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The First Thing to Go

David Gane
David Gane
— 1 min read

If you are writing every day, the first thing that happens is that you go very quickly through all those wonderful ideas that you have been holding in your head. Actually, that isn’t true. Often, you write a lot of bad ideas, still holding onto the good ones because you are scared you are going to screw them up.

But after a while, you run out of bad ideas and you mess with the good ideas. You realize that you have held on to them for so long, that they have lost their energy, or they were never very good to begin with. They could make it on to the page but only with a great deal of heavy lifting.

It is at this moment,when you have nothing, that you are forced to create and you start discovering your voice and craft.

Isn’t that where you want to be?

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David Gane

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Co-writer of the Shepherd and Wolfe young adult mysteries, the internationally award-winning series, and teacher of storytelling and screenwriting.

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