Writers who are perfectionists usually procrastinate, waiting for inspiration to magically strike so they can create the perfect work. Unfortunately nothing ever gets written, or at least finished, because they’re rarely in that inspired state to create a perfect manuscript, let alone a perfect paragraph or sentence.

Unfortunately, telling an author that to merely be close to perfect they need to write and not worry about the quality, as that will come the more one writes, usually fails to get the perfectionist into a chair writing away. That’s because perfectionism arises from an overpowering set of unrealistic aspirations that trump logic.

If your goal is unrealistic, you almost always will suffer from anxiety that leaves you worried and hopeless. Imagine if you decided to climb Mount Everest but never trained for mountain hiking. Once you were dropped at the mountain’s base and told to get started, you’d freeze at the insurmountable task ahead of you. Aspiring perfectionist writers often face this same fear when they sit down to write a novel. All of that empty white paper before them might as well be a snow-packed trail that stretches into infinity.

The best friend of unrealistic goals is an overcritical inner voice that tells you the dream can’t be achieved. This voice isn’t satisfied telling you that safety is the best part of valor as you stand at Mt. Everest’s base; instead, it says, “What were you even thinking? You’re so stupid for having this dream. You’ll never be able to reach the top; whatever made you entertain the notion that you could?” Because of this inner voice, perfectionists almost always falls short of their own unrealistic standards. They either achieve something great or consider themselves worthless.

You can be a successful writer, but first you must learn to silence your inner critic. Begin with a journal entry listing all of the things you like about yourself. These can be positive traits that characters espouse in the stories you’ll pen.

You must recognize those “all or nothing” thoughts and instead tell yourself that you can be appreciated and respected for the “small” things you do. Start by writing a single beautiful sentence. Then pen a beautiful paragraph. That amount is not only good enough, it’s more than most people ever will write. And it’s cumulative. Today’s 30 pages of a written novel is the page you write every day for the past month all put together.

You must find others who encourage you to write and are less concerned with quality than the pleasure and beauty all writing brings, even if it only be by reading their blogs. While only you can turn off your inner critic, being around others who’ve mastered theirs will rub off.

You must abandon all negative and critical thoughts of others. For example, when reading a book, look for the beauty in it, not the failings. Nothing is perfect, but we do not have to emphasize the imperfections. Stop doing it with others, and you may stop doing it to yourself.

While you may never be able to entirely vanquish your inner critic (and I’m not sure that you would want to), you can turn down his volume and hear less frequently from him. The small steps you take to do this will lead to a sentence, then a paragraph, then pages of writing, until at last you’re looking down from the mountain top with a finished book in hand.

Writers who are perfectionists usually procrastinate, waiting for inspiration to magically strike so they can create the perfect work. Unfortunately nothing ever gets written, or at least finished, because they’re rarely in that inspired state to create a perfect manuscript, let alone a perfect paragraph or sentence.

Unfortunately, telling an author that to merely be close to perfect they need to write and not worry about the quality, as that will come the more one writes, usually fails to get the perfectionist into a chair writing away. That’s because perfectionism arises from an overpowering set of unrealistic aspirations that trump logic.

If your goal is unrealistic, you almost always will suffer from anxiety that leaves you worried and hopeless. Imagine if you decided to climb Mount Everest but never trained for mountain hiking. Once you were dropped at the mountain’s base and told to get started, you’d freeze at the insurmountable task ahead of you. Aspiring perfectionist writers often face this same fear when they sit down to write a novel. All of that empty white paper before them might as well be a snow-packed trail that stretches into infinity.

The best friend of unrealistic goals is an overcritical inner voice that tells you the dream can’t be achieved. This voice isn’t satisfied telling you that safety is the best part of valor as you stand at Mt. Everest’s base; instead, it says, “What were you even thinking? You’re so stupid for having this dream. You’ll never be able to reach the top; whatever made you entertain the notion that you could?” Because of this inner voice, perfectionists almost always falls short of their own unrealistic standards. They either achieve something great or consider themselves worthless.

You can be a successful writer, but first you must learn to silence your inner critic. Begin with a journal entry listing all of the things you like about yourself. These can be positive traits that characters espouse in the stories you’ll pen.

You must recognize those “all or nothing” thoughts and instead tell yourself that you can be appreciated and respected for the “small” things you do. Start by writing a single beautiful sentence. Then pen a beautiful paragraph. That amount is not only good enough, it’s more than most people ever will write. And it’s cumulative. Today’s 30 pages of a written novel is the page you write every day for the past month all put together.

You must find others who encourage you to write and are less concerned with quality than the pleasure and beauty all writing brings, even if it only be by reading their blogs. While only you can turn off your inner critic, being around others who’ve mastered theirs will rub off.

You must abandon all negative and critical thoughts of others. For example, when reading a book, look for the beauty in it, not the failings. Nothing is perfect, but we do not have to emphasize the imperfections. Stop doing it with others, and you may stop doing it to yourself.

While you may never be able to entirely vanquish your inner critic (and I’m not sure that you would want to), you can turn down his volume and hear less frequently from him. The small steps you take to do this will lead to a sentence, then a paragraph, then pages of writing, until at last you’re looking down from the mountain top with a finished book in hand.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.