When I began this piece of writing, I thought I was going to give you writing rules. Then my words went in a direction I hadn’t intended, as writing often does.
The more I wrote, the more I noticed how writing rules, the process of putting words on the page has taught me about creativity and life in general. More than I expected. Turns out writing is a metaphor for everything else in life.
If you aim for perfection you’re screwed.
Lila sits up late at night drawing. She’s frustrated. The line she wanted didn’t happen as planned. She can’t find the pink oil pastel. She tells me it’s ugly. It’s not what she wanted. She stays up too late and doesn’t sleep enough, so no one but she is surprised when she’s exhausted the next day.
This is her drawing. It’s gorgeous. She says it’s not finished. Wouldn’t I prefer a better drawing to share?
Have I passed this kind of thinking down to my daughter? Times like this make me think about my own writing rules and how I write. Things sit on my hard drive for too long. I edit it. I’m still not happy. Some pieces still wait to be finished. It was better in my head. Surely there must be some list of cosmic writing rules against doing exactly what I’m doing?
I don’t see it in myself until my daughter does it. I, too, keep myself up late. I have also sent many pieces of writing to an editor worrying it wasn’t good enough.
At some point, we have to realize perfection doesn’t really exist. Instead, perfection is that which holds us back. It destroys innovation. It keeps us from growing because we’re too busy focusing on the small lines, the placement of a particular word and worrying if we don’t get each detail perfect, the whole will be imperfect as well.
The whole is always imperfect. A piece of writing is never truly finished. We simply reach the point where we have done the best we can.
Writing is never about the small bits or finding the perfect word. It’s always been about looking at the big picture. Of seeing how we grow over time and continuing to do the work. Writing is in the looking back after we’ve finished to know how far we’ve come. You can never understand the value of your journey if you only see bent road signs and broken windshields.
You cannot wait around for inspiration.
I’m not a fan of the word hope, because it takes away our power. I hope I’ll write a book. I hope an agent will call.
It says nothing about what we can do to make what we want to happen.
If you wait for inspiration, it may come. It may arrive a few times or more. But inspiration fades. You get bored. You get tired. You begin to hate your writing. You’ll probably love at least some of it again later, but if you wait for inspiration to make you love it again, you’re waiting in vain. Inspiration doesn’t go back to edit, because inspiration begins but rarely finishes.
You, however, can go back in time and edit. You can bring your writing into the present. You can edit until it’s done and send it onto the future.
Inspiration comes in bursts. You can’t just put in a full blast effort and then not return for days or weeks or months and hope to pick up where you left off. No, you’ll have to find your way back to whatever you were thinking then. It’s unlikely that you’ll find that strain of inspiration again.
Eventually, inspiration leaves you cold.
Consistency, however, is your friend. The one that sits with you and writes whether it’s easy or painful or feels stupid.
You must forgive yourself.
What you did or didn’t do last year is irrelevant.
You can’t do anything about it now. You must forgive yourself. Yes, you live with the consequences of the choices you made before, but wallowing in what you cannot change mires you in the helpless, hopeless past.
What you do now is what really matters. Let everything else go and move on.
Sometimes you do have to push your limits.
Do you remember when you learned how to walk? You didn’t begin with graceful steps. Instead, you waddled and wobbled. You slipped and fell. You looked around with wonder, not quite understanding and you tried again and again.
A toddler doesn’t look at a dancer and tell herself, “I’ll never dance like that. I suck.” No, they stare in wonder. They try; they fall. They have fun.
I hear my 4-year-old Charlie trying to play football. “I know how to do this,” he says to himself. “I’m so good at this.”
It feels ungainly and off-balance to do something for the first time. It takes longer and you make mistakes. When you push your limits you reach new levels.
Remember that when you’re struggling with a piece of writing, when the words don’t flow, and you feel blocked and unsure. It often means you’re about to break through to something new, something you’ve never done before.
You must dance with discomfort to reach new heights.
Self-acceptance and self-love take precedence over everything.
When my to-do list is the longest, when my kids are sick and suddenly my mom calls to tell me she has a medical emergency, my favorite solution is to take a nap. You laugh? I’m deadly serious.
If you’re too tired to manage yourself, how do you expect to manage anything else? If you’re not eating properly, how do you plan to concentrate? If your nerves are a jangled mess, how do you intend to balance the stresses and anxieties in life?
You are important. You are valuable. You deserve to eat well, sleep soundly, enjoy the peace and quiet of the day. You deserve to nap and eat chocolate and play.
If you don’t honor yourself, you end up tired and sad by the time you reach your goal.
What you want is most important.
You’re heading toward your goal.
You’ve learned that even when you take care of yourself, there are times you still have to push. You work hard, sacrifice often. You face rejection, disappointment and turn the corner on frustration time after time. There are nights you don’t sleep with worry. You’ve skipped hanging out with friends or playing with your kids or something else that brings you joy to take another slow step toward your destination.
After all of this, you finally climb that hill. You’ve reached your goal. You’re at the top of the mountain. You win! You have exactly what you’d been aiming to reach.
If you didn’t really want it, though, who cares?
Be gentle with yourself.
There’s a magnet with the following on my refrigerator. It’s pieced together from Max Ehrman’s poem Desiderata.
“Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace in your soul.”
It reminds me that whatever happens, I’ll figure it out. Yes, things will go wrong. People will disappoint. I’ll make mistakes. I know, though, whatever happens, I’ll figure it out. You will, too.
Go gently with yourself. Your other option is to be harsh, which detracts from living your life well and writing with beauty and joy.
I’m betting these weren’t quite the writing rules you were expecting. Me neither. Nonetheless, these are the writing rules that emerged. They’re rooted in years of experience, at least two decades of writing and watching other writers develop their words. Usually, I find rules are meant to be broken, but these writing rules? They may be immutable.
