Is it Good Enough?

image from http://www.greythinking.com/

One of the problems that often hinders the work of creative people is perfectionism. Because of high (and usually unrealistic) self-expectations, we either don’t get started, or never finish. How many times have you shared a piece of work with friends, family, colleagues, or even harsh critics and, despite resounding praise and approval, put the work away never to show it again?

Not yet, we say to ourselves; it’s just not good enough.

Besides, perfectionists can’t be satisfied with “good enough” – we aim for the stars and anything less than that is absolutely NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!

Good enough?

Hogwash! That’s an insult to the mysterious and all-powerful muse! We’d rather die than merely be “good enough”.

And so we wallow around in the manic spurts of exhilarating production dissipated by abusive self-ranting. When the tides come and go rapidly, it’s exhausting; when they slow, it’s simply a life defined by manic depression.

 And that sucks.

I can’t say I’ve overcome the curse of perfectionism, but during one of my seasons of psycho-therapy, I gained a useful tool: it’s good enough.

No, really! This is a great tool! Don’t stop reading yet – give me a chance to explain.

“Good enough” is BETTER than nothing, and while we are waiting for perfection (in other words, beating ourselves up at every step that leads to perfection ), we create NOTHING.

Now let me tell you, if you want cause for punishment, it’s NOTHING.  You want to feel lousy about yourself? Try this one: I’m a creator who creates NOTHING.

Now, that’s shameful.

Roll that thought around in your head until it becomes your own. Swallow it so that you really get it in the depths of your being. Go ahead, think about it some more. When you own it, you can get to step 2.

Step 2: get started. Do what you can. Do the best you can do today even though that best isn’t anywhere near the best you believe you can do on some other, far-away fictitious day. Then say to yourself, “it’s good enough.”

Now, believe it.

Here’s a grain of truth: “Good enough” really is GOOD ENOUGH, and that is faaaaaar better than nothing.

What have you created today – GOOD ENOUGH, or NOTHING?

Review: Kentucky Women Writer's Conference

I attended the Kentucky Women Writer’s Conference this weekend – my first ever writer’s conference! Full of expectation and yet expecting nothing at all, I went with an open mind with my spontaneity sensors all tuned up and shiny.

I can’t tell you yet specifically what I learned because I’m still swallowing it; it isn’t yet mine. Only when it is truly mine can I give it away. I can, however, turn to what Heather Sellers refers to as “the decoy” – the story I can talk about.

1)    1)   A two-part session with Heather Sellers titled Page After Page: Inspiration Meets Craft: 10 tips for finishing your book was serendipitously exactly what I needed to hear. Some of her tips are already a part of my writing ways and hearing them validated was both encouraging and energizing. I especially loved #3: “You won’t find time because Time isn’t hiding, you are”. In discussing this one, she commented that if you are creative enough to write, you can be creative enough to find time, or rather, use time creatively. Entertaining as well as relevant and real in a raw kind of way, Heather is an awesome presenter who made the conference well worth my hard-earned cash and precious time.

2)      2) Agent and publicist Erin Cox was the other great gem of the Kentucky Women Writer’s Conference for me. I was ready and ripe for words from the inside of the publishing world.

Kudos to the conference organizers and supporters! The Kentucky Women Writer’s Conference is a great conference – not too big; not too small; not too long and not over-packed. My first writer’s conference experience was tremendous and I would definitely recommend this one to other aspiring writers. Look forward to next year’s conference and be sure to register early so you can participate in small, specialized workshops because they fill up quickly!

New Writing Venue

Our writing group now has a new meeting venue. We met for the first time last night at Art and Soul, Muncie’s newest art gallery. Surrounded by the beauty, energy, and even haunting power of the paintings on display, we were in an environment rich with creative spirit and profound inspiration.

We were compelled to write about the artwork around us. In the process of writing, each of us experienced that mysterious, magical, and majestic thing that happens when hands and paper and pens are propelled by a force beyond our own selves and produces surprises that no one could have predicted.

The hairs on my arms stand up when I tell you that all muses were present!

I was exhausted by the time I got home. Mentally I was spent from a day of hard work, and physically I ached from too much sitting all day. But my spirit was dancing like the whole chorus line in an exuberant finale as creativity bubbled to the surface of my consciousness. Ideas were coming out of the tightly twisted mass of my brain and they were good – all of them! The muses wouldn’t let me sleep – I was high and in love.

Oh, to be submerged in the warm, gooey, organic ecstasy of human creativity and divine inspiration is what this life is all about! I am so fortunate to be right here, right now, and to share this time and space with these people!

It is well; it is well with my soul!

Art and Soul

Note: Photo provided by "Downtown Muncie"

Mind Explosions

I wake up and while my body is stiff and slow, awkward and cumbersome, my mind is gazelle-like swift and agile. It’s not necessarily good, just rich with thoughts, ideas, and sophisticated language. It races from one thought to another though, so it is difficult for me to harness and develop any one thought into a creative masterpiece. It is great stuff I find flying all around me, but it evades me. These incredible lightening bugs of the mind are like a rock skipping over the smooth surface of a motionless lake. And diving for it later to find where it landed is always futile. This morning explosion of the mind feels like a gift has been given to me, then snatched away before I can claim it.


No, no, no. That is victim talk and I refuse to dance with the devil. Let me re-center my thinking and take a different perspective:

The gift is already mine; I just have to figure out how to open it.

Ah! I see, what I am really facing then is an opportunity to work through a lesson and master a skill…. Yes! And the lesson smacks me directly in the face bringing me to full conscious attention: it’s all about focus, self control, and discipline. Ugh. These things are threatening and nasty little irritants to my spirit that is ever lustfully passionate about its freedom. There is some logic that fuels the fear that if I genuinely focus on one inspiration, all the others will flitter away like milk weed seeds in an autumn breeze. I do indeed believe they will as they always have.


So I have to ask myself, what does it matter if 99 slip away so long as I capture one? The alternative is to capture none and that of course, sends me spiraling downward into defeat and despair, a place that is very similar to being stuck in a snow drift. No, no, not going there… then I have to consider capturing one inspiration and indulging in its potential!


Later in the day, when my mind is more dull to creativity and more sharp to practical conclusions, I will ask myself, how can I harness my mind?