Wordsplash!

Imperfect Imperfection

I was talking with a fellow travel writer friend last week about how perfectionism tends to limit my productivity as a writer. I spend too much time editing and revising a single essay or article to make it "perfect" before pitching it, when I could have written and sold five or six "good enough" articles in the same time. This is a common problem among writers, and, in my opinion, one of the greatest causes of writer's block.

My friend agreed. "Yeah, Dave," she said. "Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good."

I liked that sentence so much, I scribbled it on a scrap of paper.

Yesterday, I found that scrap of paper in a pile on my desk. I rewrote the sentence on a business card. Then I found some tape, to tape it to my computer monitor.

The tape was a roll of clear packing tape, almost wide enough to cover the entire business card. Perfect, I thought. I just needed to trim the business card a bit, and then fasten it to the monitor. But where were my scissors?

My desk was a mess. I couldn't find them.

I spent seven or eight minutes, wandering from room to room, wondering where I had put my scissors. I grew more and more frustrated.

Then it hit me... my perfectionism gets so bad sometimes, it doesn't just affect my writing. I was being a perfectionist about taping up a note telling me not to be a perfectionist.

"You don't need scissors!" I yelled at myself. "Just tape the damn card on the computer... NOW!"

So I did. It hangs out over the edges of the tape... and in doing so, it serves its purpose even better, of reminding me that sometimes you just have to get things done and move on to the next project.

The Power of Self-Suggestion

I'm out right now at Wayward Coffeehouse, the spot down the street from me where I do much of my writing. I'm working on my forthcoming book about travel journaling. Twenty minutes ago, I wrote the following:

Have fun. Make your own rules. Use my suggestions as guidelines and springboards for your own writing discoveries. And if you come across other techniques, exercises, successes, failures, questions, a burning desire to hire me for something, or a great chocolate chip cookie recipe, please feel free to e-mail me....

After I finished that sentence, I was suddenly seized by a powerful chocolate chip cookie craving. Just writing about them made me salivate.

I am now gobbling one down between sentences. Luckily, they sell them here.

I really need to watch what I write about just before dinner time.