It happens to every writer: sloppy, rambling, unintelligible, boring writing that is going anywhere but where you want. It’s the frog-kissing phenomenon of creative writing and it happens to the best of us, even to seasoned pros. If you write at all, know that you’re going to produce some stuff that’s way to the left of good, lopsided and croaking on some withering lily pad.

First-draft writing doesn’t have to be good, it won’t always be good, and even when it is good, among the good will be some not-so-good. For many writers, understanding and accepting this has a powerfully freeing effect. Writing teacher and author Natalie Goldberg says, “You’re free to write the worst junk in America.” Anne Lamott also has a name for that rough stuff we all write. She calls it “shitty first drafts.” It’s the swampy, mucky stuff that holds little promise for happily-ever-after, and almost every writer experiences a day when muck is what gets written.

At any given writing session you may write something you like, or your writing may embarrass you in its awful triteness. Sometimes you won’t be able to put a coherent sentence together and other times your writing will be fresh, creative, even elegant. The point is, just show up at the page no matter what.

Remember, this is just practice. You write what you write. Besides, who can say from the marshy edge of any pond which frog gets transformed and which kiss holds magic.

*Excerpted from A Writer’s Book of Days