Why am I even doing this? I’ve been wondering that since I decided I wanted to cultivate a digital garden…after hearing about it on Peregrine Coast Press’s discord. The conversation discussed how it’s not like blogging, how not everything has to be polished and ready to publish in order to be sent out to the world.
Perfection has been a problem of mine.
I’m a writer — a term that still feels odd to apply to myself even though I’ve been doing this for years — and my downfall has always been drafting. I’d start a draft, write 1,000 or 2,000 words, and then just delete the whole thing. I didn’t bother to save any of the draft. I would just delete it so it was gone… forever.
Perhaps this was never the best approach, but I am so paranoid about not writing something that it perfect. God forbid I have to go back and revise something (even though I love to help others edit & revise their work). No, I have something to prove. Or nothing. Really, it’s nothing.
So, anyway, this digital garden is an attempt at that. An attempt to be fine with things not being refined… and be fine with refining over time.
In November, I completed NaNoWriMo and the hardest part was writing without spending anytime worried about how something would sound. It took about two weeks of consistent writing to be able to leave that need to make everything right the first time go away. And while it’s not completely gone, it’s definitely better.
So, cheers to that, I guess.