“One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I’m going to do my five or ten pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I’ll have lost nothing. Writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.” — Lawrence Block
Dixon says: This sounds much more sophisticated than the advice I received years ago from novelist and screenwriter Dennis Foley: "Allow yourself to write crap."
Lawrence Block has experienced two towering achievements in his life so far: he was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, and he and I became friends on Facebook. I imagine he's most proud of the Grand Master designation but maybe not...
This is a photo of Indian Paintbrush taken by a friend somewhere in northwest Montana, and has nothing to do with today's literary quotation.
