Do a lot of perfectionists become writers or is writing just an inherently perfectionistic task?
There’s probably not a scientifically-sound answer to that question. But I’ve seen a lot of people slam into a metaphorical wall thanks to maladaptive perfectionism.
Sometimes that looks like endless editing. You’ve probably met this writer before. They’re steadily revising draft #39 of their novel. They hope it’ll be ready to share when they’ve completed draft #42. Yet everyone knows that it’ll take a miracle for their book to ever see the light of day.
Other times, it keeps people from writing at all. I feel the most sadness when I think of these writers. Many of them were scarred by disillusioned teachers: the kind who thoughtlessly scrawled “C+” on creative writing essays, probably annoyed that they were grading papers instead of mentoring the next David Foster Wallace.
The running theme here is shame. That’s the feeling overwhelming both types of writers, even as they protest otherwise.
And hey: I get it. I’ve been there too. Which is why I love this reframe from Katherine Morgan Schafler (in The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control):
Your history of false starts is not evidence that your capacity to heal, grow, and thrive is static. Your history of false starts is irrelevant—I don’t care about it and neither should you. Allow your history of long and winding false starts to represent your abiding commitment to discover your authentic self.
Schafler isn’t addressing writers here, but man, is this passage pertinent to what we do. What is writing if not the habit of starting over, again and again?
Perhaps you have an idea for a story. In your head, it’s AMAZING. The mere thought gives you goosebumps. And yet every time you try to put your vision into words, you’re disillusioned after a mere five minutes. Sighs turn into groans. Groans turn into crumpled sheets of paper (or whatever the digital equivalent is). After a while you move on, and another idea bites the dust.
But what if we applied Schafler’s reframe to that scenario?
Okay, so your first stab didn’t capture the ephemeral magic you were expecting. That’s frustrating. However, before you toss that idea onto the dunghill, pause for a second. Put your expectations aside and read what you wrote. Then ask yourself: “What have I found here?”
We rarely show up to ourselves with this kind of generous, nonjudgmental curiosity. When we look at what we’ve written, all we see are the flaws. All we hear are our critics’ voices, telling us why we suck and wondering why we ever thought we had any talent to begin with. And for some reason, we trust those nasty voices more than we trust ourselves.
Schafler is bang on: “I don’t care about [your history of false starts] and neither should you.” Anyone who DOES care about them shouldn’t be someone you listen to, full stop. (There’s a good chance they actually don’t want you to be a writer.)
I don’t know about you, but January often feels like a month defined by false starts. Whether you make New Year’s Resolutions or not. It’s another clean slate marred by misshapen letters and pictures that fail to live up to the pictures in our heads.
What Schafler invites us to consider is this: what if the misshapen disappointments are immensely more valuable than the “perfect” results that vaguely live in our heads?
What if indeed.
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