There’s something about a blank page that feels both inviting and intimidating. It stares at you. Waiting. Daring you to put something down. And that silence can make your fingers freeze on the keyboard.
Suddenly, the pressure creeps in because you want your words to flow perfectly, your sentences to shine, and your paragraphs to sound like something worth quoting.
But here’s a truth you should keep in mind: first drafts are not supposed to be perfect. They’re supposed to be messy.
Just like when you’re cooking. Nobody pulls raw onions, tomatoes, and spices out of the pantry and expects them to look like a well-plated meal right away. There’s a process: you chop, you stir, you taste, you spill, you fix, and only then does it start to resemble something you’d proudly serve.
Writing is no different from that. Your first draft is you gathering the ingredients. The flavours, the balance, the seasoning—all that comes later when revising. The real masterpiece is built, not born.
The mistake many of us writers make is refusing to give ourselves permission to write badly in the beginning.
We type a line…
Delete it…
Start again…
Backspace…
Reread…
Edit…
Adjust…
All that before a single thought makes it to the end of the page.
What happens then?
The flow dries up. The joy disappears. The page stays blank longer than it should, and the saddest part? The best ideas never get the chance to shine because you were too busy silencing them with the demand for perfection.
Now, here’s a secret I’ve learned: a messy draft is freedom.
It’s not meant to be tidy, organised, or even logical. It’s meant to hold space for your ideas before they slip away.
You don’t have to worry about commas, spelling, or sentence rhythm in this stage—you just write. Let the words tumble out, clunky or crooked, because you know you’ll come back later to sweep and polish.
That freedom allows you to surprise yourself because in the rush of writing without judgment, you stumble on things you didn’t even know were hiding inside you.
A character you had no plans for suddenly shows up in a scene.
A line you scribbled becomes the heart of your story.
And a thought you almost deleted reveals itself as the most honest piece of your work.
That’s the magic of messy drafts—they remind you that creativity is not always neat, predictable, or controlled.
And one truth is that no one ever sees your first draft except you. Readers only see the final version you’ve edited, reshaped, and smoothed over till it shines.
Note that every novel you love, every poem that moved you, and every article that made you stop to think started out rough and went through the process of being refined for you to read and enjoy.
Even the most celebrated authors admit their first drafts are clumsy, awkward, and sometimes downright embarrassing. The difference here is they didn’t stop there. They trusted the process.
So, next time you sit down to write, I want you to let go of the need to impress your screen.
Don’t pause to polish. Don’t stop to question whether a line makes sense.
Just write.
Get it out.
Messy is allowed, messy is necessary, because writing isn’t about getting it right in one try; it’s about persistence, showing up again and again and again until the mess becomes amazing.
The messy draft is proof that you showed up. Proof that you pushed through the silence of the blank page and decided to begin.
Beginnings are never perfect, but they’re always the first step towards something real.
Written by: Bethel-Gold L.R.
