before i begin:
i've got coaching slots open on my website again - great for any of you with rapid fire questions about your writing, its structure, or something more detailed about your work-in-progress that you'd like a second eye over.
i’m running my Writing Romance and Realistic Intimacy workshop again for Writers SA 16-17th August - slots are filling fast!
i am co-teaching a creative writing residential retreat with Christopher Wakling for Arvon 8 - 13th September. Come spend a week with us.
now on to the today of things…
dear reader,
the world is literally, figuratively and existentially on fire. let's let go of this idea of perfection. it doesn't really matter, does it? you can be good - great even - at something, and also be imperfect. or you can be ok at it and that's kind of fine too as long as it brings you moments of happiness and you're not hurting anyone.
i am moving into my era of no longer being perfect. i did not have a perfect upbringing, have not had perfect relationships, and am by no means a perfect person. so why continue to strive for that unattainable goal? i can be something else; hard working, boundaried, creative. creativity - or mine at least - does not thrive under perfection either. it is messy and faulty and sometimes beautiful if i try really hard. but never perfect.
perfection has been a fool's errand for me, trying to prove to ‘the world’ that i am this or that kind of person. i’m just me, bopping along, telling stories, hoping some people like reading them, that they matter to others, that they make some small, good difference. and i’m also a person who likes spreadsheets, who will work a job that requires them, so that i can keep paying my bills and writing my stories for the pure joy of it.
i used to think there was this notion of the perfect writer that i had to aspire to; the author with the wooden desk who wrote novels non stop and spent their time touring the world and talking to readers about imaginary people.
i don't think that kind of author life exists any more.
i love talking to readers, learning that somehow my words have touched them; i’m always pleasantly surprised by it. i was recently invited to the African Book Festival in Berlin where i got to do just that, and people bought my books. i felt lucky to be there - not because i haven't worked hard to make it into these spaces, but simply because it is a fickle industry, where careers live and die by whatever the ‘higher ups’ decide is or is not ‘in’. i feel lucky to have made it this far, to get in front of people and talk about the power of literature, especially as a perfectly imperfect person. lucky that for some reason, i have not quit yet.
perhaps it's because i am getting back to that place of writing for the love of it; not because my next meal depends upon it. that level of motivation requires a move towards perfection that i have never been able to successfully sustain.
so, no more perfection for me. i'm just doing what i do and being ok with knowing that for me, that has to be enough.
so, dear reader, in what ways are you letting go of perfection?
MB x