So, I’ve been avoiding writing like you wouldn’t believe. I have a couple of problems.
a) having turned out a bit of prose that I’m fond of, now I feel like I can’t sit down to write unless I’m going to turn out good stuff. So if I’m just not feelin’ it, I feel like I shouldn’t even try.
b) I’m deep enough into my story that it’s now possible to contradict myself or to introduce an element that ought to have been better foreshadowed. As a result, I look at every little piece that I write and feel like I can’t possibly move on until I’ve pawed through the whole thing to make sure it has all its details in order.
So, having this, “Ack, I can’t possibly write ANYTHING because I’ll just need to contradict it later” crisis, I sat down and read some Bird by Bird today.
So, I loves me some Anne Lamott. And, you know, she has an entire chapter on “Shitty First Drafts”. Followed by an entire chapter on “Perfectionism”.
Attend:
“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her.”
“I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”
“Perfection is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here - and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.”
‘Kay, so we’re understanding each other right? We’ve come to something that we’re going to have to accept about this exercise. Which is that, it’s not gonna all be gold. And also, there are probably going to be times when I’m going to have to change what I’ve already written in order to make where I’m going make sense, or ramble for a couple of pages before I know precise what it is I need to say. Yuh-huh.
On that note, I have 400 words of rambling to go do.
Leave a Reply