Preaching to the Choir, Part Three

Hi Folks,

At this writing, the first post in this series (Preaching to the Choir) garnered one response from a writer who thought perhaps I was being “snarky”—that well-intended comment led to Preaching to the Choir, Part Two—and two more comments that brought to mind an old quote. I can’t quite remember it, but to paraphrase, “A piece of writing is never finished, but the deadline comes anyway.”

In the first post of this series, in case you missed it, I talked about writers who shove a work out the door when it very obviously is not ready. Those are works that should not find publication (though sometimes they do anyway) because either they aren’t finished or they aren’t polished. If they are finished—meaning the writer didn’t simply lose interest and stop writing but actually tied up all the loose ends and resolved the conflict—but they aren’t polished (they still contain wrong words, misspellings, misplaced modifiers, sentence fragments where a full sentence is required, etc.) they simply shouldn’t be allowed out on their own.

Unfortunately, I have known writers on the other end of that same scale: those whose work will never find publication because the writer just can’t seem to let it go. Most of the writers in that category are worried that what they’ve written simply isn’t good enough. Even if they’ve been told their work is well-written, they still aren’t sure, and either striving for perfection (more often than not) or fear of rejection keeps them from sending out their work. I’m a bit frustrated on their behalf, because many of them actually have learned the craft of writing and apply it to the best of their ability. You will never hear one of them mutter, “Well, it’s good enough; the reader will know what I mean.” For them, a B or C is not a passing grade. What joy awaits them with that first royalty check should they ever gain the confidence to take the leap!

If you’re one of those, this post is directed at you. One caution—a great deal depends on why you can’t let go of your work. Do you tweak and re-tweak because you’re striving within yourself to make sure each sentence conveys precisely what you want it to convey? If so, that’s good. When you’re certain the story has a beginning, middle and end (and more importantly, when you’re sure the conflict has been adequately and appropriately resolved), impose a deadline on yourself and send it out. Your skills as a writer will continue to improve, but in the meantime you won’t be sending out crap.

But if you’re making changes every time someone else says “I’d have done it like this,” you’ll quickly reach a point where it isn’t even your own writing anymore. When anyone—especially the members of a critique group—critiques your work, write down that critique and recommendation, take it home with you, and consider it during a calmer time when you don’t feel defensive about it. Then, if you believe the recommendation will improve your work, apply it. If you believe it won’t, discard it. Period. The fact that someone (anyone, including me) gives you advice does not obligate you to accept and use it. Let me say that again: apply a critique to your work only if you’ve considered it calmly and decided it will improve your work.

So if you’re one of those folks who has written and re-written, edited and re-edited, proofed and re-proofed, tweaked and re-tweaked and could still tweak just a little more here and there every day for the rest of your life, please go ahead and impose a deadline on yourself. It was for you that the paraphrased quote in the first paragraph was written. Know that the work will never be completely finished (read perfect) and that’s all right. Pry your fingers off that latest short story and send it toddling out into the world. I promise, you won’t be disappointed. You are the writer for whom perfection is not a destination but a journey, and the world is screaming for your work.

‘Til next time, happy writing!
Harvey

PS: Hey, if you haven’t checked out the newsletter over at StoneThread Publishing lately, now is a great time to do so. I just announced a new Author Spotlight and published the first one yesterday. As part of each author spotlight, you can get a free book from each featured author. The featured authors yesterday are cozy-mystery author Nora Barker and mystery and suspense author Larry Long. If you enjoy titles in those genres, or if you’ve been wanting to try out a new genre, hop on over there and click the links in that newsletter. Then sign up at the top of the page to receive the new ones as they come out. See you there!