The Point is Progress, Not Perfection

Does "thinking" and "showing up" count as progress? I think so.

This time last year, I packed a suitcase full of knit sweaters, chunky socks, and my most beloved writing references, kissed my husband and 23-month-old daughter goodbye, and flew to Boston. After a night of sipping whiskey on the couch with my brother, he let me borrow his hand-me-down Nissan Murano to drive four hours north to Johnson, Vermont, where I’d spend the next two weeks writing.

It was a long-delayed opportunity to attend a writer’s residency at Vermont Studio Center, where I’d been previously accepted to a four-week program on scholarship—but for April 2020. For obvious reasons, the April residency never happened, and then I had a baby, and I thought I’d never get the chance to go work on the novel on which I’d been laboring. But at the start of 2022, the studio emailed to let me know that they were offering modified sessions. I could come for two weeks.

The entire purpose of residencies are to give artists the uninterrupted time, space, and freedom to create outside of the confines of their everyday obligations. In Vermont, there were no piles of laundry, lunches to pack, groceries to buy, deadlines to meet, or people to tend to. I had my own office, my own schedule, and I was fed breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. My husband agreed to hold down the fort; my mother-in-law came one weekend to assist; I made an arrangement at work that I’d take one week off and work remote the next. My scholarship didn’t rollover, but thanks to generous VSC donors, the cost was still one I managed to access. None of it was the original agreement (I was still a childless freelancer when I was accepted in December 2019), but all better than nothing.

A few snapshots from my two weeks in Johnson

It was two of the most productive, inspiring weeks of my life. I read books and talked about art, literature, and the act of creating with painters, sculptors, and other writers. I sat still. I agonized over words and pages and plot and character development. I scribbled notes. I reconnected with myself and my writing goals. I drank whiskey by a campfire and smoked a bowl out of a tiny handmade pumpkin bong and had the kind of intimate conversations that you can only have with other creatively tortured, wild-haired artists. Even strangers can speak the same language when it comes to creativity.

I left with a full heart and a very rough, incomplete manuscript of 48,000 words—nearly half my goal. Upon my return home, knowing we were heading straight into holiday chaos and that I need to give my family my undivided attention, I took some distance from my manuscript. I’d get back to it soon.

Reader, I have not reopened that file in one year.

I don’t love telling you this. I am a hustler, a go-getter, an Aries with an excess dopamine problem. I don’t let dreams die. I want to tell you that, since I began writing this little dream project in 2020, that I’ve at least completed a first draft (knowing I could write upwards of 5–10 drafts before even pitching). I want to keep the ball rolling, prove to you my relevance and grit, wow you with my juggling of genres.

But life happened. Work is persistent. There has been a family to tend to. This year, I chose to prioritize other things: the occasional freelance gig for extra cash, intentional time with my daughter, meal planning, sleep, this newsletter. I don’t regret these choices, but I do have to console myself when I remember my manuscript, the one collecting dust in the bowels of my hard drive.

It’s November, which means it’s NaNoWriMo time, when writers are encouraged to set and achieve writing goals and, if they knock out a novel, even better. Instead of BLURT’s bimonthly dispatch, I could be using my morning writing time to finish my debut novel. But I don’t. Not right now. I have a feeling now is not the time.

Recently, my friend, Danielle, a former editor I know from my days at Bon Appétit magazine, asked me to give a talk on maintaining a consistent writing practice to some ex-media folks in the community she founded, TK CO. The questions were centered mostly around advice for someone wanting to start and/or maintain a writing practice, how I structure my own practice, etc. I was honored to be asked, and after 40 minutes of rattling on about motivation and goals, I hoped I gave them actionable tools to succeed.

During the Q&A, a fellow writer asked, “As far as your novel goes, what’s the longest you’ve put it down and just not picked it up again. Because I’m there now.”

I was honest, of course. But I also admitted to him that I think about it all the time, almost daily. I jot down scenes when I think of them. I mull over my characters and their motivations. I imagine their histories. I read novels with similar plot lines. I explore what’s happening in the industry, what’s on bookstore shelves, what kinds of stories people are talking about and why. Even though I’m not actively writing the novel, I haven’t abandoned it. It lives with me every day, and I hope, in the meantime, I’m becoming more equipped to write a better story, to finish a first draft, then a second and third draft wiser than when I started. I also reminded the group that the point is progress, not perfection. My advice wasn’t just for them.

It was my beloved Anne Lamott who wrote:

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.”

Plus, progress comes in all varieties. Come to think of it, life is like that, too. I know I’ll finish the novel. I’ll know when it’s time to reopen that file. In the meantime, I make progress, personally and professionally, in the ways that are sustainable to me.

For now, this newsletter is a huge motivator in maintaining my writing practice. It gets me out of bed before 6 a.m. and in front of my computer most mornings. Some days I write swaths of usable material. Others I stare at a blank screen. There are days on which I write something and later reread and think, “Oof, nope.” Trash.

But I show up, and showing up to the page matters. Thinking about the work matters. Even when I don’t make physical progress, my efforts matter, because they move me forward, even if only emotionally and energetically. My husband likes to remind me that progress is not linear. It’s two steps forward and three steps back. But every step counts.