Here's what I've discovered: when it comes to writing, I'm a perfectionist.
This is not a good thing.
Let me explain. If you read any writing blog, book, pamphlet, what have you, or attend any creative writing course, they will tell you that the number one stumbling block of any writer is PERFECTIONISM. Because if you're perfectionistic (just made up that word) with your writing, you'll get frustrated by your perceived insufficiencies (did I make that up too? Mozilla Firefox is underlining that one as well. I thought it existed, but if it doesn't I'm still going to use it because I like it) and most likely give up, not letting your work live up to its full potential.
Tonight I was taking a break from studying for finals and showing my friend Genesis some of the things in creative writing I wrote last year. Since they actually had to be turned in and graded, these are probably the only things (besides poems) that I have seen through to completion. Not because I necessarily wanted to, or because I had confidence in where they were going, but because I HAD TO fight through my natural writerly perfectionism and write whether or not I felt "inspired" to do so. And you know what? It turned out WELL, if I do say so myself. I mean, not to pat my own back or anything. That's not exactly what I mean. Basically, if I am pleased with or proud of any of my works of fiction, it would be those which I had to see through to completion.
The interesting thing about that? I had NO IDEA where I was going with those stories when I wrote them. Maybe an opening scene, an image, not much more. Characters emerged, as well as some semblance of a plot, and while I wasn't confident about any of it at the time, after looking at it with the distance of several months I see that it was worth it, that the only way I am pleased with my work is if I just roll with it. Forget perfectionism-- it only holds you back.
So where am I going with this? Well, two places, I guess.
One: I need to write on this blog more. Even if I think it's not that great of an entry, I should just publish it anyway, in case maybe it will be useful to someone. It doesn't matter if I didn't do anything "exciting" like jet off to another country. Sometimes the beauty of one moment is enough excitement for a whole day, and I should feel free to share that with others.
Two: If I may make a cheesy comparison, I would say that life is a lot like writing fiction. If you're an author like me who doesn't outline and just rolls with the story... well, that's life. We don't really know where we're going, who exactly we are (or will become) as characters, and sometimes we don't even know where we want our story to go. But if we let our perfectionist tendencies keep us from moving forward, from making the next chapter exciting, then we're not doing much of living. Of course we should try our gosh darn hardest to write with nice pretty metaphors and good character development and all that jazz. But we can't constantly look back on the few paragraphs we've already written and get all nitpicky about word choice. Does that make sense? I don't know if that translates outside of my brain, but I think I'll publish it anyway, since I'm doing away with this whole perfectionism thing. Because even if your writing's not perfect, at least your story is getting written and improving. And who knows? While it may not sound good at the time, maybe when you look back at it from the distance of time, you'll realize it wasn't so bad after all.
Sorry for the ridiculously cheesy life analogies. I promise I'm done with this for now :)
