An exercise in scraping perfection for good enough
Flaubert via This Isn’t Happiness
I talked to David today about my quote unquote writer’s block over slices of reheated pizza. With the two of us, we’re just as likely to talk about graphic novel scripts over serious steaming cups of tea, as we would be to argue about whether or not braggadocious is a real word while browsing grocery aisles. Ah, the writer’s life.
Truthfully, I’d been a bit snippy all day. I’ve had a couple of articles on my mind for weeks and nothing has come out even close to useable. I even took an extra-long shower this morning (where I get ALL my good ideas). Nothing. The only epiphany I had was the realization that if I’m lucky, I’ll live at least 50–70 more years. I should have plenty of time to accomplishsomething.
Three cups of coffee produced nothing but a pounding headache.
So David and I are talking, and I tell him about how the past few weeks have been pure writing hell for me. That all I can seem to produce is dreck.
What he was essentially suggesting to me was learning how to accept less-than-perfect in order to find perfection.
“How often do you freewrite?” He asked.
“Not that often. I used to go to a coffee shop during my lunch breaks at work and bring a notebook. I basically filled up two-thirds of it writing and rewriting that George Harrison article a little while back. Since then, I’ve, like, given up.”
The problem, I explained, was that I fell in love with George Harrison’s solo music recently, and I wanted to write the perfect piece to showcase how incredibly talented he was, how much his songwriting affected me, how it inspired me to be more present, and more connected to my spiritual side. But I felt like my writing didn’t show that, that I wasn’t able to properly convey my feelings and thoughts.
I rewrote that piece into the ground. And I think the final result wasTHPPTPHTPHPHHPH (fart sound).
“So I have this sense, this vision of what I want to say. But I have trouble verbalizing it. How do I fix this?” I asked.
“Step A:” he said matter-of-factly, “You are good. Step B: You are talented. Step C: Perfection is impossible. Impossible. No matter how hard you try, you’re going to get to a point where you have to shit or get off the pot…and mix metaphors. If you get to a point where you’re like, ‘Oh no, this isn’t good enough’ stop and take a break. Then say ‘fuck it’ and move on to more writing.”
Sometimes it’s okay to just leave it at “good enough” for the time being. A good writer is never finished anyway. There are always edits to be made, words to tweak, paragraphs to rework. It’s like how in math, space can be be divided infinitely, or how pi goes on forever. You get closer and closer, but never fully arrive. That right there is the whole beauty of writing. The perfection of imperfection.
What he was essentially suggesting to me was learning how to accept less-than-perfect in order to find perfection.
Zen and the art of blogging?
“Anything you write is going to be good enough,” he said. “Anything. Sometime’s it’s just gotta get done. Just get it done. It doesn’t have to be perfect. That comes later.”