When I was a writing instructor at a university, the first thing I would teach my students is that the most important part of writing isn't writing.

Good writing is revision.

Your first draft will nearly always be less-than-great. Any amount of reviewing and revising will make it better.

Writers better than me agree.

In novelist Ann Lammott's iconic writing how-to book, "Bird by Bird," she coined the term "shitty first drafts." Her point: No matter how awful the first draft, it's OK. You now have something to work with.

Copywriting guru Joanna Wiebe has a similar concept: spit drafts.

A spit draft is a bullet point outline of what you're writing. Here again, the goal is to get something down to work with.

A spit draft will be incomplete. And, even though it's an outline, the bullet points may not be in perfect order. It doesn't matter. The goal is to get over the biggest hump in most writing projects: Getting a first draft done.

The next time you're struggling to write something, focus on cranking out a first draft or even just a bullet point outline.

With that draft done, you can focus on revision. And revision is where the magic of great writing happens.