Emracing Imperfection

The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing”

~Eugene Delacroix,
French Romantic painter, 1799-1863

Oh, we have some perfectionists in the 30-Day Challenge, yes we do.

Here’s the thing about perfection and writing: it just doesn’t work.

Your reader is attracted to your imperfection; it’s the very thing that makes you human. Perfect writing often comes across – to me, anyway – as stiff and sanitary. I want real.

So my advice is: detach from outcome. I often sit down to write one thing, and something else wants to come through. Let your writing guide you where it wants to go.

Listen and trust yourself when this happens. This is your limbic brain – or your heart, or your soul, or your subconscious, or whatever you want to call it – telling you what you really want to be writing about. Don’t listen to your ego self, which is telling you what you “should” be writing, or that you were “supposed to be” writing something else…

You’re not doing it wrong.

This means that if you started this 30-Day Challenge intending to start/continue/finish a book, and have ended up writing blog posts, or webcopy or a screenplay or an entirely new and different book, or some crazy thing that has come out of nowhere, GO WITH IT. Don’t resist what wants to come out naturally, and don’t judge or over-analyze it when it does come out. This drives you perfectionists CRAZY.

So perfectionist, repeat after me: DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT.

Keep saying this until you believe it. This will become your mantra.

EMRACE YOUR IMPERFECTION. And yes, I’m going to leave a mistake in there, JUST TO ANNOY YOU.