The past few weeks, I have been telling myself that it is fine to write a short blog post. I’ve been thrilled that I’ve actually been writing more than the 100 or so words I was aiming for, but I’ve also been worried. At least one of them did not simply flow from my fingers, but I felt like I needed to push myself to write more to make my point. That makes every future post seem like a bigger task and more work. I’m trying to teach myself to enjoy writing, not dread it, and to be happy with what I write.

The problem is, I am a perfectionist. I always have an idea in my head of how something should be. Notice I said “idea” rather than “picture.” It is rarely a complete or detailed image, which is part of the pain of perfectionism: we don’t really, truly know when we have achieved what we set out to do. The thing in our head doesn’t exist until we create it, so how could it be perfectly copied? And even if we had a clear image, whose picture would be the right one? Mine or that of the person reading my novels and viewing my drawings? Since we can’t see what is in someone else’s head, we start guessing what another person might be expecting to see.

By the time you start guessing and overthinking about the expectations of other people (who in all honesty probably have less of an idea of what your work should be than you do) then you are well and truly lost. Wandering down a path of “Is this okay?” is a hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Once again, I wrote more than I planned, but this was an easy one because it’s close to my heart ‑ rather than my head.