Stop chasing perfection in your writing career.
Seriously.
Perfection is elusive and subjective and f*ing impossible to grasp.
I’m at my annual writer’s retreat with a couple of friends at the beach this week. The weather? Not perfect. We’ve been battling the wind every time we go for a walk, which we have to slot in between rain showers.
Ideal?
Nope.
Does it matter?
Not in the long run.
Sure, the longer walks we take each year can be magic for brainstorming and breakthroughs. That’s a lot harder to do when we are shouting over the wind to be understood.
Instead, these walks are perfect for their laughter as we stumble through the sand.
And the week’s not over yet. There may be sun in our future. Right now, I can see a tiny sliver of blue sky through the clouds (though I know more rain is looming on the radar for later).
What is happening is one writer getting reassurance we’d read past page two, another discovering a key change in perspective in her character, and me? I’m writing new words in a new project.
Will we walk away from this retreat with anything perfect?
Hell no.
But we will walk away with a new understanding of our stories, a better paragraph/page/chapter, and sand in our sandbox for future castle building.
Perfection doesn’t exist. Not in our writing or how our careers unfold or in a writing retreat.
I’m chasing instead the small victories that will make me a better–not perfect–writer:
🏃New knowledge
🏃Mentors
🏃Growth in my skills from manuscript to manuscript
🏃Community
🏃Goals within my control
🏃Curiosity
🏃Imagination
What are you chasing?