“The best writers and the best stories aren’t focused on perfect. There is no such thing as perfect. The best writers are willing to give up the story they wish could be in order to tell the story that is.” Allison Vesterfelt
I’ve struggled lately with letting go of control. I’ve wanted every word to be perfect. I’ve had to stop myself from editing each time I start a new page.
I have a tendency to re-read and obsess and wonder about each phrase and each scene or paragraph. I used to think this would help me to write better, but that didn’t happen.
The truth is, the more I want to make the words perfect, the more I’m held back from discovering the kind of writer I could be.
I used to think that writing and editing at the same time would make my first draft cleaner and somehow better. But in fact it does just the opposite.
To write, and to find our authentic self in all our writing, we have to learn to let ourselves go. [Tweet this]
We have to learn to be okay with imperfect.
Choose to Let Go of Control
The way I’ve started learning to listen more to myself is to begin the process of learning to let myself go as I write. I discovered from Julia Cameron’s amazing book The Artist’s Way
Ever since I started morning pages a little over a year ago, it has helped me to spit out the negative, and has given me the freedom to be myself.
When I’m writing morning pages, it’s a safe zone. I don’t feel pressure to make the words readable or likeable or marketable. I just choose to be present, to listen to myself and to lean in to my thoughts and feelings.
When you feel the freedom to just exist on the page, you can lean into the process of writing fully.
Intuitively you learn to put it all out there, your whole self, in that private place. You can decide later what should be shared or held back.
I’ve discovered that the more I do this, the more I learn this is the only way for me to really find myself.
Writing these pages in the morning, has helped me to write more authentically as I write fiction, these blogposts and it’s helped me have more freedom to be authentically me as I’ve created and finished the online course for writers.
It’s a scary, but beautiful thing to learn to be fully you on the blank page.
Embracing the uncomfortable
It’s uncomfortable and in many ways downright scary to really let ourselves go. We’re scared of what might come out. We’re terrified of what we might uncover.
What if you began by practicing writing in a journal? What would happen if you just wrote, everyday, without giving your inner critic any room to speak up? What if you just learned to trust yourself?
At first, more than likely it would be really uncomfortable. You would probably have to wrestle. However, you might discover a story – a piece of you – that you didn’t know was there.
By letting go, you might become the person – the writer – you were meant to be all along.
Do you find yourself holding back as you write? I’d love to hear your thoughts on your process of writing in the comments 🙂
