I want your bad writing

Here’s your permission to be creative (in case you were waiting for it)

The big, bolded heading caught my eye:

“We want your bad writing.”

I was staring at an A4 pinned to a bulletin board at an English bookshop in Prague.

Krotch Magazine in Prague wanted my bad writing. I want yours. Photo by me.

Here’s how it continued:

Please send us writing about your life in Prague:

- your bad poetry
- your bad short stories
- your bad confessions
- your bad collages
- your bad reviews of good events
- your good memory written badly
- your bad finance advice
- your bad sex stories
- your bad descriptions of missed romances
- your thoughts on “good” art

I was enthralled.

I was enthralled because I was in the process of writing a bad book — an autobiographical travel story with a rather mundane romance and awkward sex scenes.

“I’m allowed to write a bad book,” is exactly what I’d told myself to get started.

This may also be what you need: permission.

Permission to express yourself.

Yes, we may be the embarrassing bunch who thinks we’re poets, painters, and photographers just because we scribbled something in our notebooks or picked up a paintbrush.

Maybe we are the Bad Art Pandemic, which the real Poets, Painters, and Photographers are trying to prevent from spreading — especially to the general public.

But they haven’t yet come up with a vaccine; they’re using shame to tame it. And words are their weapon of choice.

Don’t listen to them, I say.

Listen to that raspy voice inside you, that barely audible whisper that urges you to create.

And when the Critic strikes, tell them: But they wanted my bad writing.

If the Critic remains suspicious (who are “they”? ) tell them this: This random woman in Finland — Riikka is her name — said she wanted my bad writing.

That should quiet them down.

Oh, and I finished that bad book — with its neurotic narrator, overly explicit sex scenes, and not enough plot. I finished it because I gave myself permission.

But not everyone has that kind of internal (or external) friend.

So let me be that friend for you: I want your bad writing.

Now go and create.

If you enjoyed this, check out these stories:

• I became a writer by accident — or that’s what I’ve been telling myself
• The perks of being an accidental writer
• Why you should embrace writing in obscurity