What to write? The curse of perfection.

*This is my “I’m a writer” picture. ;)

I’m in the process of writing a fictional novel, which is something that I’ve always wanted to do. The only problem and the reason I’ve been putting it off for so long is that I never knew where to start. I wanted my characters to be perfect, my story to be riveting. As is the case with so many things in my life, perfection became the only thing I could focus on and my ideas never materialized, because I couldn’t perfect them in my head.

Perfection is a great excuse to never get things done. Whether it’s a new business idea, a movie script, a novel, your next blog post or the answer to clean energy, if you set out to be perfect from Day 1, then you are setting yourself up for failure. Perfection is a process and you never start out at perfect. Every great athlete trained for years before ever getting close to perfection. Every great writer knows that good writing is re-writing.

This will be a quick post, as the point I’m getting at is simple. There is no excuse not to do something. You don’t have to be perfect the first time around. Just know that every time you try to do something and fail, you’re one step closer to getting it right. I finally took the plunge and just started writing my novel. I don’t know what it is about, yet, but after a few hours of dribble, I can tell you that certain elements are coming to light and I’m confident that a few more hours of dribble and I might even have a clue as to what direction my story is heading.

Whatever it is you’ve been putting off, today should be the day you decide to go for it. Just remember to learn and build off of your mistakes. If you can do that, then perfection is something that will come in time. For now, just throw out some dribble, see what sticks and go from there. If you’re having fun, then you’re on the right path.

Writing is re-writing. And “writing” is a metaphor for whatever it is you want to do. Just do it!

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Tagged as: block, blogging, creative, help, ideas, something, twenty, twenty-something, what to write, Writing