I’ve recently started reading Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Aside from the fact that her writing style is fresh, honest, and hilarious…there’s a practicality to it that is proving immensely helpful.
In a brief chapter about perfectionism, she offers this – helpful to writers, visual artists, actors, musicians, chefs…whatever your art form!
“Prefectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life…I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.
Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force…Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter is wonderfully fertile ground…Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it’s going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe and move.
. . .
What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here – and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.”
Learn more about (or buy!) the book HERE.
Link to this page
