don’t wait for puuuurfection
(This is a picture of The Senior Editor following me home on a walk 10 years ago.)
My husband says I have a glowing Holy Grail over my head...not to attract people, but cats.
I leave the door open and a cat shows up in our kitchen.
I go into the garden to work in a flower bed and discover a cat asleep in the sunflowers.
I go for a walk and a cat follows me home.
It’s how we’ve come to be the thumb-slaves of five 1/2 cats.
(The 1/2 is our stepcat that lives next door but spends the days in our garden.)
I am a cat whisperer.
This last month one of my clients decided to write a short story for an anthology of cat stories.
Cat stories? I’m in.
She spent a lot of time trying to talk herself out of it.
Worrying that she wasn’t good enough.
That her story wasn’t unique enough.
That the characters weren’t interesting enough.
That she had to do more research.
You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve been there.
All of my clients are facing a range of decisions with the novels they’re writing.
Some due to what has become normal life during the pandemic.
(Hahah. Normal during a pandemic? Yeah right. What’s normal about 2021?)
One of my clients is trying to figure out how to find time to write since she’s become the de facto algebra tutor and is still juggling her now-at-home full time job.
Another is considering if she’s still writing the book she thought she wanted to write when she first started.
Not all decisions are this monumental.
Some decisions are small chapter by chapter decisions like, “I don’t know how to get my characters from here to there,” or, “What’s it look like inside my character’s head as she transforms into a monster?”
What the one thing these decisions have in common?
Uncertainty
And uncertainty often blossoms into overwhelm and anxiety and self-doubt.
We go from wondering what a character says to wondering if that character should even be in the book to thinking maybe we shouldn’t be writing the book in the first place anyway because we don’t have what it takes to write a good book and no one is going to read it and if they do they’re just going to hate it and all our friends will hate us and our family already thinks we’re crazy.
And before you can say “Shut up and write” we’re cruising AirBandB, drowning our angst in a bottle of scotch while we look for a cabin in the woods where we can disappear for a few months.
Uncertainty is a normal part of the writing process.
Writers always face difficult questions and decisions about their writing.
It’s part of the job requirement.
You’re always going to be wondering if something can be better. But don’t wait for it to be puuuurfect.
My client writing the cat story?
She worked her ass off (she spent something like 15 hours writing one day) and finished the story just under the midnight deadline.
You know what? Her story was accepted into the anthology.
It is her first publication and I can’t be more proud of her.
And it's a GOOD story.
She showed up and she did the work in the face of uncertainty.
Don’t wait until you’re feeling certain about everything. Or even anything. Write.
Keep going.
Hello!
My name is Jocelyn.
Story warrior, book lover, day dreamer, gardener, and creative. I help serious writers roll up their sleeves, get their novel ready for publishing, and reach readers. When I’m not elbow-deep in the story trenches, I’m outside world-building in my garden and battling weeds with my three criminal mastermind cats.
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