By Heather Kreke @HKreke
I saw a meme of a picture of a ninety-eight degree angle. It read, “This is a 98° angle… You’re welcome, perfectionists.” The point of the meme was to annoy perfectionists who’d insist upon a 90° angle. Now, I don’t really consider myself a perfectionist (although my husband probably disagrees), but this meme bugged me. It wasn’t straight! It got me thinking about perfectionism in our writing.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Don’t let your good get in the way of your best.” While that’s good advice, you also can’t let perfectionism get in the way of getting something done.
I don’t know about you, but I tend to edit while I write. I backspace and backspace until I find what I think the perfect word is at that moment. After I’m finally finished, I go over it again. And again. And probably at least another time or two before I let anyone see it. The problem is my process takes forever to actually get anything written, and either I or someone else usually changes it.
Not only does perfectionism take forever, it robs us of our creativity. It forces us into a mode where we can’t focus on anything except the errors. We forget about the story as a whole and our love for the craft as we toil over every comma and strive to find that perfect word. This can be a frustrating process and frustration does not mix well with creativity.
So how do we go from obsessing over everything to actually getting something written?
The Hot Pen Method
The technique requires us to write/type without worrying about spelling, grammar, or even if it makes sense. We just write. This one is hard for me, because I can’t let go of the urge to backspace in order to correct every little thing I see. Sometimes I’l put a piece of paper over my delete button so I don’t hit it. If that doesn’t work, there is always Write or Die.
Write or Die Method.
This website allows the writer to set a word count and a time limit. Say 500 words in fifteen minutes. If we stop writing for more than a few seconds or if we start backspacing too much, the screen turns red, or an alarm goes off. Writers can customize all kids of “punishments” and “rewards” in order to keep writing.
Trust Ourselves and Our Editors
When we find ourselves getting too hung up on making things perfect and not actually writing, we need to remember we are going to go back and edit. We are going to edit once, twice, and more, then we will most likely have someone else look it over before we submit it. We need to get something on the page and trust we or our editor will catch our errors.
It’s Never Going to be Perfect
One of the hardest things to accept is no matter how many times we or others look at our work, it won’t be perfect. And that’s okay. Many published books still have typos in them. All we can do is the best we can and not let the urge to be perfect stop us from sending our work out into the world.
How do you overcome the urge to be perfect?
Heather is a novelist who is passionate about showing teens and young adults they can find hope in God’s plan for their lives – even through the darkest times. She is published on numerous blogs and in the Christian Writers Market Guide. She also teaches a writing class at her church and completed coursework through the former Christian Writers Guild.
Heather is a mother of 3 redheaded girls and has been married to a redheaded husband since 2004.
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