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When I was an undergraduate student, I discovered my writing process did not quite fit the method taught in school. I felt self-conscious about this. However, in a recent assigned reading during my first MFA course, published author Katherine Tower describe the shame she felt about her writing process:

Years ago, when I wrote my first novel, I read books on how to write my own novel and most of them said, Sit down, write a draft straight through, don’t look back. Just get it out, get it on the page, and then you can go back and fix it. But I couldn’t do this. I was completely incapable of doing this. And I thought for a long time, you know, I’m doing it wrong, obviously I don’t really know how to write a novel. I’m clearly doing it wrong because all the books tell you to do it the other way. I couldn’t write any other way but going back over and over again to perfect one chapter so I could go to the next chapter. That was the only way I could write.

I finally decided, well, I just won’t tell anyone that this is what I’m doing because I know I’m doing it wrong, but I can’t do it any other way. And eventually I got to other writers, like Anne Faderman, who is really wonderful in talking about this, about what it means to be a diamond polisher, and she said, “If that’s your process, that’s your process. Do not fight it.” So, I’ve sort of accepted my own perfectionism and my need to revise repeatedly to work slowly. But there are times when I wish I could get over it.

Katherine Towler (qtd. in Literary Hub)

Diamond polisher. For the first time, there was a term for what I did. In a previous post, I wrote about a method called chunking, composing on one small portion of a text at a time. When I am using this method, I first begin by rereading the chunk that I wrote immediately before it. Rereading the previous section helps me get back into the flow of the text. Of course, as I reread, I always see things that need revising, so every writing session first begins as a revision session. Once I am happy with the previous chunk, I move on to composing the new section.

I remember doing this as an undergrad. Whenever I started an assigned essay, I worked on one paragraph until I was happy with it and then moved on to the next. I was always told that this was a slower way of working. Maybe it is, I have never conducted a timed comparison. However, I always made my deadlines, and I always got an “A.” It seems the final product is proof of the process.

I wasn’t convinced of this when I was younger, though. I thought my process was a dirty secret based on the dark drive of perfectionism. Some claim to be perfectionists with pride. I think those people may be confusing attention to detail with perfectionism. Perfectionism is the constant drive to improve, but always falling short. A perfectionist can never reach their goal because perfection is impossible. The only way to deal with this demon is to accept it. If you are driven towards perfectionism, you must learn to accept “good enough.” For many, the words “good enough” means just enough to meet the requirements. For the perfectionist, it means realizing you will never achieve results that are beyond critique. When a perfectionist finally accepts this, they can do great things. Leslie Jamison explains it this way:

It’s funny, I think I don’t necessarily experience perfectionism as an obstacle, if only because I never feel that I am approaching the possibility of a perfect work. But I think that for me, I feel really saved by everything that drafting and redrafting is, because knowing my work, almost all my work, has gone through so many drafts. That can be paralyzing because, you know, you thought you were done with the thing, and now you have to do it six more times, but I actually usually experience that as liberating. Because I have a certain set of things I’m trying to do in the first draft, but I can’t do everything in the first draft, so I’m literally just trying to provide an account of something. And I know that it’s sort of deferred onto this other layer of hypothetical drafts, so I can stop worrying. 

Leslie Jamison (qtd. in Literary Hub)

Most diamonds are not perfect. Most have characteristic flaws that make them unique. Yet, despite their flaws, they are carefully cut and lovingly polished into the brilliant gems that we ultimately value. This is how I see my process and my final product. I begin with the acceptance that it will be flawed, but then I carefully cut and polish until it becomes a thing of value, not a flawless thing, just something of value.

Work Cited

Literary Hub “Do Writers Need to Be Alone to Thrive?” Literary Hub, 24 June 2016, lithub.com/do-writers-need-to-be-alone-to-thrive/.