The Good Is The Enemy Of The Creative

I had a thought that would ultimately lead to my return to my sadly neglected blog. Actually, there were two thoughts, although the first thought was substantially less interesting, something in the "wow, I didn't write a single post for the entire month of April." The second thought was about writing, which seems to more or less be my theme, and thus, the virtual text you now see before your eyes.

If you've glanced at my twitter (and I'm just arrogant enough to assume that maybe one or people do... the other 46 followers are probably spam bots, though) you'll notice that I have continued my habit of posting my word count on the novel. You may have noticed that lately, such posts have been coming few and far between, evidence of my inability to maintain my vow of "Write Every Day." I'm certainly humbled by the fact that my failure is so clearly illuminated, although at the same time, that was always kind of the point, you know, accountability and all. But I digress, and have yet to mention that elusive Second Thought, the one that I've indicated was worthy of writing about.

I was thinking about why lately, writing has seemed so very fucking hard again. The novel's been on my mind; I don't think I've gone a day without thinking about the story, or about writing in general. But all of a sudden, what once was this thing, this habit that I was doing every day and exulting in all the while, now it felt like a chore. I'd tell myself that I didn't feel like writing tonight. I'd say "maybe I'll write tomorrow." And of course, a series of tomorrows became weeks, just like that.

If you're wondering, I haven't had that same experience with my blog. I pretty much accepted the fact that there was going to be a dead month, as I just really didn't feel like blogging about anything. Maybe that was a mistake... there certainly seems to be a correlation between blogging and novel writing, at least in terms of total words written each week.

So this past Tuesday, I sit down to write, having now moved on to Part Three (Or Book Three, as I usually call it) and have once again shifted my Point Of View character... no, I won't tell you to whom; that would be spoilers. And as I said... it's hard. I managed about a thousand words, but they were slow in coming and it just didn't feel... well, if creative writing is all about finding the current and letting the flow guide you, this was swimming against the riptide.

I've been thinking for the past few days why it was so tough, why suddenly I don't want to keep going when I've come so very fucking far... and it finally occurred to me tonight as I sat here, thinking about things. I've said it before, in various times and various places, and this is by no means an original thought on my part: the desire to do well, the desire to be "good" at writing is the ultimate road block. It's the source of all writer's block. It's the reason it suddenly becomes hard, suddenly becomes a fight against the current rather than riding along with it.

Because when you want to be good at something, you analyze. You critique. You think long and hard at every little detail, and the floodgates that should be your creative surge are reduced to a tiny trickle, or may be blocked entirely. That's not to say that it's not important that you be good, or that the story needs to be good, but the "good" value needs to be assessed later. You iron out whether or not the story is good when you go back and edit. You don't think about that in the writing step.

In this case, after months of working on this thing and showing off some very rough drafts to a couple of people, well, let's just say that I've been getting some positive feedback. And I really like that. It makes me feel a little bit of reward at the end of each chapter, a bit of pleasure derived from what would otherwise be a very lonely process. I don't regret the decision I've made, because honestly, I don't think I would have come as far as I have if I didn't have my Designated Reader (Stephen King refers to the position as the Constant Reader, but I'm not him, so...). My reader was there to light a fire under my ass when I thought about quitting. Trust me, it becomes a lot harder to stop when you have somebody who wants to know how the story is going to end.

But after months of that good feedback, of hearing about how much this person has been enjoying the story? Well, now I feel like I'm required to maintain that streak of being good. I need to keep writing hits, need to keep up that intense pace, need to get it all right on the first try. Because I need to live up to the reputation that I've accrued over the past couple of months.

And that desire, that need to get it right on the first go... it's crippling. It's why I don't know where to go next. I remember in NaNoWriMo, where I didn't give two shits about being good or making sense, if I got stuck, I just did the first thing that came to mind. The plot was too dialog driven and introspective in the beginning? Something blows up. A new character appears to make trouble. Whatever it took to keep going. Even if those scenes turn out to be awful when I go back to edit the whole thing, at the time, they served their purpose of getting me out of the rut and back on the road.

When you're worried about being good, you don't feel the freedom to just have something blow up in the story. You worry about things like "well, I already used that technique" or "how does this fit with the rest of the story" or any of those other worries that keep you indecisive and ultimately, unable to progress.

I wrote all this out mostly for my own benefit, to remind myself and illustrate to myself why I'm stuck right now, why I need to ignore the desire to close this page and go play a video game or something. I need to open up Word and I need to sit there and I need to say "fuck being good" and I need to write.

Interesting side note: I took a glance at Google to find out the source of the quote. Turns out it was Voltaire, and the original quote was that "the perfect is the enemy of the good." So mine's a little bit different after all, but whatever. The thought is the same.