The Perfect and the Good

The perfect is the enemy of the good.
- Voltaire

This time of year, it's easy to be brought to despair by idealized visions of The Perfect Christmas, The Perfect You (New Years' resolutions being just around the corner), and The Perfect Creative Effort (with book/movie award nominations zooming about the lofty heights).

The problem is, over-striving toward some extrinsically-based ideal pulls us out of living in the moment of baking broken-legged reindeer cookies (which taste so sweet when fumbled by a child's stubby fingers), enjoying the squeezably-zaftig body of a mature woman rather than a starvation-stunted prepubescent, and taking characters you love through a story that you breathe.

So on this chilly winter's day, trying setting up a queendom within the borders of your own space... a place where YOU shape the perfect holiday, the standards of beauty, and judge the merit of your work by how much fun you had with its creation. You might even find that you enjoy the place so much you never want to venture outside into the brutal world.

Perfectionism as a Crippling Force

Over on Peter Bregman's How We Work blog, there's a fabulous, must-read post called "How to Escape Perfectionism."

I absolutely believe perfectionism cripples many writers, and that it's really just another word for fear.

Here's my favorite quote from Bregman's post:

[T]he world doesn't reward perfection. It rewards productivity. And productivity can only be achieved through imperfection. Make a decision. Follow through. Learn from the outcome. Repeat over and over and over again. It's the scientific method of trial and error. Only by wading through the imperfect can we begin to achieve glimpses of the perfect.

So for now, I plan to put aside my need to write the scene perfectly and instead go for the very best that I can do today. Because tomorrow, I can clean it up. The next day, I can seek outside input. The day after, I can respond to feedback that resonates with me.

Writing isn't live performance art. It isn't improv. We don't have to get it right on the first take.

Isn't that a huge relief?