Press On

By John Charlton, National Trust

Press on — I'm not sure of the origins of that saying, but it feels British in sentiment. You know, stiff upper lip, Charge of the Light Brigade, and all that.

Well, pressing on is what I'm doing today. 

"Press on" is what you must do when you hit a road block in your writing.

When you feel like you’ve really and truly written the worst drivel anyone could have ever possibly composed in the entire history of humanity, and yet you sit down and get on with it the next day, adding more words to yesterday’s crapola, that’s when you know you love writing. 

That’s when you know you love writing more than you love what you’ve written. 

That’s something. That’s really something. That's something you can hold on to the next time you write 1000 words that might very well end up on the cutting room floor (as they say in TV & film land).

It comes back to Neil Gaiman’s advice to just keep going. Get that first draft down. Don’t stop.

Press on!

“If I waited for perfection, 

I would never write a word” 

– Margaret Atwood