It's taking me a very long time to learn how to write, but I'm getting there (which is good, since that's what I'm tryna do for a living). For a while I thought my problem was just with starting. I sit down and stare at a blank page for waaayyy too long and let myself get distracted by every little thing until I finally dig my heels in and find my groove. That's all true, but the issue goes a little deeper than that. Up until recently, I was fatally allergic to
the first draft.
I don't know why, but I just never think of it. I have this overwhelming feeling that every thing I write has to be perfect from the beginning. This may be due in part to the fact that I usually don't have time for revision, the way my procrastination habit set up, but my perfectionism also plays a major role here. We've all heard of the two types of perfectionists: you either
take an overly meticulous approach to everything and spend way too long on minor details, or
know from the jump exactly how you want your project to go, but get overwhelmed by the details and just deuce out.
When it comes to starting projects I am definitely the second one. Usually, I have (what I think is) a fairly clear idea of where I want to go, but it takes me 97 years to get there because I'm looking up every single word to make sure the definition is exactly what I think it is, erasing 4 or 5 sentences at a time so I can try again before I've even finished, and checking and double-checking every bit of every sentence to be sure it all relates perfectly to my thesis.
So I've wasted thousands of hours struggling to write the perfect paper in one go, which sucks, but I finally realized that
YOU CAN'T IMPROVE WITHOUT SOMETHING TO IMPROVE UPON.
Like damn. That's not even that groundbreaking, but here I am at my big age of 20 and I just figured that out.
I've done an obscene amount of writing over the past few months. Between English classes and the publications and sites I've been writing for (check out my latest for ReBirtH), it's been ridiculous. I've learned a lot about the power of not saying yes to every damn thing that comes my way, but we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about how much EASIER life is when you allow yourself to start something without pressuring yourself to be perfect from the jump.
There's also the issue of outlining. It's so easy to dive right into stuff without writing up an actual outline because
I know what I'm doing, I don't need all that.
I do. I do need all that, apparently.
When I try to write without devising even the barest of outlines, biiiiiitch. My shit is all over the place. What I thought was a fully fleshed-out idea turns out to be literally a fragment of a piece of a section of the paper. It's usually a pretty strong thesis, which is a pretty important part of an essay, to be fair. But like. There's a lot more that goes into it, and I find myself floundering every single time I let myself just jump in without a road map. And then I get frantic because I have so much more to left to build than I thought I did, and so I take forever to push past that panic because I'm trying to hammer out a perfectly structured piece in one sitting without knowing for the first hour or so where the hell I'm going.
It's ridiculous.
And it always turns out well in the end. I get a 98 on the paper, or I make my deadline and my editor loves my piece. At the same time, though, I can never really revel in the glory of a job well done because it could have been so much better. Seriously. I'm not a fan of half-assed efforts, because why the hell would I waste my time kind of doing something when I could do it con gusto and actually feel good about it? What is the point in busting my ass when all I have to show for it is a piece which, okay, turned out pretty good, but could clearly have been light years better?
The fact is, I'm trying to go places in life, and I assume you are too. There are thousands of factors beyond your control, but your efforts and passion are entirely yours to direct. It's impossible to maximize your potential—creative, academic, professional, whatever—if you don't leave yourself space to reflect and improve. Stop stressing yourself out and staring at whatever you're stuck on. Just get something down and take a step back. You can't paint a house before you put up the walls, and you can't edit an empty page. Do yourself a favor and just dive in.
LØTA