It’s only a first draft.
Summer passes lazily. I like having my coffee (with lots of cream and sugar) on my thigh when I write, like the perfect picture of productivity, and it’s getting a little easier. I admit I went through a lull with new words for the better part of this year, even when I was between edit rounds with GEARBREAKERS, so joy for my own advice working—anything a day is a day I wrote, and then, and then, it’s getting better all the time. I’m getting better all the time, I think. I don’t feel as stuck. Even when I do feel stuck I’m still going; I’m trying to be less of a perfectionist.
It’s only a first draft. It’s word vomit sometimes and a sickly, sorry sentence here and there and I don’t have to fix it right now.
I feel like that’s a difficult concept for me. Potentially it stems from the timed essays from high schools, this many words in this slice of your day, worth fifteen percent of your grade. Potentially some part of me says “However if you make it perfect now and it won’t stress you out later”—listen, who invited you, it’s stressing me out now, and for why, and for what purpose?
It’s only a first draft. It means I’ve only just started and I have a ton of work ahead of me, but I can take that to be comforting, if I stop taking myself so seriously.
Zoe Hana Mikuta 