Our Obsession with Perfection

“I’m a bit of a perfectionist.” I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard these words—in interviews, from my peers, employees or even from my bosses. I’ve probably said it a time or two myself. After a couple children and a few more years under my belt, I have to say that perfection is highly overrated. Quite frankly, I can’t understand our obsession with perfection and despite our majority acceptance of “perfection” in many different aspects of our lives, we also rebel quite a bit, hence movies like Bridget Jones Diary, books like Jemima J (Jane Green), parades that celebrate our differences and straight out protests against unrealistic portrayals of men and women alike.

As you’re reading this, many of you are probably agreeing with what I’m writing. After all, who doesn’t love the “I like you just as you are” line from good ol’ Mark Darcy, eventual love interest of Bridget Jones? And yet, when it comes to our own writing, we strive and expect perfection. I’ll admit that even saying this and even though I know perfection is impossible and not really necessary, this is an area that is really hard to part from. When it comes to writing, I want the best for my readers and even going back to what I have written and published, there is always something I could imagine better, always an area I need to improve and it truly drives me nuts. Then again, I have learned something on this journey, and that is that I will always be able to improve. It may be in the next book or after the next one hundred books, but it’s important to keep working toward a goal of improvement—not so much perfection.

Happy writing this week!

Filed under: romance