Perfection Paralaysis

I have recovered from a common writing disorder: the belief that every word flowing from my pen/laptop should be Pulitzer Prize-worthy. Clearly, I am someone who aspires to the highest peak of literary achievement and I can hear the legions of fans in my head cheering. Unfortunately, the Pulitzer nomination never gets written because my pen refuses to disgorge the seamless writing I expect of it during the first draft.

The result: literary trauma I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

I have sat at my desk, terrorized, imagining non-existent calamities happening, should I put down in black-and-white, a line that might read as infantile drivel. I have dithered between words, afraid of making a start, caught in private anguish like the hero who doesn’t know whether to clip the red wire or the blue one on the ticking time bomb and in the end just chucks the whole bally thing before it explodes.

Hundreds of writers go through this paralysis, not of intention or drive but a self-enforced quest for perfection that does not allow them to leave themselves any room for error and cripples their ability to write. They live enslaved to their inner editors. Mine was ferocious and paddled my backside daily. It got to the point where a blank page would have me reaching for my breathing apparatus and the writing was flatlining.

Bringing it back to life was painful but the lessons I learnt gold.

1) “The First Draft of Anything is Shit”
Papa Hemmingway said this and it is something every writer needs to have engraved in 6-inch letters on their hearts and minds. It is ridiculous to expect masterpiece verses or sentences of yourself in a first draft. Not that it isn’t good to have standards. However, fear of living up to some self-imposed standard of perfect writing is the surest way of inhibiting output and quality. The works of authors we admire are the results of first drafts painstakingly revised. Again and again and again until they become the polished works we read.

Scribe’s Tip!
Dash off your first draft with vigour, verve and confidence, glorious in all its imperfections. Get it all down first. THEN revise, revise, revise till it’s as perfect as you can make it.

2) Room for Mistakes
Perfection Paralysis in writers is a result of striving for faultlessness in their work, which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but combined with having unrealistic expectations, unattainable standards, highly critical self-evaluation and concerns about ‘what will other people think’ leaves no room for mistakes to be tolerated. Writers can be extremely unforgiving to themselves and self-sabotage their writing like this.

Scribe’s Tip!
Analyze your quest for perfection in writing for what it is: a healthy desire to create quality work or an unhealthy combination of the factors above. List the root causes of your perfectionism, then work to address them.

3) Attitude
Everything begins and ends with attitude. Approach your writing as if it’s a stallion waiting to unseat you and it will. Alternately, come to it with confidence, a willingness to master it, a disdain for distraction from purpose, and in time, it will come to your hand easily. A positive attitude means having the courage to make a start, forgiving yourself for a bad day of writing and committing yourself to doing better, undertaking whatever is required for improvement.

Scribe’s Tip!
Be audacious and tenacious!

Hope this helps. Until next week!

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