How to deal with perfectionism?

[Zinless]

50 rewrites, not a single word I have faith in.

Help me.

 

[HelloHound]

I start every story and every chapter with a key smash and an all-caps cuss word- just get paint on the canvas, you can pick at it later

 

[J_Chemist]

Consider it character development.

Do better, kusogaki.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

My laziness is my savior.

 

[owotrucked]

Basically, your rational mind is in a disagreement with your subconscious. The latter is under a misconception that perfectionism is good.

The only way to convince it otherwise, is to let it cook.

Give in to your perfectionism, channel all your energy into a single chapter with laser focus. When your subconscious gives up and say 'alright let's release it', you say no and forces it to work 50x more times on the chapter.

Then look whether the result was worth the effort.

Usually I don't think that's the case, because 20% of the work causes 80% of the goodness of the result overall. Then laugh at your subconscious for being a loser.

 

[georgelee5786]

Write, just write. Get the story down. Then edit away.

 

[SRB]

Perfectionism is already a part of you. I can't offer a better solution than to make a strong-willed effort and stop.

When I can't stop changing my own novel, I drink three hundred grams of vodka and this allows me to think more freely. I do not advise this way of solving the problem every time, it is fraught with addiction and alcoholism.

 

[wimbledon]

I was struggling with this, so I started a series and just started uploading my first takes. The only edits I've allowed myself are for grammar/spelling/author notes.

 

[RepresentingPride]

In one of my previous job, I used to be like this. To get rid of it I thought of how much time I waste to make thing perfect compared to what my colleague make good. If it's some time, it's good but too much perfectionism are borthersome, you can get lock to a tiny detail for month....


You can try to imagine how much you had write if you didn't rewrite it for the 50th time to see how much you wasted on it (even if it's not necesseraly wasted).

 

[Narcissistic_loser]

Just imagine about the fact that in 100yrs that we all are gonna be deado, and that if you did write a crappy story no one's gonna remember you did.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

Don't look at it for perfection. Look at the word count and edit it a bit. You do not need things to be perfect until after you complete your story. If you worry about what you have at the beginning then you'll never see the end. Perfecting is best after you've set up everything.

Consider it like this, in order for something to be perfected, you have to have something imperfect. However, if you attempted to perfect something incomplete then you'll have perfect parts of an imperfect story. Your best chance for perfection in a story is to complete the story and then edit it until you find it perfect. Until then, just design your story how you want it and perfect it once you're done.

 

[Daitengu]

We're taught perfection is the goal and mistakes are to be punished. At least in public schools.

It's a very unrealistic mindset and you'll have to deprogram yourself from it. Best way in your case is to set a limit of either time or rewrite count and just post what ya got.

 

[Rhaps]

Instead of thinking this suck...

Think ~☆this suck☆~

 

[Succubiome]

It may be apocryphal

but I remember hearing something that there was an assignment given for a month to a pottery class
half of a class was told they'd be graded on making the best single pot they could
the other half was told they'd be graded on quantity of pots, and nothing else

and at the end of it, the group who had been told to make more ports had not only more pots, but had consistently made better pots

perfectionism can be useful for things that will cause immediate death if fucked up slightly
like, I would be glad to have a perfectionist working on safety checking a space shuttle?
but outside of dangerously precise things, perfectionism is a flawed strategy, which tends to provide poor results
because being super super careful is actually not a good way to learn anything

tl;dr: perfectionism is imperfect in most artistic situations, and I try to level it against itself whenever it comes up in places where it is a poor strategy

 

[PancakesWitch]

just tell to yourself youre fixing it tomorrow

 

[Sola-sama]

Had the same problem. I had zero confidence in putting my shit online, but then I found a good quote.

"Perfect is the enemy of good."

Face it, man, your first/second/hundredth works will always be shit.

But that's the thing, the world run on 'barely good enough', not 'perfect'. If you keep waiting for that perfect result before continuing, you won't be getting anywhere. I mean, let's look at scribble #1 stories in every genre/tag. They are not 5/5 stars, they are probably 4.1-4.8 stars. They are not perfect, but good enough that people liked it. If you keep pursuing perfection, you won't be good because perfection is a goal that always changes. Can pursue, cannot catch.

 

[Theirl]

Come on if your perfectionism have hand just throw hand at it. Becareful i heard its right hook is a killer u should control your distance and play the mid range game. Keep throwing jabs at it and wait it loses it patiance after that give a 1_2 right in the face and hope for the best

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Procreate, and then you'll have bigger issues to worry about.

 

[Succubiome]

Procreate, and then you'll have bigger issues to worry about.

Can't be a perfectionist about writing if you don't have time to write at all!

 

[Kalliel]

Either don't bother, or think that it's perfect already.
Get good.