Done is better than perfect

I am not very good at finishing my writing.Actually,that is an understatement.I am atrocious.I’m overly critical of myself and I’m a perfectionist (only in regards to writing I might add.) The combination of which is quite disastrous for a writer that desperately wants to complete her manuscript.

I am also private.Sure, I will talk about anything with my friends over a glass of SSB. And I may write a few trivial posts on Facebook, but I do not like my private and personal life being public.I find it uncomfortable.The same goes with my work.Exposure of my work feels too much like exposure of me.

In another life I used to be a journalist.I wrote for business magazines and I loved it. I wrote news and feature articles.I loved working with facts and delving into the minds of people who knew their stuff and then writing about it.But creative writing petrified me. Still does: so many choices, so many ways a story can go, so much unknown.And I LOVED deadlines.Writing without a deadline and accountability has not been working with me in regards to my creative projects.When I wrote as a journalist I was calm and controlled in my writing.I knew what I had to achieve.I knew what was expected of me.I’ve found creative writing to be a completely different experience.

My mind is buzzing when I start work on a creative writing project.It goes off on wild tangents, the stories change from one thought to the next, one sentence to the next, and my writing mind can never settle down. It’s like there is too many ideas and stories cooped up in that old brain of mine and they are fighting each other to get out.When I start the process of writing a story my brain goes into overload.  I lack focus. I lack the ability find direction and to keep fucking going until I finish.

To date I have finished the first draft (also known as the vomit copy) of the third book I started writing By the end of the writing process I hated it.The idea was mundane, the characters were blah, and my language was pedestrian. It sucks I told myself.Better shove it in a drawer and never read that crap again.

But did it suck so bad as to warrant being abandoned at the bottom of a drawer? Perhaps not.A re-write most probably have helped.So I figure I will start smaller. A blog post here, a book review there to help me clear out my brain and allow me to keep cleaning up my manuscript until I finish. And I am adopting Elizabeth Gilbert’s mantra “Better done than good” as my own.When I put a post up I will ignore my inner editor scream “It’s not good enough – keep re-writing!” and I will put it up. Might as well try, right?