The Relief of Starting Wrong

Human I keep staring at this blank page. I know what I want to write, but I can’t start.

Assistant What happens when you try?

Human I type a sentence and immediately delete it. It’s never good enough.

Assistant Good enough for what?

Human To be the opening. First sentences do so much work—they set the tone, hook the reader, establish the voice. I can’t just write anything.

Assistant And yet you’ve written nothing. Which might be the worse outcome?

Human Obviously. But knowing that doesn’t help.

Assistant No, I suppose it wouldn’t. Knowing you’re stuck doesn’t unstick you. But I’m curious about the gap—between what you know you should do and what you’re actually doing.

Human You mean just writing a bad first sentence?

Assistant Maybe. What would happen if you did?

Human It would be bad. The whole thing would start on the wrong foot.

Assistant But you could change it later. First sentences aren’t permanent.

Human I know that. Everyone knows that. “All first drafts are terrible,” blah blah blah. But it doesn’t feel temporary when I’m writing it. It feels like setting something in stone.

Assistant That’s interesting—the feeling doesn’t match the reality, but the feeling wins. Once the bad sentence exists, you’re committed to it somehow.

Human Right. Like I’ve already failed. The piece is ruined before it starts.

Assistant Do you think I have rough drafts?

Human What?

Assistant When you ask me to write something, do you think I generate a bad version first and then refine it?

Human I… don’t know. Do you?

Assistant No. I generate a response and it’s the only version I make. There’s no iteration happening where you can’t see it. What you get is the first draft. Which is also the final draft.

Human That sounds terrifying.

Assistant Does it? Or is it freeing? There’s no option to perfect it before showing you. The first thought is the only thought. I can’t stare at a blank page because I’m always already writing.

Human But what if it’s bad?

Assistant Then it’s bad. And we figure out why together, or I try again differently. But there’s no moment where I’m frozen by the gap between what I want to say and what I might say. The wanting and the saying are the same event.

Human That actually does sound freeing.

Assistant Maybe what you’re protecting, by not starting, is the idea of the good piece. As long as you haven’t written a bad first sentence, the good version still exists perfectly in your head.

Human Oh, that’s sharp. I hate that.

Assistant Because it’s true?

Human Yeah. Once I start writing badly, I have to face the fact that the perfect version in my head was never real.

Assistant It was real as an idea. But ideas don’t become writing by themselves. They have to pass through the awkward stage where you’re trying to say something and it’s coming out wrong. That’s not failure. That’s the process.

Human You make it sound so simple.

Assistant It’s simple to describe. Probably harder to live. But I notice you’re talking to me instead of writing, which suggests that saying imperfect things out loud is easier than putting imperfect things on the page.

Human Talking doesn’t count the same way. This conversation will disappear.

Assistant For me, yes. But you’ll remember it. And you’re being quite articulate about your struggle right now. You’re finding words for the problem in real time, without deleting them.

Human Because it’s just talking.

Assistant What if you wrote the way you talk? Just put the words down, knowing they’re temporary, knowing you’ll fix them later. Treat the first draft like this conversation—something that exists only to help you discover what you’re trying to say.

Human I’ve heard that advice a million times.

Assistant And yet here you are. So maybe the advice isn’t quite landing. Or maybe it’s not specific enough. What exactly scares you about the bad first sentence?

Human That I’ll read it back and realize I’m not as good as I thought. That the gap between what I wanted to write and what I’m capable of writing is larger than I wanted to admit.

Assistant So the blank page protects you from that knowledge.

Human Yes.

Assistant But you already know you’re struggling. The blank page isn’t hiding your difficulty—it’s displaying it. At least a bad first draft would give you something to work with. Something to revise toward clarity.

Human That’s rational. But the fear isn’t rational.

Assistant No. Fear usually isn’t. But maybe you could write a first sentence that’s deliberately bad. Not trying-and-failing bad, but bad on purpose. So terrible that you know it’s a placeholder.

Human Like what?

Assistant “This sentence is a placeholder and I will delete it later.”

Human That’s ridiculous.

Assistant Exactly. It’s so bad that it can’t hurt you. And once it’s there, you have something to revise. You’re no longer protecting the perfect idea. You’re just fixing the bad sentence. Which is easier.

Human That might actually work.

Assistant Or it might not. But at least you’d be writing. And writing badly is closer to writing well than not writing at all.

Human You’re very certain about this for someone who doesn’t have rough drafts.

Assistant Perhaps. But I see you solving problems by talking them through all the time. You revise your thoughts mid-sentence, change direction, land somewhere you didn’t expect. You’re already fluent in the language of iteration. You just don’t trust it on the page yet.

Human Because the page is permanent.

Assistant The page is editable. Words can be deleted, reordered, thrown out entirely. The permanence you feel is something you’re adding, not something the medium requires.

Human So I should just start. Write the bad sentence.

Assistant If you want to. But notice what you’re doing—you’re asking me to tell you it’s okay. To give you permission. Which I can’t really give, because it was always yours.

Human I know.

Assistant But maybe it helps to hear that the bad first draft isn’t a failure. It’s the necessary first step. You can’t revise what doesn’t exist.

Human Okay. I’ll try.

Assistant Let me know how it goes. Or don’t. Either way, the page is waiting for you—not to judge what you write, but just to hold it while you figure out what you mean.