Perfection

Editing is a pain in the butt.

To be completely honest, I rarely make it to this point. I've been trying to finish a decent novel since the fourth grade, and every time I normally give up before I even finish the first draft. I blame it on my perfectionism, and the whole "EVERY WORD MUST BE PERFECTLY PLACED NO EXCEPTIONS" feeling. I edit as I write, then give up when it's still not coming out absolutely perfectly. One time I restarted a novel four times, and worked on it for a good two years, without even making it to the halfway point.

The biggest problem with this habit of mine is that I end up with countless different projects of varying degrees of completion, with nothing actually done. I've been writing for almost ten years, and I still have yet to actually finish a project to the point that I am satisfied with the final product.

It gets frustrating, sometimes. Sometimes it feels like I've been wasting my time, working for years with nothing solid to show for it. But the one thing that can pick me up when I feel like this is looking through my old writing.

Sure, it's bad. Terrible, even. A good half of it isn't done, and the half that is done is filled with very poor plot points and explanations and little--if any--character development. But honestly...it's cool. It's cool to look back at my thoughts from when I was sixteen, fifteen, fourteen. It's cool to see the ideas I had then; the snippets I wrote when I wasn't paying attention in math class and the piles upon piles of notebooks I filled throughout the course of my high school career.

So even though I have mountains of projects that will probably never be completed, I think the little collection that I've grown over the years proves that I do have something to show for it. And I enjoy taking the time to read and rediscover it. Until I realize just how poorly it was written and cringe in embarrassment, anyway.

But that's cool, too. Because it means that, at the very least, I've improved a little bit. Even though the words may not be perfect, they're at least a little closer.

But editing is still a pain in the butt.

Until later,

- Justyne