Some other month, I'm going to have to explore the whole topic of fear--because it's a mountain, or rather, a mountain range, that every writer will encounter at some point along their journey. For now, suffice it to say that I've scaled my share.
Probably the most paralyzing fear I've faced is this: what if I don't write the piece perfectly? What if I don't stumble upon the one correct way to express this thought? I didn't phrase it in those exact words--or I would have seen the absurdity of the fear--but whenever I'd sit down to write, my hands would hover over the keyboard and a long moment of anxiety would grip me. Sometimes, I'd feel so overwhelmed and daunted that I'd just get up and walk away. I'd reason with myself that it was pointless to try to write without inspiration--so I wouldn't.
That works just fine is you're not serious about being a writer, or if you're not facing a deadline. But when you ARE serious about your calling, and you DO have a deadline, you can't afford to let anxiety steal your writing time. You have to apply yourself to your chair and force those fingers to make contact with the keyboard.
Getting a book contract didn't erase my fear. What helped was this: I realized, one morning, while struggling to find that one perfect way to begin a chapter, that I was shooting for an unreasonable goal. I wanted my writing to be perfect. But that wasn't possible. The only perfect piece of literature is Scripture. And since that's the only perfect writing in existence, that means that by default, everything else is flawed. Everything else. No matter how important this project is to me, no matter how high my hopes or how much I want it to minister to people--it's not Scripture.
Reaching that conclusion didn't give me permission to write junk. I still need (and want) to offer my best. But it freed me from the trap of perfectionism. It helped me realize that there was not one right way to begin a chapter--there were dozens. Maybe hundreds. And if time permitted, I could try out those dozens or hundreds. Or I could just settle on the one that felt right to me. So that's what I did. And you know what? When I received my very first copy of my first published book and ripped open the package and flipped through those pages . . . I found some passive verbs. Not a ton, mind you, but enough. I found words I'd change now, because I'm a better writer today than I was the day I sent my final manuscript to my publisher. (That's the beauty of forcing those fingers to the keyboard every morning--you automatically get better.)
Know how I comforted myself when I faced those in-print, imperfect words? I thought, "Oh, well. It's not Scripture."
Do your best. Trust your instincts. Leave the results to God. And spend a little time today reading the world's only piece of perfect literature. Then take a moment to praise its Author.
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