Overcoming Perfectionism as a Writer

As some of you may know, I am completely rewriting book 1 of the Just Sam series.

I'm doing this for several reasons:
1. I'm a better writer now and editing is proving to be impossible
2. Samantha's voice has changed in my head
3. It is the first book I've ever written and I've worked some kinks out in my style
and most importantly...
4. It has glaring plot gaps

The fourth is most important to me because this the first book of my open ended (still under debate) series. This is the foundation for my whole series, and essentially my whole writing career.

Pretty heavy stuff, right?

So rewriting makes sense.

However, I've started to rewrite the rewrite. This led my BFF extraordinaire, the illustrious CoD, to be concerned.

You see, she knows my habit/curse of perfectionism, and is afraid that I will fuss and never get anything finished. Unfortunately, this is a very real fear.

I feel I am justified in the changes I'm making, but I suppose, as a perfectionist, rationalizing isn't too difficult. So I've decided to take a deeper look into my perfectionism and see if my concerns about the book are well founded.

I started here: 5 Main Factors That Drive Perfectionists

The gist:

1. Fear of disapproval from peers or colleagues.
2. Lack of confidence and self belief, and fear of not being on par with others:
3. Fear of making mistakes and doing things 'wrong':
4. Fear of the consequences:
5. The quality of their thoughts, which are usually negative.

I suffer from 2 and 3 for sure. I think I am plagued by self doubt and this makes writing quite difficult. I mean hello people, I'm creating a whole freaking universe here... you can't do that with low esteem!

So after this article I've learned a bit about what drives me to keep fussing and fussing and fussing...

Now what to do about it?

I came upon this article... Overcoming Perfectionism in 8 Steps

I'll admit that parts of this article are a little too "touchy-feeling" "new-agey" "self-help" for my tastes. But one of the ways they list to overcome perfectionism struck a cord in me... and that is "Focus on the Big Picture"

Here is a quote from the article that really spoke to me as a writer...

Stewardship at work

Instead of fussing over everything at work, I would start assessing whether a particular task would make any huge difference in the bigger picture. If the answer was no, I would let it go. Versus driving myself endlessly, I embraced the mentality that work would never end and there was always the next day to continue working. That marked the first step where I started to become the steward instead of my own slave. At the same time, I developed faith in my co-workers’ abilities in their area of work and learned to delegate work out to them. This was my first step towards overcoming perfectionism.

The co-worker part isn't applicable to most of us writers, as writing is a very solitary task, but it could help with co-authors. Learning the lesson that the work will never be done... isn't quite as applicable to writers, as we must have deadlines... however it is important to realize that the work doesn't have to be completed in just one day. And for those of you who have day jobs and families, keep plugging away at it. It may take years, but if it's your passion, you'll find a way to keep writing.

What stuck out to me in this quote is looking at the big picture and seeing if whatever we were fussing over makes a discernible difference to the big picture...

Examples:
The correct word for the sentence.. not so much
Getting the plot and/or characterization for a book/series just right... hell yeah it matters.
Working out a integral plot detail... sure.
Fussing over it while writing a scene chapters before it... only for serious plotters (vs. the pantsers)

Writers are detail oriented people, we work on every punctuation mark, word and sentence of a story, but sometimes it's difficult to see the forest for the trees. We stare at a blinking cursor and one letter being typed at a time for most of the day. Sometimes it's important to take a step back and look around.

Does that detail have to be perfect now before I move on... not necessarily. But for some people, it's that detail that's holding them back from moving on, and it's different for every author. When you step back and look around, also look inside yourself, your motivation and your frame of mind about the current piece you are working on.

I'm looking at my motivation for my plot and character changes. Am I fussing nonstop because I'm being a nervous nelly and am afraid of failing? Am I not confident enough to continue on at this point?

Looking back at my fussing over book 1, I do feel justified. This is my foundation, my rock... I don't want to build it on shaky ground. You can't have a big picture without a canvas to put it on, and I'm creating my canvas right now. I've made good headway to the plot and the rest of the series is becoming clearer in my head.

Am I being fussy? Sure I am, but I'm also looking at the big picture and this needs to be done. This kind of fussing is important. This kind of fussing can make or break the future of this series. That's some serious big picture talk here kids.

So all of you writers out there... don't sweat the small stuff, don't get bogged down with detail (unless you're editing, and then heaven help you!) and take a step back every once in awhile. For writing is very much like pointillism, you can't see it clearly unless you remove yourself from it.

Video:

I searched around youtube for awhile and wasn't finding anything I wanted that related to the blog, so I went with an old standby--animation! My fave. This video is an interesting but of animation, since it was all painted on public buildings in Buenos Aires.