Letting myself suck.

Current word count: 13,412
Current mood: Encouraged, and determined.
Currently listening to while writing: Mudcrutch, The National's Boxer.




One of the most persistent, nagging opponents I've encountered in my many various attempts to write a novel in years past has been the unshakable urge to be perfect. This urge is not uncommon. It is a human urge, particularly prevalent in those parts of us where our passions lie. For me, this urge surfaces most often, and most viciously, where my creative talents (i.e. writing, music, art, etc.) are concerned. And this makes sense to me. We nurture our talents, we water them, we feed them, we watch them grow. To us, they are uniquely ours. They breathe in us and exhale through us, producing expressions of life that are vibrantly alive, and they could not have existed without us. This is humbling and empowering and frightening. And if you're like me, you want to do justice to the beautiful images and words and ideas that have graciously chosen you (!) to inhabit and be brought into this world by. So a crazy notion like writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 short days forces one to wrestle that tenacious artistic perfectionism to the ground and hogtie it into submission.

My first time around, this was a near-impossible proposition. All I wanted to do was nourish and protect each precious word, one after another. This kept me moving at a snail's pace, and more often than not bred contempt and frustration between me and my novel. This time, it's proving easier, for two reasons.

1. I've done it before.

2. I am learning, slowly, that I MUST allow myself to suck. Not only for the sake of meeting my insane NaNoWriMo goal, although that is paramount right now, but also for the sake of my writing.

Ultimately, I believe, I will be a much better writer if I simply churn out the words, permit them to tumble out, get the ideas down on paper and, yes, let them suck. Let whole sentences, entire paragraphs, heck, even entire CHAPTERS be mediocre, if not flat-out terrible. This has been more than a little difficult for me throughout my life. And it ain't easy now. Letting myself suck is one of the hardest lessons I've ever had to learn, in writing, and in life. But I firmly believe it's up there among the best life lessons I can take with me.

More to come. Cheers.