How Not To Write – Doing Battle With Perfection
Have you ever sat down and written the first three lines of something, only to hit the backspace like a maniac a few moments later? It’s so easy to throw out work if it doesn’t seem to be going in the direction that you want it to, and often that can lead to us spinning in circles, rewriting the same sentence over and over again. I know this because it’s something I do repeatedly. For example, I’m currently holding my 70,000 word manuscript over the metaphorical bin because I can’t see how it will end. The plot is rambling and half-baked, I’ve got characters that aren’t where they need to be, the whole thing feels like a failure. In short I want to throw it away and start from scratch. But! If I do that there’s a good chance I’ll never actually get finishing the damn thing because next time I hit a snag in the draft, I’ll want to start over all over again. Instead I’m going to remind myself of a Neil Gaiman …
