lately I've been reoutining and rewriting my novel and let me just say, being a perfectionist has its good and bad points.
confession time: I research things TO. DEATH.
which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a rly bad thing. on one hand I feel like I've saved money and time with research, and on the other, maybe I've lost a lot of time and self experience. sometimes I feel like I'm always searching for the right answer, or the correct way. lol I'm not one to just jump into anything without knowing some facts first
and recently, with my novel in particular, I realized how much its been holding me back and why I can't let it anymore
I will not write a perfect novel. You will not. We won't. Perfection is not in us, and its not supposed to be.
but there's a line. I've been afraid because I know my novel won't be what I imagine it to be. but thats ok too. Sometimes, you just gotta go for stuff (wow is that hard for me to say or what).
you don't have to wait until your older or have more experience to do something bc you'll be "better at it". you have now. use now. Give yourself a chance to make mistakes bc mistakes aren't always bad things
I've been holding on to this for a long time -- demanding perfect of myself. I've let go with a lot of things; I create art more freely and let myself use my own imagination even if its not that great, i create my blog and write my posts and edit my photos how i like them, if I don't have time to write a blog post one week, I don't. its okay.
I think letting go of something is a lot of letting go of a lot of little things -- wow idek if that made any sense whatsoever lolol
close to perfect is sometimes ok (I mean, someone's gotta design those skyscrapers and make pleasingly round cookies c'mon people). Perfectionism is even okay and sometimes rly great, but not when it holds us back.
so I'm going to let go of this. I'm going to take the info I have, outline, and get writing this thing. I'm going to let myself write this novel no matter how wonderfully terrible it may turn out. basically, I'm gonna see what happens with this. lets not hold ourselves back
p.s. this topic applies to many things, not just novels <3