Hello everyone.

I've always been a creative person and when I was younger writing came to me very easily. It was something I took very much for granted that I could just plonk myself in front of a keyboard and have a story going in no time. After a 5 year absence from writing I decided to go back to it and much to my horror, and annoyance, I've developed a perfectionism that is beginning to become more of a hindrance than a help.

For awhile it put me in two minds about whether or not I even wanted to begin writing the fantasy series that's been on the drawing board for the last 7 years. I find I write a paragraph then spend at least the next fifteen minutes staring at it agonising over every detail. Those that have read my work on the series are pushing me to continue and I do want to. Writing is the only thing I don't seem to be completely incompetent at, but I don't think I can carry on with how things are at the moment.

What I'd like to know is, does it get any easier the more you write? Are there any perfectionist's out there that can give me any advice or inspirational stories?

Raine

Some writers have to have everything set in stone before they move on, and others scribble freely, and get it right in the revising. You'll probably always be one rather than the other, but it sounds as if you feel it's getting in the way.

Are you fiddling whith what you've got there because it's easier than spinning out the new stuff? We are all tempted to do that, and computers make it so easy. One cure is to write longhand for a while - it's much harder to go back and fiddle, and you can always just make a note when some really important change occurs to you, and then incorporate it when you type the work up.

Or are you paralysed by feeling it's got to be 'perfect'?. It doesn't: it only has to be words on the page. No one need see them except you, and you can change every single one later. In fact, the more experience writers get, the more I think they tend to know that everything is negotiable.

You might like to have a look at books like Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer or Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. They both work with the difference between your writing self - imaginative, intuitive, un-judging, involved - and your editing/critical self: judging, orderly, good at grammar etc., detached. The editor is entirely necessary, but can strangle the writer if it's let lose in the early stages of spinning the story from nothing, by insisting on everything being right and tidy and correct. I think perfectionists often have a very strong Inner Critic and whose job it is to 'protect' the person by not letting anything out that isn't just right: needless to say, they often succeed in infecting the editor. Since an Inner Critic's default is often telling the person that everything's wrong, they may then strangle a lot of wonderful things that may be a bit rough still, but can be tweaked and straightened out later into something special.

The other thing to know is that after a certain amount of time of working and reworking any piece of writing will go dead on you. You can't read it any more, and the only cure is to put it away, move on, and come back on another day, or week, or month. Then you'll read it freshly, as another person would, and can see what works and what doesn't.

Emma

Hello Raine, and welcome to WW.

Emma’s advice is spot-on. We all have different ways of approaching this – and sometimes we change. I know I have. I used to edit myself to a standstill but now I'm more relaxed about writing rubbish in order to get the idea down.

Are you feeling obliged to rush this because of pressure from others? Do you have a deadline? Whether external or self-imposed, that could be making you feel the need to get it right before you can move on.

Alternatively, it may be that you have to accept this is – for the moment – your style of writing. I guess it’s different from the way you used to write, and it’s this change that’s upsetting you. My advice is, if you're satisfied with what you produce, then don’t worry about the time factor. Work at your own pace and enjoy those perfect paragraphs.

Dee

Raine, I'm the same. If I type a sentence -- or write it down in one of my 'finished manuscript' notebooks -- and find it unsatisfactory one way or another, I stare at it and tweak it and tear my hair until I get it right. It makes no difference how many times I tell myself this is only the first draft: I quite simply don't do first drafts. On the other hand, it's impossible to produce finished text when you've only just begun something and haven't the faintest idea where you're supposed to be going.

So, like Dee suggests above, I've come to accept that this is the way I write. More specifically, this is the way I write the manuscript itself. What works for me at the beginning is to take some cheap notebooks, scraps of paper, etc. etc. (things that practically scream 'I'm informal and unimportant': give me a fancy Moleskine and I freeze) and jot down ideas. Lots of them. Fragments, bits of dialogue, half-developed scenes and some complete ones, good sentences, names I like, even individual words that strike me and which I somehow connect to the story at hand. Eventually I have enough material to start building a vague outline. (Also, enough scrap paper to drown in, but that's something I just have to live with!) When I finally have enough material to make myself a chapter-by-chapter outline, I know I can start writing. I don't know how exactly I 'know', but I know everything about this particular story -- including lots and lots of things I hadn't written down at all -- and I know where it all belongs. And with the knowledge comes security. After that, the manuscript flows, and the text that pours out is polished enough to soothe even the perfectionist in me.

Paradoxically, giving myself free rein to obsess as much as I like has made me much less obsessive. It seems to me I exhaust the perfectionism at the planning stage; after all, hoarding all these scraps of paper is obsessive-compulsive in itself. (To pick one at random: an old shopping list, on the back of which I've written 'conveyance? how?' and can't remember what that means, but I can't throw it away yet because a part of me feels it's terribly important...) So, yes, perhaps that's the answer: transferring your perfectionism from the act of writing onto some other part of the process? I don't think beating yourself up until you learn to 'let go' will do the trick. Nor do I think perfectionism itself is a writer's worst enemy. In fact, I think it's a powerful tool, essential one even; it's dangerous only when you don't know how to use it.

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Forgot to say, welcome to WW, Raine! And good luck with the fantasy series! You'll get over the 'writing paralysis', I'm sure of it -- one can tell you really want to write, and when you do, perfectionism alone can never stop you.

Yes, sorry, Raine, I forgot to say welcome to WW, too.

Fredegonde, that's a fascinating insight into your process, and it makes a lot of sense to try to find the part of one's process where perfectionism is a help, not a hindrance. I'm very aware that writing the actual text comes at very different times in the whole process for different writers.

Emma

My God, do I have another twin on this site? Raine, I am very similar to how you describe - I am horrifically perfectionistic and still lament my childhood/early teenage days when writing came to me more easily. The books recommended by Emma are really good, but I'd also add Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. That book helped me more than anything else (it's got a very spiritual slant, but if that's not your thing, it doesn't matter - you can still benefit from it).

I've still got work to do on myself (not just in terms of writing, but in my perfectionism at large) and it does get easier - work through the book and you'll see!

And yeah, welcome to WW.

Cath

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Also, I don't know the full story here, but you may find it enlightening to consider why you took a 5 year break from writing? After all, you consider yourself naturally creative and feel it's what you're best at. It could be tied in with that inner critic/perfectionist.

Thank you all for the welcome and replies.

I do know where things are going. I have seven years worth of notes so I don't think it has to do with getting stuck and fiddling to make myself feel better that I'm at least doing something. I believe it has to do with having to have everything 'perfect'.

Someone who has known me for years thinks the perfectionism has come from my creative side being 'damaged' while I was still young. I don't wish to sound conceited but I was increadibly bright and was fairly good at every subject, though I was showing more of a favour towards creative writing, art and music. By the time I was 11 I had won a few writing competitions and was interested in becoming a writer. After mentioning this to teachers I suddenly found I was being bashed over the head with it at every opportunity. I was told writing was for drop-outs, for people who have no career prospects and a useless waste of life. They forced me in other directions and I began to believe them. Writing became a guilty pleasure I suppose and I could find no way to justify it. Anyway, long story short, he believes that my perfectionism has developed because I feel I need to justify myself for doing something I had been taught was 'bad'. If the work stinks then all those teachers were right. Does that make sense?

I will definitely go purchase those books. I knew there were books on the subject of writing but I found so many I was never sure which were considered to be the best. I must admit that now I think on it, my perfectionism never reared its ugly head while I was making notes and planning. I do all this longhand, so there may well be something in that. I will give all the advice a shot.

Thanks again

Raine

Yes, the Cameron is absolutely terrific. Apart from several writers, I know at least three other people - one singer, one doctor-in-training and one film cameraman - who all swear it changed their lives.

Emma

Just noticed your post Cath. The break was linked to my story above. I will check out that book.

Thank you.

Raine,

This all sounds very familiar, Raine! I think your friend is right and you probably need to do some work on all the negative, damagaing thoughts that people have put into your head at an impressionable age. I would say even more that The Artist's Way is the book for you!!

Good luck, and do use this site as it's great - lots of great writers, critics (in the constructive sense) and friendly support!

Cath

my perfectionism never reared its ugly head while I was making notes and planning. I do all this longhand, so there may well be something in that.

Yes, I took to writing first drafts longhand for exactly the same reason. A writer I admired said she wrote first drafts longhand, because the first draft is simply an extension of the brainstorming/noting/planning process which most people do longhand at least some of the time. I discovered that by doing so I was no longer paralysed by feeling that the first draft was supposed to be The Novel. As I wrote 'Chapter One' in the first notebook, I could think, 'This isn't the novel, not really. This is just the longest-ever plan for it. I can get it right another time.'

And yes, The Artist's Way tackles a lot of the kind of stuff you've obviously gone through.

Emma

I have sympathy with your predicament Raine and certainly I've had my fair share of finding it difficult to write or progress things because I want to get it right first time.

One of the things that helped me was the recognition that I could allow myself to make mistakes - making mistakes is a key element of learning to get better. You don't learn anything new without making errors, without being imperfect.

Secondly, I don't believe there is such a thing as perfect anyway, especially when it comes to something as subjective as writing. You might agonise over what you consider to be a perfect sentence which someone else could see as weak or flawed.

Finally, shaping prose so that it is as good as it can be is not a task that happens straight away. Nobody goes straight from notes to final draft. Instead you write the first flawed version, bit by bit. Then go back to it after a rest and make it better. Then go back to it after a rest and improve it further. And so on.

Forget about being a perfectionist and be a writer.

I am rather stunned.

Last night I decided to try using the longhand method and quickly became frustrated as I was still hitting that road block called perfectionism. I stuck with it for an hour but threw it aside as I was getting nowhere. It then struck me that I had been using a new pad to write in. It wasn't fancy, just a cheap old thing I'd had sitting about for years, but it had never been touched. So, out of sheer curiosity I dug out one of my old college notepads that had nothing but first draft genetics and breeding notes scrawled over it. Before I knew what was happening, I'd managed to write a whole section of story for the first novel that had been a nemesis of mine for some time now. Simply amazing.

It's far from perfect but for once, I don't actually mind. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I had already established it as place for crudely formed notes and ideas.

It's difficult not to get so wrapped up in the editing process that you can't see the wood for the trees. Does anyone else swing between thinking they've achieved the best they can, and thinking that they've written a complete pile of pooh? The editing process is a pernickity process anyway, so I can imagine it playing hell with perfectionists. I try my best to relax, and let the story speak for itself, but it isn't always easy. I know I'm not the only one who has lain awake at night wondering about a certain sentence structure or the placement of a certain word...am I?

JB

It's far from perfect but for once, I don't actually mind. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I had already established it as place for crudely formed notes and ideas.

I'm sure it does. Whereas a nice clean new notebook says, 'this is important, this is a big beginning...' Very daunting. It might even be the vibe from a time when for whatever reason you were able to scribble and experiment.

Emma