Why Your Smartest Ideas Sound Stupid In Writing

After we’d wrapped up our Plain English series about a month ago, I went to a local wine bar with my partner and started drafting the first instalment of the most recent Deep Reading series. She leaned over, looked at my screen and said:

‘How do you write so much, so fast?’ She shook her head. ‘The other day, it took me 6 hours to write 300 words, and they all sounded SO stupid!’

This is a common struggle for aspiring and even practising writers. Their ideas always sound better in their heads, and they kick up a fuss whenever that brilliance fails to materialise on a blank Word document.

So, I took that question and swirled it in my mind for weeks. And after comparing notes with other writers, I think the problem all comes down to 3 culprits.