Perfectionism Is a Positive Trap?

I’m seeing perfectionism as a form of a trap lately. But there isn’t anything wrong, per se, with making things the best they can be.

Will a typo or two get through?

Sure enough, they will.

Twilight had one of the most famous sets of typos. The beautiful thing about our work in the modern age is we can fix things later if such a thing occurs. Such is the life of an artist, even if you try getting it right the first time through.

The more I tinker with a story, the better it becomes, and the more believable the plot threads are. But, sometimes, the plot seems nonsensical and unbelievable.

My upcoming novel, A Knight Stained Black, is one of these stories where it is hard to get this right. It takes place in the year 2040, during a time ruled by a dystopian chess state. President Larkin Nightwalsh is an obsessive chess grandmaster that took over the United States of America and forced residents into chess games over organs because of Hollow’s Disease, a mysterious plague which attacks the vital organs.

The main character, Kyle Mackross, is a former teacher who plays in these chess matches because his wife, Serenity, is suffering from Hollow’s Disease. Through a course of events, Kyle meets a woman named Latta Wickasil, a strange woman who wears a literal, beating heart on her sleeve. She offers to intervene and shows Kyle a new form of chess, where one’s spouse is made into a queen on the Blood Board, a chessboard used in a shadowy underworld of chess unknown even to the elite grandmasters in power. This story mixes the supernatural with high-tech intrigue.

The premise is out there, but I think following the weird is the way to go with stories. Sometimes it won’t work (as this has taught me the last few months), but refusing to give up a story is the mark of someone who has the tenacity necessary to make something of their gifts.

But it is, indeed, a trap to be a perfectionist.

I don’t normally believe in rewriting previously published stories, but I honestly wasn’t happy with how Numinous turned out. It also is a wacky bridge, the story between Auminous and Criminous, but this fall I will release the complete story and make it a proper novel with many changes for the better.

Sometimes change makes things worse, but I can’t leave something “mid” as the kids would say. I don’t want to be an “Ah, it’s good enough,” author. I want my work to be known for quality and dedication to talent and hard work.

With the Orchestrylus Odyssey as a series, recently revamped to better accommodate my goals with the books, I’m overall happy with my writing there. But this is my passion project, my Great Work, the story I can’t let go of no matter what.

Every book needs that love and care. There can’t be any filler here. I don’t want to write filler or drivel.

I will not write pulpy (no disrespect to those that do) books.

Creating a schedule out to 2027, where I release at least a book a month, is a crazy idea, but it is doable. Authors like Amanda M. Lee and Kevin J. Anderson have done it for years. Then again, Kevin J. Anderson writes by hiking around and speaking, so he’s a bit of an anomaly.

Still, they show quantity does not mean sacrificing quality.

Large goals mean an ever-larger time of laser focus.

But writing more and more lets the newer words shine with even better polish, leaving old words behind as a finished product.

While you may not get better, with higher skill, rewriting already done material, I want to have every work of mine reflect high-caliber dedication to the craft.

Thus, the dilemma. Perfectionism isn’t healthy, but it’s also a driving force behind making quality works for countless artists in many fields.

A story can be tinkered with forever.

There is time to let it go, in the process of finishing things.

But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?

To figure out a way out of the trap, so that you might find a better form of freedom from perfectionism.

In that way, I see perfectionism as a vital tool in the kit.

It can’t be reached, but it can boost things out into orbit enough to stay afloat in the universe of fictional worlds.

There lies the balance between letting it go and making it perfect.

Do both and walk the line.