Progress, Not Perfection

Someone told me once that I have the opposite problem of a perfectionist. That I tend to put books out before they're perfect and just see what happens. That I drop details. It hurt a little (okay, a lot) because I know it's true. I don’t drop details because I’m careless or clueless. I feel like I missed those details because I was burned out by focusing on a thousand others. Ideal? No. But that is my current reality.

Haunted by Perfection

When I first began to learn about the publishing industry around 2003, self-publishing was still considered “vanity” and noses were raised. It was important to me to be able to control the content of my books and maintain the copyrights, but I was terrified of looking unprofessional if I self-published. I decided to create my own publishing imprint and spent the next few years teaching myself to format in InDesign with professional layout standards. I read books on grammar, punctuation, and the Chicago Manual of Style.

I even learned to format Ebooks the old-fashioned way: with HTML. At the time, my laptop had no battery juice and if even jostled, it would lose connection to the power cord - and all work that was not manually saved. I’m not sure how many times I got wrapped up in HTML for over an hour, so absorbed I didn’t hit the save button and then…. bump. “Noooooo!” I told myself the redone work was “extra practice.”

Around 2012, I published the original Across the Distance as an ebook that actually began to sell even though I didn’t advertise it or really even tell my friends it was available. Even though it was selling with no marketing from me, I got scared and pulled it off. It just didn’t seem “good enough.” And I was desperate to be professional.

I began rewriting all of my manuscripts despite the echoes of, “Wait, I thought you finished that one!”

Progress, Not Perfection

Then I met Nate Wagner through an online group. At the time Nate was working on his first book, Sibling Suicide, and I was getting Across the Distance ready for re-publishing, caught up in fear that I would regret releasing and it should go through yet another revamp.

Nate said, “Remember, progress, not perfection," and introduced me to the catchphrase that would go on to serve as the theme for his consulting website where he coaches people through grief, parenting, and goals.

As we cheered each other’s publishing journeys on, that became our cheer . . . along with “Don’t be Tinker Bell.” Tinker Bell happens when you reach the point of rewriting where it doesn’t feel like any good gains are coming from reworking the text and you’re just “tinkering.” Tinkering is a fancy form of procrastination, and that’s when you know it’s time to put your book out there. (It may still have a few flaws.)

It was advice that served me well. You only learn about writing and publishing by writing and publishing. I was working with very limited funds, so I had to use the equipment that I had and as much knowledge as I had gained so far.

Was it always professional? No.

Did I improve as I went? Yes.

Was it a lot of work? Oh, yes.

Did I miss details? Um, yeah...

Do I cringe at some of my past attempts? Absolutely!

But I had to do those things. I had to get brave enough to talk into a camera for teaching videos; enough to get over my self-conscience awareness that my face is never doing what I think it’s doing. Because if I didn’t put things out until I thought they were completely ready, they would never go out at all. If I didn’t do things that made me uncomfortable, I would never learn to become comfortable.

Current Progress

I have been home for 16 weeks now, working on getting Ever Ink Press back in gear. I have fit writing Carter’s story and the final polish to The Calling/Called into a limited slot of writing time. I haven’t blogged as much. And I’m really thinking about what I do and don’t want to put on social media. I am working several random jobs while getting a more-stable career in place.

 

Outwardly, there has been little to tell people about progress and when I have tried, it sounds like a complaint session. So I’ve avoided posting anything at all.

But I realized: in the 16 weeks since coming home, I have:

Completed 4 ebook layouts for Ever Ink Press and read through each one

Completed 3.5 physical layouts for Ever Ink Press and read through each one

Completed 2 content edits for a client

Completed 1 physical layout for a client

Given feedback sessions for 2 writers

Uploaded 4 ebooks to Smashwords

Canceled my Ohio LLC

Closed my Ohio Bank Account

Changed all info for my online publishers and classes back to Texas

Made steps toward re-opening my business in Texas

Was asked and agreed to resume teaching writing lessons in Palacios

I share this, not to complain or brag, but to show you what it really looks like to be a working writer, at least in my experience. I would never discourage anyone from becoming a writer, even if they only want to write a book for its own sake. But making a living through publishing your own books is work, just as any other job. (Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something… ;) )

And even though I am trying hard to catch every last detail (did you know it’s ‘stepdad’ and not ‘step-dad’?) the years of forcing myself to “just do the next thing” has been keeping me going.

It’s helping me fight the thoughts that seem to be caught on a loop of, Oh look, you’re here again. Right where you started. Did you really think it will be different this time when everything you’ve done the last 15-20 years has just fizzled or had to be redone? When are you going to stop sacrificing everything for nothing?

The mental battle has been real. Sometimes my brain scolds me for not working WHILE I am working. But I have found a way around that too and will share it in an upcoming blog.

 Professionalism . . . or People?

All this came to a head while I was formatting the text for Across the Distance. I’ve decided to break the rules, giving my books a larger-than-standard font. In fact, though it’s on the baseline end for being considered “large print,” I took the page with 2 sizes to some friends and asked which was easier for them to read. Then I revamped my books accordingly with fonts a little bigger than average and allowing more space between lines than average. (If you have read Between or Among, you have seen what I am talking about.)

I’m experimenting a bit with the layout to make it seem more immersive: easier to read, easier to focus and stay inside the story.

Will it work? Will my reader’s comfort trump the additional expense of extra pages and having to redo at least the spines, if not the covers for the new editions? I think so. I won’t know for sure until I release it. I'll have to, um, put it out there and see what happens. (I’ll let you know when I do.)

My only other option is to play it safe and show off my "professional knowledge" of standard skills by doing what is expected, following the publishing standards I learned from a book back in 2012.

Embracing Uniqueness

One of the good things that my recent stay in Ohio showed me was reminding me that I am not everyone else. My brain works differently than many people’s. I don’t follow formulas when I write. My characters come up with better storylines than I could ever dictate. One of my best assets as an author is to “get inside their heads” and narrate the story from their point of view, even if it’s written in the 3rd person (using him/her instead of I).

Though the school taught methods that may work well for many writers, I had rejected many of those before the school, and they were a deliberate choice from thought-out reasoning. Being forced to do everything according to formulas and a very specific style just reenforced to me that I had instinctively made the right choice for my own books. What makes me unique as a person is what makes my writing unique. And no matter what my insecurities whisper, there is nothing wrong with my brain.

Freed From Perfection

It’s taken sixteen weeks to recalibrate the comments in my head, to find my own thoughts again and sort them out from things people have said to me over the last 20 (I mean twenty) years of my publishing journey. Sometimes I can roll with feedback feeling grateful for it, and sometimes even constructive criticism has a way of making me freeze every time I work on the thing.

I started out with a chart filled with my “daily routine” which included everything from housework to errands to drafting novels and publishing books to watering the garden and a hodgepodge of jobs I have picked up. And it was too much to start up all at once.

So I erased it.

I put only the things I need to do before I can do all the others. And those are what I have been working on.

Do the best you can with the resources you have.

Progress, not perfection. And you know what? All those intruding thoughts are starting to fade. My confidence is returning. My brain is showing me ways to work more efficiently. I'm starting, once again, to feel the same hope I used to love giving others. I’m feeling reignited.