Done is better than perfect

One of the most important pieces of advice that any writer can give you is this – complete your draft. Like with almost any other profession, the thing that separates the wannabes from the pros is that the pros actually get the work done and live up to the title of writer, rather than just claim they want to write but never produce any actual work. For that reason I don’t quite fancy people who don’t update their blogs regularly but call themselves bloggers.

In any case, the quote “done is better than perfect” holds true. Getting a finished product out is better than having no product but a perfect ideal in your head. No-one can see that perfect ideal, and it doesn’t add to the collective literature of the world if it only exists in your head. But the finished product, flawed though it may be, can add to the shared memory of the human race and contribute to the akashic records.

If that’s enough, here are five reasons why you should get that piece of writing done, no matter how flawed or imperfect it is (or at least, how terrible it may seem to you).

Nothing will ever be perfect

Have you read the perfect book? Watched the perfect movie? Seen the perfect play? Even if you have absolutely no criticism for the work in question, that hardly qualifies it as perfect. Because nothing perfect ever exists.

For that reason, your work won’t ever be perfect either. It could be better, true, but everything can always be better. Don’t expect your writing to be perfect the first time off the bat, and you’ll have a better time giving birth to your first draft.

Practice makes perfect

Writing is a skill, and skills need practice to be perfected. Just like how an athlete has to accrue a lot of bad timings to achieve that record breaker, so must you create many terrible pieces of work in order to craft your beautiful magnum opus.

Have you read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell? He postulates that all the world’s experts have only one thing in common, and that’s not talent. It’s practice – 10, 000 hours of it. 360, 000 minutes. Sure, talent has a place – but true mastery comes from doing the same thing over, and over, and over again.

Writing is all in the rewriting

Sorry, but the bulk of your work won’t be in the first draft. It’ll be in the edits, the cuts, the additions, the rewrites. In other words – your final product will consist of edits. But without a draft to edit, how can you get there?

When you realise that your final piece will bear little resemblance to the first draft that you came out with, you can write easier. This doesn’t mean you write trash the first time round – just that if it’s not perfect, you know you’ll have to edit it anyway, so just push it out. Childbirth isn’t easy, and neither is writing.

Sense of accomplishment

Ever finished an arts and craft project? Or a model kit? Even a Lego set?

That’s how you’ll feel after you finish your work. It’s intangible, but it’s this sense of relief that is very akin to one of the most sensual pleasures of human nature. I’ll leave you to decide what pleasure that is, but believe me, it’s worth the slog. Much better than having an ideal in your head.

Body of work

And finally, no matter how bad it is, this product will add to your body of work. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be what you expect, it will lay the foundation for your future pieces of work. And that is how art is made – by building upon the previous art that you’ve created.

 

So stop reading tips on how to write, and go ahead and finish that draft!