Perfectionists Ate My Baby
I’m stuck. Yes, again. I think in some ways the first draft of this novel has broken me. It is such a mess (hence the total rewrite instead of just editing) that I’m terrified to let the second draft be anything less than perfect. So I agonize over every word, every concept, until builds into a huge pile of stagnated nothing.
I think I know where I want to go from here. I think I see how to start doing it. But I can see the little problems that will crop up later, the complications of plot and character that I’m not sure how to write myself free from. I’m suffering from a desire to get it right the first time, amusingly enough because I didn’t get it right the first time. I don’t know if I have another total rewrite in me. I don’t know if I love this story that much. I feel I owe my first novel a better chance at life than just that one messy draft. I’m terrified that it will come out just as ugly and misshapen, another monstrosity to expose on the hillside as I tell myself “oh, there there, you’ll have more children.” What if they are all monsters?
So, I’m stuck. What’s my plan of attack?
To write.
As they say: here goes nothing.
