Like a lot of writers, I used to get completely stuck on a sentence. I’d write a line, realise it didn’t quite land, then spend way too long tweaking the phrasing or swapping out words until it felt right. I could lose ten minutes trying to decide between “stumbled” or “staggered.” It was exhausting—and more importantly, it completely killed my momentum.

At some point, I realised I had to train myself to stop. Now, when I hit a sentence that doesn’t feel quite right, I just highlight it and move on. Bright yellow. Like a little “we’ll come back to this” flag waving at me in the document. And the funny thing is? Most of the time, when I do come back to it during edits, the sentence is actually fine. I end up leaving it as-is.

There’s something about stepping away that resets your perspective. When you’re in drafting mode, you’re zoomed in on every word. Everything feels like it needs to be perfect now. But the truth is—first drafts aren’t supposed to be clean. They’re meant to be messy and full of placeholders. And I use a lot of placeholders.

And I mean a lot!

I’ll write things like (describe the town briefly here) or put in XXs where I haven’t figured out a name yet. “Michael” or “Jack” show up a lot as temporary side characters—apologies to all the Michaels and Jacks out there. These little shortcuts keep me moving. They remind me that momentum matters more than polish at this stage.

For me, the biggest lesson has been this: you can’t fix a blank page. But you can fix a messy one.

Keeping the words flowing—even if they’re imperfect—is what gets the story out of your head and onto the page. Once it’s down, you can reshape it. Edit it. Cut it. Polish it. But you need the raw material first. And that means giving yourself permission to be imperfect on purpose.

So if you’re a perfectionist like me—highlight it, flag it, XX it, and keep going.