Perfectionism Can Kill Ideas

I had this idea: "I'll write a Lovecraftian book about Oakland." That's where I started from. I know sometimes ideas for books come from other sorts of places, but this was my desire, and having been riding my bike past the lake in Oakland for years, the lake was where the idea grew.

And I wrote. Most days I wrote a chapter. Some days I wrote a bit more, some days I didn't write, but I kept plodding along, and I tried something different than all of the other times that I've tried to write a story: I didn't edit much as I went along. I kept moving forward, promising myself I'd do lots of good editing when I was finished. And I did do lots of editing. And I had wonderful people read the first (well, second) draft and give me feedback. And I edited more. And again. Doing things this way saved my book from the dead pile of ideas that I had edited-too-early to death over the rest of my life.

I carried this method forward even further--though many people had told me to hire a professional editor to go over the book, I opted not to, knowing I'd have to save a bit for that, that it would take more time. I was opting to put an imperfect work out into the public instead of take a risk that I would edit it to death and not publish it at all. And, for me, it was a real risk. I know myself well enough to know that. I'm glad that I put it out as-is, though embarrassing typos and other mistakes made it through.

However: I'm damn well going to hire somebody to edit the book I'm currently writing. I've crossed a hurdle, I think, and now I want a bit more of a polished work out there for next time. I mean, I have corrected the errors that people found for the first book (thanks, everybody!), but I do feel a little badly that people had to read my first work in its imperfect form. Hopefully the second one will be less prone to error! No regrets, really: I'm glad I got the first one out, warts and all. And I know at least some folks have enjoyed it, despite the errors. That means a lot!