Once upon a time, I briefly wrote about perfection vs. instinct when it comes to writing professionally. Now, there’s not really a designated amount of time for how long it should take a person to write a book. For many authors it generally takes about a year; some can whip a book out in an even shorter period of time. Others could take decades.
But the longer it takes an author to work on a project, the more it may start to seem (from an outside perspective) as if they are trying too hard to reach perfection—merely delaying the publication of a piece that is, to all intents and purposes, done.
The main issue here is that it might be almost impossible for an artist to distinguish between striving for perfection and following their instincts. Artists, by nature, tend to be perfectionists. But an inconvenient truth behind perfectionism may also be a fear of judgement, a fear of putting the most vulnerable sides of themselves out there for all the world to see and to criticize. So, the question often needs to be addressed: are they picking at their work too much—taking it apart detail by detail just searching for flaws to correct? Or is the piece truly not ready for its debut?
And seeing as how I am an author who once held back on a piece that took years of her life to write, I may not exactly be an unbiased authority on the subject. But as someone who has been on the inside of things, here’s my take on how to tell if you’re doing everything that’s needed to create a solid piece of art, or if you’re just holding yourself back.
For starters, what are your beta readers / critique partners saying? After looking at some feedback for my novel I eventually discovered (with more surprise than was probably warranted) that the story I wanted to tell was a bit outdated by all the thoughts and ideas I had originally written down when I was seventeen. Things I used to think about the world had since been debunked and shown the light from several different angles. And, basically, the way I handled certain things back then were more than a little bit cringe-y to me later, and definitely needed to be tweaked if not re-written entirely.
(Do you still see the world the same way you did when you were seventeen years old? For your sake, I hope not.)
Secondly, are you proud of it? If you’re familiar with our Board Meeting videos, you are well aware that at one point I started working on something that wasn’t typically within my genre. In all honesty, it was purely meant to be a quick money-maker: something that I could finish in a matter of months and then throw out there to help pay for rent while I continued to work on the stuff that was actually important to me.
And yet…. I liked it. I liked the characters I created, I liked the messages being established within it. I hardly cared about it to begin with, and it has since reached that weird artist level of this is my baby status.
Which told me a couple different things at the time. 1.) While I by no means hated my young adult fantasy (depending on the day and my mood, of course), I was not as proud of it as I could be. I liked my characters, sure, but did I still love them the way I used to? Were my messages as clear as I once thought they were, before I had gained a little more experience and perspective? Did I feel about it the way I felt about my other book in the making?
2.) Earlier in the process of writing the fantasy novel, I was striving for perfection. I was trying to make it something everyone could read and find meaning in and be satisfied with—which, again, is impossible. And I think my longing for perfection actually made it worse in the long run, rather than better. So, oddly enough, my next major editing phase involved stepping backward from perfection. Taking a lesson from the write-it-and-release-it novel that I was strangely proud of and happy with, I allowed myself to forget about writing the next great American novel. I just wrote. I just let myself have fun again. Because, frankly, I think young adult fantasy novels can stand to be a little rough around the edges. I think that’s what they need.
Which brings me to my final point: is it all about you right now, or is it about your book? Are you keeping your fingers crossed to get #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List… or do you just want to tell a story? Do you think your story can stand to change just here or there, or are you constantly thinking about what readers will say when they read this part here, or what they’ll think about Character A when she does this or that?
Sometimes it seems as if the line between reaching for perfection and following your instincts is incredibly blurred. And maybe even a little zig-zaggy at times. But at the heart of things you can only do so much until you feel the book is ready to be out there in the world. But that doesn’t make it any easier to let go. There is always going to be something you can tweak, something you can do better. Something within you that changes your perspective as time goes on, leaving a bit of an outdated feeling on something that once seemed so right to you.
And that will never change. But at some point you just have to let your work stand on its own, without its crazy helicopter parent hovering around, making sure it’s everything it should be. Sometimes the work is perfect just the way it is.
Night Owls, are you just striving for perfection, or is your work truly not ready for the world just yet? How can you tell?
