Perfection is Not an Option

Last night, a friend asked why I hadn't shared my children's book draft with my new writing group yet.

"I haven't had time to revise it," I told him.

He laughed, and pointed out that most picture books are under 1,000 words. How hadn't I had time to polish one stinking draft? At that point, I could have done a few things:

• Pointed out that one picture book goes through about 40 revisions before publication.
• Shared the average length of time it takes for a book to go from 1st draft to final copy:  two years.
• Hit him with a very packed pillow.

Instead, I wondered if he was right. Not about polishing the draft, but about sharing it with the writing group. Should I share what I have with them?  I'm stuck on a few plot points and know the end is wrong. I'd like to figure these things out and have a better draft to present. But at what point does "presenting a better draft" become Perfectionism? At what point should you get feedback?

You Can't Figure Out What's Wrong

Well, the draft I DID share with the group was an essay that I'd revised several times over the course of 18 months. I'd line edited to death, but still Something wasn't right. I couldn't put my finger on what it was. At that point, any revising would've been worthless-what was needed was a fresh set of objective eyes that would overlook line editing & find the larger problem. Said eyes discovered that the entire essay was a reflection which (gulp) lacked tension and significance for the reader. 

Had I not shared the essay, and waited until I figured out what the problem was, revising again to present the most perfect draft, I'd be waiting forever.

You Can't Figure Out What's Right

Sometimes it's hard to know what the best choice is, when it comes to things like point of view and ordering scenes. And while going with the best possible guess might work, getting other opinions could save you a lot of work. I can't help but wonder, if I'd shared my essay after only a few months in, could I have gotten the feedback I needed and saved myself the work of all of those useless revisions? Sometimes we need to take the long(est) path before we're ready to hear the truth. Other times it's just an annoyingly useless 18-month hike.

You're Afraid They'll Think Less of You

Under all of that perfectionism is the fear that what we've done isn't good enough - that they'll wonder what the heck we were thinking when we wrote that and look at the disaster of an attempt with an internal oh, lord. And that fear is the BEST reason to share with a trusted, supportive group of writers. Because without their encouragement, the fear makes it too easy to get stuck in the revise, revise, revise mode.

Anyways, the odds are what's there is pretty darn good. And even if it's not - how else can we make it better? Everything's a work in progress. I think it was Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way who said that before we can be really good at something, we have to be willing to be bad. Sometimes, really bad.

As for my children's book, I think what I really need at this point isn't a read-through, but help figuring out the right way to go with my plot. Perfection may not be an option, but asking for help is a pretty great alternative.

Linklove,
Colleen

Why Quitting Is a Mistake

Last week I submitted an article to 17 regional parenting publications and have heard back from not a one. Other writers have told me this isn't unusual for RPP's, but I've always been contacted within a week in this market.

Successful blogger Mary Jaksch of A-list Blogging and Write to Done would call this pause "lag time," and says that whenever we put ourselves out there, there's some lag time between production and response, between submission and acceptance, between creating a blog and getting readers and comments.

When we're lucky, the lag time is a few days. Other times it could take weeks or more. The error is to mistake this pause as failure. Writers who do this quit blogging on the cusp of (an unseen) success or stop submitting articles just shy of an acceptance.

The empty inbox always threatens to freeze my progress as I obsessively (and unproductively) poke holes in my submitted article. It's easy to get caught up in the TOO's:  of course they don't want it, it's too short/too long/too general/too self-involved.  But it's so much better to focus on the DO's; on what else can be done to make progress.

Now, if a significant amount of time and effort is poured into it and there's still no response, that's a good reason to analyze things and figure out if something needs to be changed.

But until then, it's all about Building Momentum, about - as scientists would say - building pressure. While it appears as if nothing is happening, each submission (or 17 submissions..), blog, written chapter or simple admission of "I'm a writer" adds more and more pressure until progress is inevitable and as visible as any scientific reaction.

Linklove,
Colleen

Related Posts:

Rejection, Shmijection

Have a Case of Rejection Depression?

Surviving Revision #21

Surviving Revision #21: What Writers Can Learn from Popular Kids' Games

Ever poured months or more into a piece, just to realize you need to scrap it and approach in an entirely different way? Sometimes I let feedback sit for days or weeks before working up the courage to read it - not because I fear critique, but because critique means the work isn't done yet. It means revising or even rewriting entire sections one or two or ten more times. And at a certain point, the question becomes, will this ever be Ready?

The answer, of course, is a big fat YES! So how do you stay motivated to keep at it?

Channel An 8-year Old 
If you've ever played hide and go seek with a good hider, you've learned how to be meticulous. You spent several minutes in a room, looking under blankets, between sofa cushions, anywhere and everywhere your annoying older sister friend could fit. After searching an entire room with no result, you left it and moved on to the next, knowing you were that much closer to the target.

The work you put into a first or second or eighth draft is much like that. While it feels as if you just spent for*ev*er meticulously writing your piece just to scrap it, you're actually working through the "false leads," and getting that much closer to the goal - kind of like that other kids game where you're steered toward a hidden object based on how "hot" or "cold" your friends says you are.

All of that feedback you're getting isn't telling you that your piece will never be Ready. It's purposefully guiding you towards the final draft.

Take Your Regular Dose of Motivation
What makes your fingers itch to get writing? For some it's reading a favorite author; for others it's the appreciative friend who always wants to read the "next chapter" of their work in progress. I've always found that writing groups keep me excited about writing - or, when I'm not excited about my writing - they require that I still write, so the procrastination is held at bay.

Whatever motivates you to write, do it regularly. It's too easy to put off the revision until tomorrow, which becomes next week, and next year. If you're really stuck on a revision, sometimes just taking the Daily Dose is enough to keep your mind on writing until you're finally ready to sit down and tackle the draft again.

Know You're Not Alone
Let's face it:  nobody's first writing attempt is Instant Genius. Novelist Arthur Golden rewrote his entire book three times, over a span of six years. For him, a major shift came when he decided to change the point of view - on the third shot, I believe. But that third book became the bestselling Memoirs of a Geisha. 

I've written before about bloggers who seemed to attain overnight success, but those are the exception. Jeff Goins is one of many writers who started several unread blogs before finally hitting the mark. In a recent podcast he attributed its success to what he learned from his first few blogs - which we won't call failures. They were simply his learning curve, the unvoiced "cold, warm, warmer," that steers us all in the right direction.

Linklove,

Colleen