Ernest Hemingway said ‘All first drafts are sh!t.”

This is true, and it will always be true. Why? Anything that is hewn out of pure thought is going to be rough! It is going to be rough, unpolished and be frustrating in some fashion. When it relates to the work of writing, you need to be prepared to confront those same rough, unpolished, frustrating things! Of which, will result in the next draft of the thing which started as a thought!

Where we as writers get in trouble is when we believe that we cannot get over how ‘rough’ the first draft is, and will be! When it comes out clumsy, dry and more wide than we thought.

Yet, this is also fine.

Yet, this is bound to occur.

Yet, you must keep going.

The Smooth Out is the dedication you will have to finishing what you have started! Completing what you began, and making sure you say what you meant to say before. In the immortal words of the impossibly talented Neil Gaiman: “Make it look like you knew what you were doing all along.”