I took a bit of time off this past week. Not a vacation, exactly, just a break from the routine—no writing, minimal web, a lot of time out of the house. Given the amount of effort I’ve been putting into re-establishing my routine, I don’t know if it was a good idea, but at least this time, it was (sort of) planned. There were no major crises that needed managing. It was a break.
I think I needed that.
Before I took that time off, I loaded my PDA up with a nice, meaty collection of ebooks. I get twitchy if I don’t have something at hand to read, and the big bulky hardcovers I’ve been favouring recently don’t exactly fit in my purse. My PDA easily holds more than I can expect to read in a week, and it’s there for me whenever I’m bored.
Thing is, I’m not terribly picky when it comes to reading books in an electronic format. I’ll read pretty much anything I’m even vaguely interested in, or that’s been recommended by someone whose opinion I sort of trust. And I’m stubborn. If I don’t like a book, I might set it aside for a while, but I’ll probably keep pushing to the end in the hopes that it might improve. Which does happen, on rare occasions. (I’m only like this with ebooks. They don’t take up any physical space, and they don’t really cost much (if anything), so I don’t really feel like I’m losing much if I keep reading. Just time, and, sometimes, even a bad book is better than the alternative.)
The books I’ve been reading lately, though….
Not all of them have been terrible. Some of them, I’ve gone out and bought actual, physical copies of, I liked them so much. Some have been guilty pleasures. Some I haven’t cared for, but that’s just a matter of taste. They’re not poorly written, just not my thing. (I’m not naming names: the books I really enjoyed, or the ones I’m willing to admit to reading, were in the sidebar. The ones I’m not willing to admit to… weren’t.)
But I can’t imagine how some of them managed to get published. Clunky plots that don’t make any sense. Sentences that don’t make any sense. Awkward dialogue, and a weird need to explain everything that a character is thinking at a given time, and why.
Someone paid the authors to write these books—and in a number of cases, asked for sequels. They’re put out by small, but reputable, publishers. I’ve looked at reviews of these books, and, while the responses are mixed, there are still plenty of people who rave about the books, and the authors.
It’s easy, as a writer—especially an unpublished writer—to get frustrated by this sort of thing. After all, I know that I can do better. Sure, I write (more than) my share of clunky plots, and iffy sentences. I need to work on my dialogue. I don’t usually over-explain my characters’ thoughts and motivations… if anything, I tend to make them a little too opaque. But I’m very aware of those flaws in my writing, and (hopefully) manage to catch them as I progress through the drafts. I’d never dream of showing my work to someone until I thought it was perfect.
And that is where I run into trouble.
The truth of the matter is this: the authors of those books I’ve been reading, the ones that are so terrible? They’re braver than I am. Or maybe more foolhardy, but the difference doesn’t matter in the end. They’re getting published, and I’m not, because they’re taking a chance. (Or took a chance, years ago, and are still reaping the rewards.) I’m sitting here with a collection of half-finished not-quite-perfect manuscripts.
Now, I’m not really sure how much—or if—this realization is going to change the way I do things. It’s a short step from I can do better than that to thinking that “better than that” is good enough, but… it really isn’t. I’m not going to set the bar that low. I can’t. I’m still not going to let anyone see my first drafts.
But it will do me good to remember that there is an enthusiastic audience out there for pretty much everything. And I’m not going to find that audience—or vice versa—if I don’t start putting my work out there. Perfectionism isn’t doing me any favours.
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