Today, I listened to a recent episode of the BBC's Desert Island Discs: an interview with actor and comedian Rob Delaney. In response to host Lauren Laverne's question about whether he's disciplined when he sits down to write, Delaney says:

I would say so. I've gotten better, you know, because I'm less prideful now. So now I'm very happy to write a terrible first draft, and I think that's a big one that separates the big dogs from the pups on the porch, because the pups on the porch are afraid to write a bad first draft. They write a first draft that they don't like and they're like, "Oh, no, I'll just stop." Big Dog says, "Yeah, look at that. That's terrible. I'm gonna keep on going, you know." And so for me, the measure of a successful day is how uninterrupted was the clickety clack of the keyboard, absolutely not the quality of what was written.

I like Delaney's definition of writing success: the uninterrupted clickety clack of the keyboard. Quantity over quality—the latter coming only after the former.

As someone who has written every day for the past four years—indeed tomorrow is the four-year anniversary of the launch of Jenesis—I appreciate hearing the experience of writers like Delaney. His answer reminds me that the finished product—a stand-up routine, a comedy show, a blog post—almost always begins with a sh*tty first draft.

When I'm stumped about what to write and avoiding the hard work of creating something that doesn't exist, I try to remind myself to simply put my fingers on the keyboard and start typing—the mental equivalent of putting on my shoes and getting out the door. There is magic to be found in the clickety clack of my keyboard, in the rhythmic sound of my shoes, in the courage to begin.