I am not a perfectionist.
That is true, despite appearances! I learned a long time ago, back when I was reporter for a regional news magazine, that “perfection never gets printed.” We had deadlines and even if a story wasn’t perfect, it still had to be typeset and sent to the printer.
In writing, as in most other creative endeavors, there is no such thing as “perfect” and therefore no value in pursuing it. If you fixate on perfection, then you will never move on to anything new, and end up stagnating in deep well of “never done” and “never perfect”.
Of course, some authors are just like that, working on a single book for years if not decades. Whether their product is perfect or not only they can say…and that is the conundrum of the perception of a “perfect book.” I hope they are happy with it, at least!
But I have too much to say and too much to do to worry about being perfect. I have “shipped the product” when it wasn’t even close to my idea of perfect many, many times. I have on rare occasions regretted that, but by and large? I’m not disappointed in anything I’ve put out there. I might not think it is great, I might not even think it is good, but it’s done and that’s something to be proud of. Usually, I’m the only pointing out the faults anyway.
That said, I am often hamstrung by a trait that looks like perfectionism, and might be considered a cousin of it: correctionism. (I made that word up, FYI. It’s not perfect! But it will have to do!)
Correctionism is the driving need to do things correctly, in the proper order, by an agreed upon standard measure. We see it a lot in advice to writers that touts how to do things the correct way, such as outlining using a specific method, or when and how often to write. “A real writer writes every day!” is a good example, because the advice sounds solid and reasonable and true, yet there are many talented and professional writers who do not and never have written every single day.
Are they wrong? No. But they are not correct, according to some.
The danger of not doing something in the proper way is to have people call into question your ability, or even your right, to do the thing at all.
My fault line in any endeavor is not my fear of being bad, it is my fear of doing it wrong. I do not want to be called out for doing something incorrectly in a way that would invalidate my efforts. This fear slows me down and even stops me far too often.
But is there an actual, true “right and correct way” to write a novel? Or a blog post? Or record a podcast? Or create graphics?
More importantly, who is deciding what is correct? Why are they making that call? What is the value in listening to them? How did they get the authority to decide?
To be sure, there are situations where doing something the proper way has intrinsic value. Most of the advice on finding a literary agent, for instance, has been written by literary agents looking to teach prospective clients how to best present themselves and their work (and also how not to piss off an agent or a publisher by not following their guidelines/requests). You ignore such guidance at your peril! And yes, there is definitely a right and correct way to fly a plane, drive a car, practice medicine, or construct a building. Please do not be winging it in such endeavors!
But often we listen to people who claim something is correct simply because they believe it to be correct. For instance, authors were once upon a time told that self-publishing was a good way to end your writing career. It was proclaimed as God-given fact that anyone who self published their own book would never be taken seriously by publishers and bookstores and, more importantly, readers.
But why? Well, there was actually a basis for that, for a long time. The book distribution systems in place were the ones created by publishers and bookstores; they had a vested interest in not giving time or energy to self-published authors, and so the hurdle for self-publishing was a lot of expense and time for little reward.
Then the World Wide Web happened.
I remember when I first thought about publishing a story on a website back in the 1990s, the message to authors was still “don’t do your own thing, it will ruin you.” I had the idea of serializing a novel online, but it was not considered the correct way to publish a novel. No one had done it before. I would have been breaking ground on new territory. I would be doing it wrong.
As you can guess, I still regret not following that instinct. I truly did NOT know what I was doing, but neither did anyone else. It was wide open territory and if I had trusted my instincts I would have been a pioneer in the publishing industry. Who knows what would have happened…maybe nothing! Or, maybe, everything I could have dreamed of. I’ll never know.
More recently, I held myself back for a long time because I knew the correct way to design graphics is in Photoshop and Illustrator (a complex vector imaging program). I am not a professional graphic designer so while I know how to use both apps, it was a massive time and energy sink. To create simple graphics for the websites I was building became an ordeal that I just ended up avoiding. The drive to do it all correctly was stopping me from doing it at all.
Then I found Canva, which is an online graphic design app that is very user friendly.
I know graphic designers hate it, and hate the idea of rando people like me designing my own graphics. I can’t say they don’t have a dog in the fight, because they trained for years to understand their craft. And yes, if you want a business logo that looks professional and will carry across multiple mediums, the correct thing to do is hire a professional to design it!
I just needed some off the cuff graphics for blog posts, but I was not posting blog posts because I felt overwhelmed by the tools I believed I was required to use. Finding Canva, freed up so much mental bandwidth that I needed for actually writing and building the websites that I actually got around to doing those things.
Correctionism is a hard instinct to throw off. I see a lot of it in the entrepreneurial women’s groups and friends I have now: What is the correct way to post a blog? What is the correct way to market a website or book? What is the correct way to manage social media channels? What is the correct way to create a podcast or live event? What is the correct way to design online courses?
But the truth is that there is no correct way. There are some systems and approaches that are better than others, but there are plenty of successful businesses who did something “wrong” and still thrive. In fact, the most successful businesses tend to be the ones who just do their own thing, consistantly and with as much quality as they can put into it while still getting their product out the door.
Some successful authors I know have extensive and high-maintenance socmed presences across multiple channels, posting on twitter and instagram and facebook every single day and also sending out weekly email newsletters. Other authors don’t do shit other than write and publish books and they are also doing fine.
I listen to podcasts with expert sound production and post-production processing, but I also listen to podcasts which are obviously recorded on phones or over zoom. Quality-wise, one is definitely better than the other! But I listen to both kinds. Wouldn’t that make them equally successful?
My correctionism has been as adverse a condition as perfectionism is for other people. It’s stopped me from just doing the thing because I’m so worried about doing it wrong.
I’m not sure what the solution is, other than to simply do things incorrectly and get them done, and while that sounds like a simple solution that does not make it easy — ingrained insecurities are a problem for a reason.
