4 Reasons None of Us Can Be a Perfect Writer

C’mon, now, don’t pretend you don’t know what it means to be a Perfect Writer. We’ve all read the six gazillion books… and articles… and listicles of 15 Tweets Only Real Writers Will Get… We know what Perfect Writers do and don’t do.

So why is it so hard to be one? I mean, with those Twitter bon mots helpfully distilled for me, I should be able to make my own list of Perfect Writer Qualities and check them off one by one. Like I do at the gym–make a list of muscles and keep working on them until I have reached desired buff-ness.

Wait a minute. That’s not how working out works at all. Turns out, bodies and writing are similar: they are more complex than the sum of their parts and sometimes require an ever-negotiating balance between incompatible qualities to work best.

You know, like these ones:

Confidence and humility.

To be a writer, you need to have faith in yourself and your vision. You need to trust yourself enough to take risks with your material, to start long projects that will require lots of work to finish, and, of course, to get your writing out there. You need to be able to ask people–critique partners, agents, editors, readers–to look at your work in a way that suggests you think they actually might like it. Because why on Earth would anyone want to waste their time with a manuscript even its author doesn’t seem to love?

Query letters can’t sound like they’re begging. Stories, articles, or poems that incorporate every single edit anyone ever suggested will sound exactly like what they are: writing by committee. Confidence is important!

But…

On the other hand, that query letter can’t sound like it’s boasting either. Writers need enough perspective to understand that none of us is going to be the next J. K. Rowling, our book will not be bigger than Hunger Games meets The Da Vinci Code, and agents, editors, and sellers are offering us professional opportunities rather than the reverse.

What we write is never as good as it could be, and we are not better than all the other writers we know, even the ones whose work we dislike. We need to swallow our pride and be open to criticism. Over our writing careers, we will meet many people who are wiser or more knowledgeable or funnier than us, and we’ll grow the most if we can learn from them instead of feeling threatened.

Diligence and easy-going-ness.

What are you doing sitting here, sitting your coffee, reading this nonsense when you could be writing? Nothing matters but butt-in-chair. Lots of people think they could write a book; far fewer actually do, not because they lack talent or motivation or even time but because they don’t just sit down and WRITE it. If you don’t write regularly, you won’t produce writing. And if you don’t produce writing, how will you get better as a writer?

It’s best if you make yourself a routine. Write for as little as five minutes a day… a paragraph each evening. Join NaNoWriMo, log your word count, work with a friend to give each other accountability. Tell everyone you know when you intend to finish your latest project for that additional social pressure. Remember, professional writers have to work to deadlines.

But…

Sometimes, you just need to step away from the draft. Put it in a drawer, and come back to it with fresh eyes. When you’re too close to the work, you may miss the forest for the trees. Leave that finished manuscript; take a break from that place where you’re stuck. Don’t burn yourself out trying to match other people’s writing routines. Find the pace that works best for you, and, hey, maybe that will include a few breaks.

Besides, what are you going to write about if all you ever do is write? Get out there, experience life so that you have something to say. And read other people’s books, listen to music, watch movies, play games, take in all the different types of art you can. Let it all stew inside, and don’t push yourself to find the answers to your writing dilemmas RIGHT NOW. They’ll come from downtime and new material.

Perfectionism and error-forgiveness.

You know every agent says to polish your work as much as you can before submitting it to them. Yes, reviewing your manuscript for typos and awkward phrasing is boring, especially when you’re doing it for the tenth time. But nobody cares about this manuscript more than you! If you’re the type of writer who can’t be bothered to catch wayward commas and overused words, what does that say about your work ethic to anyone who might consider taking you on as a client?

Forget phrases like “good enough.” Nobody else wants your “good enough,” they want your best. So grit your teeth, get out that revising pencil–red pen–scissors–shredder, and get to work.

But…

The perfect is the enemy of the good. It’s all very nice to aim for the ideal expression of the exact right idea every line of every page. But let’s be real: spellcheck won’t catch “form” vs. “from”, and, more importantly, you are learning more and more every day. Your manuscript will never reach its ultimate Super-Saiyan form because neither will you.

No matter how good your work feels today, you may hate it tomorrow, when you know a bit more. You can’t let fear of your future self’s regret prevent you from sending out that manuscript. Yeah, you could spend another five months tweaking back-and-forth between “said” and “asked” and soliciting yet another critique. But writing’s messy. Life is messy. Accept that neither will ever be flawless.

Passion and neutrality.

If you don’t care about this topic/character/plot, why the heck should I? Don’t follow the market, don’t write what other people tell you they like. Write what speaks to you. Hook readers with the emotional truth of your writing, which can come only from sincerity. You can tell when other people are faking it, right? Well, they can tell when you are.

Besides, there’s nothing new under the sun, yada yada yada. Your plot, character types, ideas, general style, everything–they’ve all been done before, or they will be done by someone else. It’s your personal take that animates the shared general foundations with specifics. Write what you love so that other people will love it too.

But…

Kill your darlings. That thing you wrote, the that every time you read it, you grin with a mixture of pride and affection? Delete it. It’s probably self-indulgence, and it needs to be sacrificed to make your work better for people who aren’t you. Don’t take criticism personally; nobody wants to work with someone who can’t prioritize what’s best for the story instead of for their feelings. Besides, market forces really do exist, and sometimes what you want just plain may not sell.

Also, writers need to learn to write without joy in writing, because otherwise we’ll get stuck at every plot problem or sad day. We might love our project in general, but this one scene isn’t turning out right, and GAH! Too bad. Some days, we won’t feel like writing, but we’ll have to do it anyway, even when every word feels like choking down a Brussel sprout. Not a nice one that’s been roasted with fish sauce, but a gross one that’s been boiled to the limits of its structural integrity. Yeah.

A lot has happened since I last posted here! Mainly, I quit Twitter and now post here and to this blog’s Facebook page. Follow me there if you prefer to stay in touch via social media!