Twaddle Writing Therapy: The Freedom of Writing Stuff and Nonsense

In defense of writing twaddle; sometimes just throw some words on the page. Or just write a bit of nonsense for fun - not everything needs to reveal an eternal truth or something.

Ser McFluff of the Feathers, Defender of Twaddle. Source: Bigstock

1a: silly idle talk : DRIVEL

b: something insignificant or worthless : NONSENSE

that idea is pure twaddle

As a verb, prate, babble

“Twaddle” is a great word.

It’s fun to say. You can drop it into a conversation and sound excessively erudite, “Your argument is twaddle, Basil. Furthermore, it is dull, uninteresting bunk and my ears grow tired of your unrelenting prattling on.”

I started thinking about silly drivel and words without worth a few months ago during a writing slump I’ve finally managed to drag myself out of.

For a good few months, my own personal angel of negativity was shaking his bitchy little head saying, “no one cares” to every idea I thought of. Like the reverse of having a cool parrot hanging out on your shoulder.

That’s normal for many writer-types. Usually I can punch that bastard into submission.

But this time . . . this time he sunk his claws in but good.

What my angel of negativity felt like a few months ago. Source: Bigstock

I had been reading a variety of writing tip posts and such over a few weeks (yeah, I know, another “but I’ll write something tomorrow” crutch). I think the accumulation of really good writing advice got me to overthinking.

Ironic, eh? Someone call Alanis Morissette.

Messy First Drafts Don’t Have to Make Sense

Most advice includes an allowance for poor first drafts.

There’s a concept that I love, “the messy first draft” or “ugly first draft.” I can’t find the post I first found that in, I think it was something by Sonia Simone (who is awesome) on Copyblogger.com.

It’s something I practice, whether writing a draft in my head before I sit down to write or just getting down some words to edit or even delete later.

Underlying the idea of the “ugly first draft” or even journaling was this baseline vibe I kept getting from all the advice that all writing must be directed at an end.

In my mind, this overlapped with an entire three-decade career of constantly needing to create, edit, and/or manage various types of content.

I never made the connection that “messy” can also mean “entirely useless.”

Between missing that connection and knowing that you need to be writing something worthwhile for your audience, my writing got choked out.

Sometimes maybe you don’t have a good idea. Or you just need to write something. Anything.

Maybe (probably?) this is just me, but even in journaling I kept interpreting the advice as “you need to be doing some serious self-help with this or you’re just wasting your time.”

I’m 99.6% sure my interpretation wasn’t the intent of many of the excellent writers I read.

Still, I found myself holding myself back. I did four things that helped me break out of the rut and embrace a little nonsense.

1. Commit.

Pick a publishing schedule and stick to it. One tweet a day. One LinkedIn post a day. One blog or newsletter post each week. Pick a platform. Pick a frequency. Commit to pushing publish.

2. Give Yourself Permission to Prattle On

I think there’s time for self-indulgent twaddle for all of us.

Of course, not all the time. Should you write self-indulgent twaddle for your business? Well, duh, no. You might want to “clear your fingers” by writing absolute schlocky bullshit; delete that; then move on to producing something helpful.

3. Move the Cursor to the Right

This is a frequent piece of advice that works. Stuck? Cursor just sitting there. Top left of the page.

Smirking at you.

Blinking mockingly?

Just type. Even if it doesn’tmake any sense at alland John and Mary had a little labm. Typos don’t exist. Structured prose doesn’t exist.

Just. Move. The. Cursor.

The physical act of pushing the keys with your fingers — or go analog and apply pen to paper — gets the brain unstuck and the ideas flowing.

4. Use a Prompt

I’ve found all of my writing improves when I

1. Journal and

2. Just write once a week for 30 minutes or so

For a few years, I’ve been an off and on again participant in Stream of Consciousness Saturday. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Linda G. Hill provides a prompt and then you write about whatever pops into your head. (It’s fun, give it a try.)

Some folks plan a bit. I do one of two things:

1. Read the prompt on Friday and mull it over in the back of my mind for a general direction (or three) then usually forget about what I thought about and go to . . .

2. Immediately start writing with the first thing that pops into my head.

Some of the results have been interesting and even borderline good (I like to think). Other times it’s just me talking to myself.

I’ve finally given myself permission to just do this.

It is “silly idle talk” more often than not.

That’s OK.

Is it “worthless”? I don’t think so — at least anymore.

For me, I needed permission to just write some stuff to unstick myself from my drought. Not everything I write is going to be great. But every time I write, I get better at writing.

And THAT is an absolute good thing — not worthless or insignificant, even if I sometimes prate on like a braying mule.

---

Need help avoiding sounding like a braying mule in your marketing? Let’s talk: bryant@simplyusefulmarketing.co.

---