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I met with one of my collaborators yesterday, and he had bravely churned out the 'bad play' first draft of a show we're working on together.  We talked over the story, made some radical changes, and parted ways.  He wanted to start writing the second first draft that afternoon, and finish it over the weekend.  He didn't care that pretty much everything he'd written was to be scrapped, or that even the second first draft might end up  the same way.  He was just keen to get ideas out there into the open and see where the story flew.  His goal; find the story, and then craft it.

How many writers out there are paralyzed by the idea of putting something down on paper?  I know when I write music the internal critic comes out pretty much as soon as I've sat down, editing, cutting, making suggestions, and generally hampering the creative flow.  Even when I know the first pass of material I'm writing is only going to be heard by friends I trust and who know my work, it's still hard to let go of the idea that the music needs to be good.

It's easy to let 'being good' get in the way of being creative, whether you're acting, writing, composing or doodling in a sketch book.

Being good is after all a very subjective description.  An visual artist friend of mine says that everyone can draw, but at an early age some of us get told we can't do it.  So let go, dive in and embrace whatever chaos your creative self throws up.  You never know where it may lead...