whatever. Ignorance is bliss, and I was damned blissful. This time around, however, I knew it was crap. I was very self-critical, to the point of being self-censoring.

Still, I posted it. The first site was a ... ahem, special-interest site. Let's not go into details. It being esoteric, many of those who read were not very picky, and many of those who wrote were more interested in the esoterica than quality of writing. It was a good two years, writing crap, knowing most of it was crap, but still getting accolades.

I left a bit before it went under. At that time, I was trying to focus more on quality than content. I found another writing site with more serious writers. Then I realized how bad my stuff was.

My output dropped. I fooled myself by saying that I was contributing to the site by critiquing others' works. I did so in good spirit and as constructive as possible. I had a myriad of reasons:

• I wrote something really good (yes, it happens -- I do know when I've scored a lucky hole-in-one) and I didn't want to show it was a fluke by writing something horrid afterwards.
  
  
• I didn't want people to feel that I held everyone to an impossible standard in my critiques because I couldn't meet my own criteria.
  
  
• I was embroiled in a pissing contest with a stuffed-shirt of an author. Yes, he was published, but that didn't give him leave to be a right arsehole. That took much of my time.
  
  
• And, of course, because I was verbally jousting with him, I didn't want to give him ammo to attack me because he was published and could say with authority that my stuff wouldn't meet the bar.

At the end, it all amounted to the same thing. I wasn't writing, and I wasn't having much fun. When this site announced it was closing, I mourned. But the owner gave us sufficient advance notice that my whole Kubler-Ross stages of grief went through the normal five and into what I called "Kubler-Ross stage six: will you get on with it already?"

Had some more drama on a 'lifeboat' site one of the other members started, then left that (just as well, I seem to be an albatross for writing sites.)

I started The Elsewhere actually to bemoan why I lost enjoyment for much fiction out there because I had seen too much of the man behind the curtain. I knew the magic, wasn't fooled by the prestidigitation, and could see through the ledgermain.

At some point, one friend got tired of me blathering about how I was a crap writer, how I didn't like so much pop.fiction out there, etc, and got me back on my feet.

Yes, Sian is good. I've had a few people help cluebat me into seeing that it is good. (I'll still be obstinate and say it's not great, not publishable, has many fundamental flaws, etc.) I do invest some brainpower in it by day. It's fun to think about Sian and the others. Yes, this may disqualify me from the stream-of-consciousness-club. So be it. I'm having fun.

To anyone reading, if you feel the slightest inclination to write, even if it's derivative work (fanfic is another term) I urge you to do so. In fact, I'll specifically allow you to write any fanfic you want with the Sian characters, setting, background, whatever.

You don't have to show me. You don't have to meet-or-exceed any quality bar. Oops, sorry. Biz-speak snuck in there. Frightening as it sounds, that is how I talk at work. Now you know why thinking about Sian is fun. Back to writing, specifically you writing. Your first works will likely not meet your own quality bar.

My first drawings didn't meet my quality bar either (aside from lots of tracing, but that doesn't count.) I ended up being able to draw something recognizably human, but not identifiably a given person. Good enough for RPG character sketches. And my secret? "Learn to make the perfect paper snowball."

Write. Junk it if you feel like it. Just write. Just have fun.