Member-only story
Chasing Perfection
Someone once told me writer’s block wasn’t a thing. I was shocked, offended, and aghast — you know all the emotions. I looked him in the eye, pointed straight at him, and said, “How dare you say that to me as I sit here in pain because the words won’t pour out from my fingers?”
Okay, I really didn’t say that, but I was shocked he would say such a thing (with sprinklings of offended and aghast, too). If writer’s block wasn’t a thing, that meant there was no reason for me to sit at my desk day after day just looking at a blank Word document. That meant that I was wasting potential just sitting there instead of pushing through and getting words to paper.
And you know what? He was right. I didn’t have writer’s block. I was a victim of my own pursuit of perfection. In my mind, I couldn’t just write anything. I couldn’t put my fingers on the keyboard, start typing, put a jumble of words on that blank page, and worry about making it sound coherent later. If every word, every sentence didn’t immediately convey precisely what I wanted to say, then you know, forget it; I’ll sit here and stare at the screen as old episodes of The Walking Dead play on my TV in the background.
To learn that I didn’t have to torture myself that way was both exhilarating and a bit depressing because what was I doing? I’d wasted an abhorrent amount of time twiddling my thumbs, waiting for…
