Things You Don't Need to Write Well

Coffee. If you're awake enough to find yourself on this blog, you're awake enough to open a word processor or a notebook and make the words come out good. And you'll find as you continue to make the words, the words start coming faster and easier and eventually you'll realise that maybe 'make the words come out good' could stand a teeny bit of editing, but by that point you'll be hundreds of words and several pages away from that sentence. And your cup of coffee will be cold while the words burn hot.

Post-its. They are so pretty, and so good for organisation and place keeping and note-taking. You know what they aren't good for? Writing a scene. How would a scene fit on that itty bitty post-it? You know where a scene *would* fit? In a word document or a piece of paper. Look at all that space just itching to have your words scrawled over them! Fill it up with whatever junk flows from your fingertips; it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be there.

Whiteboards. Try sending your manuscript to an agent on that! You'd get high from the marker fumes and go cross-eyed trying to write small enough to get a scene down, let alone your whole novel.
 
Inspiration boards. Photos of setting and your characters and a mock-up of the cover. . . Look, you're writing a book, not making a poster. Finding the perfect respresentation of the pictures in your head is great and all, but if you want anyone else to see how gorgeous your setting is, you're going to have to write about it, because claiming the photo is yours is copyright infringement. Sorry.

Character sheets. So your MC's favourite colour is purple and her favourite food is Indian. Does that really help you get to know her any more than, y'know, writing her story would?

Outlines. Don't know what you're writing? Don't worry, you'll find out once you've written it. You can plan the story to death, but you're not going to know if character X would realistically take action Y if you haven't met the guy on the page.

This is totally tongue-in-cheek, because, come on, all of these things are awesome. I, for one, will never again write without an outline, holy crap. Some of them (post-its!) are more universally useful than others (coffee), but we should be aware that it's all just filler, styrofoam peanuts, if we aren't really writing. Sometimes not really writing is okay, because there are times when you'll be gathering ideas or editing an existing draft, but when it's your time to write, write.