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"How do I get over perfectionism?"
Welcome to Ask Gotham, our monthly advice column where we answer your writing-related questions. Got a question? Ask us here!
Dear Gotham,
How do I get over perfectionism in writing? It is so easy to feel paralyzed or blocked by the critical voice in your head when you sit down to work on something. Any advice? Any exercises?
Talia
Hi Talia,
Writing involves an enormous amount of brain power: emotion, concentration, creativity, all things that are particularly tricky to access, especially when…picture me gesturing wildly around at the world. I want to start by saying this—that of course you feel tripped up or complicated about your writing sometimes. We all do.
The easy and most obvious answer to this conundrum is to just write. When I find myself sinking to a place where that jeering, critical voice is screeching at me, I swim to the surface by sitting at my desk and jotting down a few sentences. This almost always makes me feel better, even if they aren’t any good.
But…that doesn’t quite always work, right? If the solution was to simply write, we’d all be dashing off short stories daily or prolifically composing beautiful songs. When we’re stuck on the idea of perfection, even tapping out a grocery list in our notes app becomes daunting. Here are a few tricks that might help shake things up enough to get you away from that overly critical (and might I add: incorrect!) voice in your head.
Alter your medium. I read somewhere that painters occasionally take a break during a long session and stare at a Claude glass, a piece of mirror tinted black, in order to rest their eye. What’s your version of that? Melissa Broder told The Rumpus that she writes her first drafts by dictating three paragraphs each day into her phone. You might also change your font to something ridiculous (comic sans is perfect for this) in order to distract that critical voice, or grab the legal pad that’s been collecting dust and write by hand.
Put whatever you’re working on away and try one of Bernadette Mayer’s writing “experiments.” These are not prompts, they are wacky, magical, low-pressure suggestions that might get your wheels spinning again.
Is there a scene you’re excited to write or a character you’re looking forward to getting to know? Go there. Free yourself from the fetters of chronological order!
In our Writer’s Mind class, we talk about a concert pianist who kept a plastic lobster nearby when he performed, believing he could only play with his lucky token present. What’s your plastic lobster? Maybe a necklace you wear only while writing, or a shiny penny? Believing an object will bring you good writing luck might just make it true.
Speaking of the Writer’s Mind, I emailed Emma Stephenson, the creative-genius-of-an-editor behind The Razor and one of our own Writer’s Mind teachers to see if she had any thoughts on your quandary. Here’s what she said…
“…Telling a perfectionist to stop trying to be perfect is essentially pointless, so I usually tell people to write as badly as possible on purpose. Like really lean in. Read it back. If it’s even a little bit readable, you’re not writing badly enough. Write worse.”
Write badly! Write weirdly! Write while clutching the claw of your lucky plastic lobster! But no matter what you do, I do hope you write. Even—especially!—when that critical voice in your head is doing its best to stop you. That’s when you know you’re onto something great.
Nobody’s perfect,
Stuart Pennebaker
We recommend…
In addition to our monthly advice column, we’d like to recommend a few things we’ve been reading, watching, and/or doing.
Lucky notebooks, lollygagging, less internet: an inspiring interview with Ross Gay from Austin Kleon’s typewriter interview series.
Extremely cool to see Quinn Adikes (Gotham teacher!) in the most recent edition of The Notch Magazine.
Much of our staff is obsessed with this heart-poundingly good show. The empathy! The dialogue! Have you seen it?!
Thanks for reading!
Do you have a writing-related question? Submit it here. We’d love to hear from you!
Love the idea of an Ask Gotham blog, and the tips on perfectionism are great for me. I can definitely try to write badly! Thanks.