On Getting Stuff Done, A New Cover & Perfectionism...
Top o' the Monday to you, or something like that...
Last week was super productive...which is awesome. Aside from one
day that I got no writing done due to extreme busy-ness at the day job
and a minor setback with the next holiday serial resulting in the
deletion/rewriting of several paragraphs, it was a really good writing
week. I also managed to get one cover done (hey, better than none,
right?), another square and a half done on the afghan I'm making, and
most importantly, I finished the revisions to The Handyman's Dancer and sent the draft off to annoy my editor for awhile! Hooray!
Incidentally, here's the new cover for The Handyman's Dancer :
Am I in love with the cover? Well, no, to be honest. But I think
that it fits with the series as it stands now, it gives a good overall
vibe for the tone of the book, and it conveys the most important parts
of the story - the parts that make the story what it is. Eventually I'd
like to have all three covers in the Fantasy Ranch series completely
redone, but I don't have the time at the moment and I'm lacking in
creative vision for them as well. So this will work for now, and just as
soon as I've got the concept for better covers down, I'll redo them
all.
This whole process, especially with THD has me thinking about
perfectionism, and glad I'm not bound by it as some people are. I'm
quite sure perfectionists will cringe at that statement, and be
absolutely horrified that I could even consider publishing something
that I don't consider "perfect" from all angles, but the huge problem
with that is that if I waited until I thought any book, cover, blurb or
anything else was perfect, I would *never publish a single thing*. Ever.
Here's my dirty little secret: nothing I do is ever "perfect" in my
eyes. Stories, crochet projects, work projects - it makes no
difference. I can always, always find something that needs improvement
in my own work. When I get a negative review? I'm highly likely to agree
with at least part of it, and whatever I don't, I can see how a person
with different experiences and filters than I might think the way they
do (which is one of the reasons I don't read reviews at all).
People deal with this in one of two ways. Perfectionists, as we
call them, constantly strive for what they cannot reach. Some of them
get over it enough to actually produce things, others never do.
The other way to deal with it is how I manage, and that is not to
strive for perfection, but to give myself hard deadlines and strive for
"good enough". And yes, I'm fully aware that perfectionists of the first
order sneer rather heartily at my approach. The thing is, my
personality is such that if it has to be as close to perfect as possible
before I release something into the wild (no matter what it is), I just
won't do it. The fear of failure, the absolute knowledge that
perfection is utterly unattainable is mind-numbing for me. If I know I'm
going to fail before I even start, I just won't do it. And I know for a
fact that I can never produce a perfect product.
It might be worth noting at this point that people often point out
to me that my "good enough" is still a fairly high standard. And I don't
just slap things together and toss them out without though. This cover
took me weeks of looking through images, swapping things out, moving
things around and general angst about the whole thing. And even though i
have a general policy of not doing any kind of major revisions on
drafts once they're done, THD's basic plot line was flawed in the first
round, so I took the time to go back and make the revisions to fix that
(hated every second, but I did it). I think the key to staying sane for
me is channeling my perfectionist tendencies into limited boundaries,
but not allowing them enough room to make me freeze in place.
Deep thoughts for a Monday, eh?
Time to move on to more important things than navel-gazing...like this week's to-do list:
- Final edits/formatting/release for English Breakfast
- Cover art for one more book
- Two serial scenes
- Finish a holiday serial installment
- Start a new holiday serial installment (hopefully finish too)
- Crochet a few more afghan squares
- Make a hair appointment (why can I never remember to do this until I really, really need it?)
That's enough, I think...anything else will just be gravy. Who doesn't like gravy, right?
Here's to another good week...and school starting up again soon (so
the neighborhood kids & teens will have something productive to do
too)!
Enjoy
this post? Support your author:
Last week was super productive...which is awesome. Aside from one
day that I got no writing done due to extreme busy-ness at the day job
and a minor setback with the next holiday serial resulting in the
deletion/rewriting of several paragraphs, it was a really good writing
week. I also managed to get one cover done (hey, better than none,
right?), another square and a half done on the afghan I'm making, and
most importantly, I finished the revisions to The Handyman's Dancer and sent the draft off to annoy my editor for awhile! Hooray!
Incidentally, here's the new cover for The Handyman's Dancer :
Am I in love with the cover? Well, no, to be honest. But I think
that it fits with the series as it stands now, it gives a good overall
vibe for the tone of the book, and it conveys the most important parts
of the story - the parts that make the story what it is. Eventually I'd
like to have all three covers in the Fantasy Ranch series completely
redone, but I don't have the time at the moment and I'm lacking in
creative vision for them as well. So this will work for now, and just as
soon as I've got the concept for better covers down, I'll redo them
all.
This whole process, especially with THD has me thinking about
perfectionism, and glad I'm not bound by it as some people are. I'm
quite sure perfectionists will cringe at that statement, and be
absolutely horrified that I could even consider publishing something
that I don't consider "perfect" from all angles, but the huge problem
with that is that if I waited until I thought any book, cover, blurb or
anything else was perfect, I would *never publish a single thing*. Ever.
Here's my dirty little secret: nothing I do is ever "perfect" in my
eyes. Stories, crochet projects, work projects - it makes no
difference. I can always, always find something that needs improvement
in my own work. When I get a negative review? I'm highly likely to agree
with at least part of it, and whatever I don't, I can see how a person
with different experiences and filters than I might think the way they
do (which is one of the reasons I don't read reviews at all).
People deal with this in one of two ways. Perfectionists, as we
call them, constantly strive for what they cannot reach. Some of them
get over it enough to actually produce things, others never do.
The other way to deal with it is how I manage, and that is not to
strive for perfection, but to give myself hard deadlines and strive for
"good enough". And yes, I'm fully aware that perfectionists of the first
order sneer rather heartily at my approach. The thing is, my
personality is such that if it has to be as close to perfect as possible
before I release something into the wild (no matter what it is), I just
won't do it. The fear of failure, the absolute knowledge that
perfection is utterly unattainable is mind-numbing for me. If I know I'm
going to fail before I even start, I just won't do it. And I know for a
fact that I can never produce a perfect product.
It might be worth noting at this point that people often point out
to me that my "good enough" is still a fairly high standard. And I don't
just slap things together and toss them out without though. This cover
took me weeks of looking through images, swapping things out, moving
things around and general angst about the whole thing. And even though i
have a general policy of not doing any kind of major revisions on
drafts once they're done, THD's basic plot line was flawed in the first
round, so I took the time to go back and make the revisions to fix that
(hated every second, but I did it). I think the key to staying sane for
me is channeling my perfectionist tendencies into limited boundaries,
but not allowing them enough room to make me freeze in place.
Deep thoughts for a Monday, eh?
Time to move on to more important things than navel-gazing...like this week's to-do list:
- Final edits/formatting/release for English Breakfast
- Cover art for one more book
- Two serial scenes
- Finish a holiday serial installment
- Start a new holiday serial installment (hopefully finish too)
- Crochet a few more afghan squares
- Make a hair appointment (why can I never remember to do this until I really, really need it?)
That's enough, I think...anything else will just be gravy. Who doesn't like gravy, right?
Here's to another good week...and school starting up again soon (so
the neighborhood kids & teens will have something productive to do
too)!
Enjoy
this post? Support your author:
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