taming of the shrewd perfectionist

I have a secret weapon against the shrewd perfectionist. A little tid-bit I was lucky enough to come across in a book about the publishing business written by a prominent New York editor: A good writer will write 98% total crap in his or her career and only 2% not total crap. That 2% comprises such works as Moby Dick and Sons and Lovers. But I suspect it took Melville and Lawrence a whole lot of crap to get there. This same editor (whose prominent name escapes me at the moment) also divulged the following gossamer shred of aspiring writer hope. Referring to the majority of manuscripts he receives, the author claims that “Yoda better syntax had.” Ha! Take that deliverer of non-encouraging words.

Since I now wield a nice percentage ratio, I figure I can commit to writing total crap for most of my career and somewhere therein should be a nice 2% of not total crap that I can extract, put on display, and say, “See, I’m a good writer!” and no one else will ever know the depths of the foul language from whence it came. Also, I’m quite certain I syntax have better than Yoda.

And so do you.

As a writing tutor, the most common introduction I hear is, “I know this is really awful. I’m a terrible writer.” Not even a hello or my name is. And this I have learned to respond to with complete silence. I hand over a pencil and explain that sometimes it’s easier to see things with a pencil in your hand. Something about putting the physical activity of holding a pencil together with the isolation that normally accompanies the writing process seems to bring about a keener awareness of the connection between the words on a page and the ideas in the mind. I try to make it clear that when we look over a piece of writing, we are trying to make sure that the sentence on the page actually says the sentence that’s in the head.

This is a two-way journey, of course. Sometimes you don’t know what your head thinks until you see it on the page. This is why I write: To figure out what the hell it is I want to say. And this is precisely where that 98% crap comes in handy. It often takes an entire essay of really bad writing to find out just what, exactly, your point is. And if you don’t spend that valuable 98% getting to the 2% that actually says something, how else will you ever get there?

Certainly not by believing that you don’t know how to write or that your writing is really terrible. Writing is a skill, just like cooking, that can be learned. Sure there are probably better cooks out there than you, a writer always has Shakespeare to live up to, but no one else can make exactly the same thing, ever. And no one else can ever think the same things in the same way. So, don’t stop yourself from finding out what you think before you begin. And then, when you know what you think, try to make your sentences reflect your thoughts as accurately as possible. We’re not aiming for world-changing grammar; just a sentence that makes sense. The rest will follow.

Remember, we have a nice and friendly ratio to work with. Commit to your own 98% crap with clarity and accuracy. Try to connect the act of thinking with the act of writing. Tell the shrewd perfectionist that you’ve got work to do. Then go to your writing tutor and learn about semicolons.