Three Writing Lessons from Paper Airplanes

Children make up the best songs, anyway. Better than grown-ups. Kids are always working on songs and throwing them away, like little origami things or paper airplanes. They don’t care if they lose it; they’ll just make another one. — Tom Waits

As I was reflecting on this in Ember, I realized I desperately want this mindset when I write and create.

I want to make paper airplanes. Knowing that if this one doesn’t turn out the way I want, I can create another one. That’s so freeing when you are somebody who likes to create.

Here are three things paper airplanes have taught me.

1. Kids fold and toss

Kids don’t care if they lose it. They’ll just make another one.

We tend to take on perfectionism. It’s all or nothing thinking, where the thing we just made is either trash and I’m never making another one again, I’m never creating anything again. That’s a shallow way of approaching our creativity, our writing, our thinking.

There’s always another paper airplane you can make.

2. You’ll want to measure the flight

Here’s the trap I find myself in.

I make my paper airplane and throw it down the hallway, and it goes far. So I think, okay, I can just make another one and it will go just as far. But then I make the next one and throw it, and it goes a few feet in front of me. And I think, well crap. Maybe I just won’t make airplanes anymore.

That’s how I think about the pieces I write. Some will go further. I may get more comments, or they may reach more people. And then some don’t.

But that’s not the point.

Kids never pace off the hallway. They don’t measure the flight. That’s the whole difference between them and us, and it’s sitting right there in the Waits quote. They’re already folding the next one before the first one lands.

Our aim and our focus and our attention should not be on how far the paper airplane goes. It should be on the fact that you made a paper airplane, and that you can always make another one.

You can make a weirder one, a shorter one, a longer one, a bigger one, a smaller one. You can make one out of newspaper. You can make one out of magazine paper. You can make one out of cardboard, although that might be kind of hard.

Keep writing. Keep thinking about things. Keep chiming in, reflecting, journaling. Keep showing up.

3. You can’t run out of paper

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. — Maya Angelou

The more planes you make, the more ability you have to make more planes. Stranger planes. Fun planes. Colorful planes.

You can’t use up your ability to make paper airplanes. You only get stronger. It’s the same with your writing and your creativity.

Everyone should write. Why? Because everyone is full of ideas they’re not aware of. This means they’re also unaware of the value of their ideas, and this value can only be unlocked via writing. — Morgan Housel

Housel has it right. Everyone is full of ideas, but you don’t know what ideas you’re full of until you begin to write.

You don’t know what kind of paper airplane you can make that will go thirty feet, maybe a hundred feet. You won’t know until you just keep making the planes.

So keep releasing the airplanes.

What does making another paper airplane look like in your writing?

P.S. This whole piece came out of a journal entry in Ember. I had the Tom Waits quote saved in my commonplace book, sat with it, and started writing. No plan, no outline. Just folding. That’s what I built Ember for. If that resonates, give it a try.

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