I’m coming to the conclusion that perfectionism is not, in fact, the hallmark of an anal retentive mind, but is in fact a sign of that utmost of depravities: laziness. Allow me to explain by way of illustration.
I am, it is rumored (and in fact, it is true), working on a novel of indiscriminate length. Truth be told, this novel has been “in progress” for over a decade, though with some minor gaps between efforts measuring in year long spans. About a year ago, I sat down to right it in earnest, and made a fair crack at it. Then I let it rest for about six months, and have recently returned my attentions back to it.
Now, even in that short six months, I’ve had an infusion of fresh ideas and realizations. Some of these make the story stronger. Some of them change the direction of my writing. Such is life. But then I look at what I had written previously, and I weep. In my mind, I’d written purely golden prose, without gap or break in logic. But when I go back to add – not replace, not rewrite, just to add a little more – I realize that a lot of what I thought I had written existed only in my head. And what’s worse? I have these bits I want to shove in in between or change.
Now, I could keep pushing out new material, letting it slide in between existing material, acknowledging that at some point I have to go back and correct it all. Or I could just fix it now, as I go, and that way I don’t have to worry about maintaining consistency, or remembering where I needed to fix something later. So I find myself developing perfectionist tendencies when it comes to my writing. Why? Because I’m the laziest writer you will find (well, almost, but anyway). And the lazy thing to do is to fix it right now so I don’t have to do work for it later.
And what’s the point of all of this?
Perfection is being lazy.