As a creative person I have a tendency to think in abstractions. In 2008 when I initially thought of Rebellious Bird I imagined it as something monumental, as the most perfect work of art that I was capable of creating. In 2008 when I was sketching characters and taking notes in my journal I imagined the pride I would experience when I finished, the way I would fall in love with the final draft. I would sigh in satisfaction knowing I had written something perfect.
There’s that word again—perfect. What does it mean? “Without errors, flaws, or faults” explains the Encarta Dictionary. “Complete and lacking nothing essential,” it goes on to say. “Excellent or idea in every way” it adds for good measure. If I am to expect a perfect work of art what does that make me? “Somebody who demands or seeks to achieve nothing less than perfection.” It’s startling how easily the dictionary has me pegged. A synonym of a perfectionist is an obsessive. A stickler. A purist. What these reference materials fail to mention is that perfectionism is impossible. It puts the writer at an impasse. Knowing this it comes across as a poisonous concept. In truth it is anything but.
Last week I finished my fifth draft. I took my usual twenty-four hour break before I picked up the printed copy and started reading. I felt the usual array of emotions—elation and desolation, exhilaration and boredom. Even apathy. I edited as I read, looking for weak sentences, misplaced words, errant commas. I made sure all the significant plot points were in the right place. It was all very tedious. With a few exceptions, I feel like everything I do at this point is superfluous—useless, even. I feel at this point that I’ve cornered the novel but am unable to beat it. The novel’s king is there shuffling back and forth and because my army has been depleted I have no way to checkmate the blasted thing.
Mick Jagger, slightly irate because he too couldn't get no satisfaction
Today I will begin work on another draft. All I can think about is starting something new. It’s the perfectionist’s most characteristic instinct—the desire to abandon one project and start another. It’s unrestricted unrestrained unadulterated potential that attracts perfectionists to new projects. There in the imagination perfection is possible. When the initial idea comes to us that novel can be anything. It can do anything. It can make the world tremble. It’s only in the final stages of a project that we realize it will be nothing like we wanted it to be. This is how the perfectionist convinces himself that he has failed, no matter how close to perfection he has come. Yet there’s something inevitable in perfectionism. Without it I may have called it a day after the second draft. I can’t even imagine that. So today I start a new draft. Today I will get out my pen and my post-it flags and my journal and start again and do everything I can to write the perfect novel. I know I will fail. I know I can’t win. But there’s nothing that can stop me from trying.
What is the rule in chess? With only the king left, a stalemate in twelve moves? Perhaps I should start counting.
