Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Write-ish, the one-stop shop on your writer journey where we discuss everything writing related from shiny new ideas through publication and marketing.
Speaker: Whether it's on the indie or traditional path and the ish of life that feels and sometimes gets in the way of our creative pursuits.
Speaker: I'm Zara, a self-published author of Young Adult and New Adult Fiction, an alumni of the NYU Masters in Publishing Program, and the founder of Inimitable Books, LLC, a new book publisher dedicated to uplifting marginalized voices without forcing authors to spotlight their trauma.
Speaker: And I'm Kelly, a genre-hopping writer, trier of hobbies, and debuting author this year.
Speaker: My book, Down the Well, comes out in September 2023.
Speaker: Be sure to add it on Goodreads or Zara's favorite alternative, Book Hype.
Speaker: Links will be in the show notes.
Speaker: There is a trigger warning for this episode about verbal bullying and racism.
Speaker: There's also a trigger warning for this episode about sexual assault.
Speaker: With that said, let's define what perfectionism is so that people know what we're waging war on.
Speaker: Dictionary.com says, perfectionism is a personal standard attitude or philosophy that demands perfection and rejects anything less.
Speaker: Now, if you ask me a definition that includes another form of the word that you are defining is a bad definition.
Speaker: If you look up what the word perfection means, it also includes the word perfect.
Speaker: So let's just skip perfection and go right to the definition of perfect.
Speaker: which is conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type.
Speaker: So if we take that and go back to perfectionism, it means that you are rejecting anything that isn't the ideal embodiment of XYZ.
Speaker: Joke's about if you have a Virgo in your chart aside.
Speaker: I think it's important to note that a praise characteristic like
Speaker: being perfect is not a cute or trendy quirk.
Speaker: And building off of that, I think we can kind of look towards the culture of our world today where it is capitalism and grind and hustle culture.
Speaker: So as a poor person living in the foothills of Appalachia, let me tell you about capitalism.
Speaker: To keep it brief, because I can't go on a very long tangent of this.
Speaker: Capitalism makes it feel like we always have to be producing something to show for our time and
Speaker: and it needs to be perfect because if it's not, then we don't have value and you will be insulted.
Speaker: Worse now that there's social media.
Speaker: So like everything has to be peak quality at all times, even if you're just starting in something.
Speaker: We have this expectation on ourselves.
Speaker: because of what we have been conditioned to think with everything needed to be perfect the first time that it's done and not really giving ourselves that grace because capitalism and glorification of grind and hustle culture.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And on top of that, there's also the glorification of burnout.
Speaker: So not only do we need to be always producing something, but people seem to think that I'm working myself into the ground to accomplish that is something to be bragged about.
Speaker: And honestly, I just feel bad.
Speaker: It doesn't feel good to be burnt out.
Speaker: I've felt it multiple times.
Speaker: I know a lot of people listening probably have felt that way multiple times.
Speaker: It's not fun.
Speaker: So why are we treating it like a fad that's something to aspire to?
Speaker: And then once we've achieved it, we can brag about it because it's not good.
Speaker: It's not healthy.
Speaker: It's not sustainable.
Speaker: And yet we've been conditioned to think,
Speaker: that it's awesome and it keeps us on the hamster wheel of capitalism.
Speaker: And I think we should kind of go into perfectionism as a trauma response because I know we both have trauma around this.
Speaker: Take it away, Zara.
Speaker: If you've never seen me on a live stream, I'm Chinese in the United States.
Speaker: Everything to do with COVID aside, Asians are normally touted as the model minority.
Speaker: And a lot of Asian culture is all about if you're not excelling, you're failing.
Speaker: That's a really small box to exist in on a pedestal that's super high up.
Speaker: So it's like one slip up and you could be falling.
Speaker: And as someone with acrophobia, that's not a fun idea.
Speaker: I grew up in an all white family because I was adopted and Dane put that pressure on me.
Speaker: But in my middle school, it got to a point where people didn't like that I was doing better in school than them.
Speaker: I was bullied for being too smart, but then torn down even worse for not being perfect.
Speaker: So it wasn't a response to something adjacent where it's like, oh, I thought if I was perfect, other things wouldn't happen to me.
Speaker: I was literally targeted for that type of stuff.
Speaker: So that's my emotional baggage when it comes to perfectionism.
Speaker: Well, I also think, too, Eugene from the track, guys, the video he made, I believe, was at the start of the pandemic when all the anti-Asian hate was happening?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: He was talking about the history of anti-Asian hate in the United States.
Speaker: It's an hour-long video.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: Basically a mini documentary, and it's really good, and it will be linked in the show notes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I know that I was able to learn a lot more than what I even knew before.
Speaker: and was aware of going into it.
Speaker: So I think stuff like that's always good to watch, especially if you look like me.
Speaker: I guess going back and talking about like my baggage sitting on the table, your family might think if you have this perfect idyllic image that's projected out, that that means you have a perfect life, even though behind closed doors, nothing is as good as it seems.
Speaker: Letting everyone walk all over you because anger is a bad emotion.
Speaker: And we cannot feel that because that's not what perfect people feel.
Speaker: You have to just take all the abuse.
Speaker: So I'm sure that there's going to be a lot of you.
Speaker: from many walks of life who may have experienced this where nothing can ever be wrong.
Speaker: And I know that that's something my therapist and I worked on a lot is giving yourself enough grace to feel those quote unquote negative emotions because there's nothing wrong with anger.
Speaker: you gotta allow yourself to feel those other emotions, because they're not negative, they're only negative because other people are putting that on them.
Speaker: Something I learned about my anger is I felt so much anger because I was being wronged and I wasn't being listened to when I tried to express it.
Speaker: You might talk about valence, like whether or not an emotion is positive and that it makes you feel better versus negative in which it makes you feel worse.
Speaker: But people who say anger is bad or suppress it, they're wrong.
Speaker: And that's something we have to unlearn.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And unlearning a lot of trauma responses are obviously very hard and easier said than done.
Speaker: There's a little tangent here.
Speaker: I know whenever I was going in and getting my degree for education, got an associates after three years because I was working full time.
Speaker: But it was like my second year and I was going and kind of shadowing under some teachers.
Speaker: And I remember it was a...
Speaker: high school teacher of mine from a trade school that I went to, we were sitting down and talking about one of the students and just like concerns.
Speaker: And I remember being there and I was like, well, why doesn't she try X, Y, or Z?
Speaker: And she looked at me and she said, well, not everyone is built like that.
Speaker: And that's when it hit me.
Speaker: And it took so long for me to kind of accept that everyone's trauma responses are different.
Speaker: My trauma responses is I'm going to problem solve and
Speaker: figure this out.
Speaker: And if I come into conflict with people, I come into conflict where sometimes other people like certain family members of mine, it's easier for them to go along with something and not rock the boat because that's their survival instinct and their survival instinct is different from mine and that's okay.
Speaker: So just keep that in mind that perfectionism for everyone is also going to look different to a degree.
Speaker: Another thing too that kind of stems from being the perfect little girl is
Speaker: is the unattainable expectations for yourself.
Speaker: And I know for myself, there was all these expectations of I have to be perfect and excelling in the career that I chose.
Speaker: And I ended up not pursuing anything with my education degree.
Speaker: I got the degree because I was told you have to get a degree to have a good job, right?
Speaker: Everyone's been told that a lot.
Speaker: You have to go and you have to get a degree and you have to do these things.
Speaker: Meanwhile, my partner is a construction worker and makes very good
Speaker: decent living wage for where we're at.
Speaker: But
Speaker: I have to be perfect at whatever career I choose.
Speaker: I have to be perfect.
Speaker: And now I'm a mom.
Speaker: So it's like you have to be that perfect parent and your children have to model this perfect behavior, which I let my children have fits or tantrums because I think that's healthy.
Speaker: And we try to co-regulate because I think that's better than telling them, stop crying.
Speaker: There's nothing to cry about.
Speaker: Or you're being dramatic to a three-year-old who's upset.
Speaker: Like, yes, do I know it's a little bit ridiculous that she's upset because we're out of everything
Speaker: A-P-P-L-E-S.
Speaker: I have to spell it because she's in the other room.
Speaker: Yes, I do.
Speaker: Because I know as an adult, there's nothing in there.
Speaker: And but we will get some at the store later this week.
Speaker: However, to a toddler, this is the end of the world.
Speaker: And I as a parent and as someone with a background in child development and education, like I know this.
Speaker: So it's okay for her to be feeling that way in that extreme, because that's what children do.
Speaker: And I think a lot of parents who raise kids in the early like,
Speaker: 90s and 2000s aren't fully emotionally mature and yet they expect their child to be for them and that's just my take as someone who has I guess experience with that I was a parentified child surprise everyone yeah I'm not a parent surprise uh this is your first episode from the child's perspective I identify with a lot of what you said that actually not being able to express my anger
Speaker: and wishing I had been able to.
Speaker: And that's something I talk about with my therapist a lot.
Speaker: When it comes to writing, I think we all have an idea of what perfectionism is in that.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We're going to try and help our listeners now in how do you start unlearning perfectionism?
Speaker: You have to start somewhere.
Speaker: So maybe just start being more forgiving of yourself when you're not quote unquote perfect.
Speaker: And that's hard.
Speaker: But something that's been helping me and has been said a lot of times, but sometimes you need a lot of time to start internalizing it yourself, is that you need to remember everyone's first draft is shitty.
Speaker: And when you compare yourself to everyone,
Speaker: A published writer, you need to remember that that book has gone through multiple rounds of edits by paid professionals who do this day in and day out.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: There are now even agents who will do edits before they pass it on to an editor.
Speaker: And we're not going to talk about how certain publishing houses, HarperCollins,
Speaker: are essentially not paying their editors.
Speaker: Respect the picket line.
Speaker: Yes, support them.
Speaker: That link will be in the description.
Speaker: But you are not seeing the first draft in a bookstore.
Speaker: You might be seeing a first draft on a self-published book online where there's very little barrier to entry.
Speaker: That's not a knock on them.
Speaker: This is not to say all indie books are shit.
Speaker: That's not true.
Speaker: That stereotype needs to go away, but it is not helped by books that perpetuate it.
Speaker: I loved your face for that whole thing.
Speaker: I was watching you carefully choose your words because for those who may be new, Zara is an indie author and Zara went through steps...
Speaker: And yes, indie authors, sometimes you don't budget fully for an editor, but if you can't budget fully for an editor, my hot take as someone who isn't an indie published author, maybe wait the following year when you can't afford an editor because an editor, even just one, can really make a difference.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or get people who can help you edit and get multiple eyes on it.
Speaker: Jessie Elliott said in her interview that she had with us that...
Speaker: The decision to self-publish or indie publish, which is technically accurate if you hire any freelancer to help you.
Speaker: So cover designer, formatter, editor.
Speaker: The moment you're not doing it all by yourself, it's technically indie publishing.
Speaker: But then that's confusing when you have an independent press, which is not part of the big five.
Speaker: And then people will be like, oh, I'm an indie author.
Speaker: And people are like, what does that mean?
Speaker: Anyway, Kelly and I are technically both indie authors, but I'm one type because I technically didn't do everything myself for the self-publishing to be called a self-publisher.
Speaker: And Kelly's an indie author because she's being published by an independent press.
Speaker: My independent press.
Speaker: Inimitable books.
Speaker: So yeah, Kelly knows I have feelings about it.
Speaker: But Jesse had said being a self-published author is starting a business.
Speaker: If you're selling products, which you are, which are books, you might want to invest in making the best product possible.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Tangent aside.
Speaker: Which is a good tangent.
Speaker: I think we always have quality tangents for the most part.
Speaker: There is no right or perfect way to be an author.
Speaker: Your writing routine is going to be different and tailored to your life versus friends or other famous authors.
Speaker: And sticking with this, I would just like to go out and say on behalf of all of the writers whose lives are chaotic, whether you have a day job, whether you have side hustles, whether you have crotch creatures running around,
Speaker: Your writing space does not have to be aesthetically pleasing to work in to write a bestseller.
Speaker: I know that Instagram pictures are pretty, but you don't need that to write a good story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And talking about the routine and the space that you do your writing in.
Speaker: Maybe you can optimize them.
Speaker: Like maybe one day you do a deep cleaning of your entire office or apartment, depending on whether or not you're lucky enough to have a separate office in your apartment.
Speaker: Maybe you find out that you work better when it's clean.
Speaker: And then that's something.
Speaker: But it doesn't need to look like it could be in a magazine.
Speaker: Maybe your routine, you find out that you've been doing it a certain way and then you try another way because you're inspired by like Kate Cavanaugh's YouTube series where she tries writing like famous authors or you have writer friends and one of them is talking about like, oh, I tried the 5 a.m.
Speaker: Writers Club and it really helped me.
Speaker: Or, oh, you know what?
Speaker: Like I write in pockets and I just take whatever I can.
Speaker: If you try other aspects of other writers routines, and then you decide that, hey, that was helpful.
Speaker: There's nothing wrong with choosing what works for you.
Speaker: But you don't need to match your routine to anyone else's because no one's life is exactly the same as yours.
Speaker: And your routine will change.
Speaker: I used to be a night writer.
Speaker: And now that I'm a parent, I am a pocket writer.
Speaker: And going off of the routine, your writing journey will be on a timeline that no one knows what it is until it's happened and it's in the past.
Speaker: Because sometimes things will happen faster than you think.
Speaker: Sometimes things will take longer than you expected.
Speaker: Sometimes something pops up and you didn't know it was going to happen at all.
Speaker: That is fine.
Speaker: You can still set goals and deadlines for yourself.
Speaker: But if life happens and gets in the way of meeting those deadlines, like we said earlier, burnout is not the goal.
Speaker: So give yourself the grace to deal with whatever popped up and get back to the writing process.
Speaker: when you can.
Speaker: Now, this is different if you have signed a contract with a publishing company, or you set your book up for a pre-order on Amazon.
Speaker: And if you don't have your book uploaded for the pre-order, they penalize your account in not being able to set up pre-orders for a year.
Speaker: If there's a hard deadline set from somewhere else, you do need to do your best to fit that.
Speaker: But if you are setting deadlines for yourself and something gets in the way,
Speaker: Don't beat yourself up about it.
Speaker: If you're trying to finish your first draft, don't beat yourself up.
Speaker: The goalpost can be moved.
Speaker: Something that I think I know I personally struggle with or had struggled with in the past is being conditioned that everyone has to like you in order to be successful.
Speaker: Obviously, there are a few big authors that we can point to that a lot of people have sour feelings about.
Speaker: And, you know, that doesn't change their success.
Speaker: I'm trying to lean more into is not everyone's going to like your work and your story can be the juiciest, sweetest peach.
Speaker: But there's still going to be someone who doesn't like peaches.
Speaker: And that's OK.
Speaker: Writing is subjective.
Speaker: The work we're doing is subjective.
Speaker: Valid criticism and actually constructive feedback is great.
Speaker: But don't get hung up on the fact that not everyone loved it or thought it was life-changing because, as I've said, you could be the best peach, but someone's still going to prefer pineapple.
Speaker: And also reviews are honestly more for the publisher and other readers.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Like Kelly said, constructive criticism is helpful, but even then, you don't have to take it to heart and implement it if you disagree.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not everything's an attack that you need to go to war against and...
Speaker: I think that kind of wraps up the writing section of perfectionism.
Speaker: So like jumping into final points now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nobody is perfect as a human being.
Speaker: No one is perfect in producing flawless work every single time.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: No book is perfect.
Speaker: There are traditionally published books that I've read from different publishers, different editors, same editor, same series, where errors slip through.
Speaker: And that's okay, because it's people.
Speaker: Now, granted, sometimes I'll see an error that I'm like, that really should have been caught.
Speaker: Like I recently reread a series.
Speaker: that had a lot to do with nerdy fandom and stuff like that.
Speaker: And they spelled Kal wrong over and over again when referring to Khal Drogo.
Speaker: And they subsequently spelled Khaleesi wrong when referring to Daenerys, which I'm not going to talk about, you know, whether or not you should be mentioning other fandoms in your book.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: You know, that was something I was like, someone should have caught that.
Speaker: But if someone messes up a little formatting or has a little typo somewhere, is it great?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Would the author probably be embarrassed that it made it through to final publication?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But people are human.
Speaker: There are lots of chefs in the kitchen when it comes to a traditionally published book.
Speaker: And maybe an error was inserted further down the line.
Speaker: Or genuinely, maybe it just wasn't caught at all.
Speaker: And in the words of one of many father figures that have come and gone in my life, practice doesn't make you perfect because no one is perfect.
Speaker: Practice just makes you better and better is all that we can be.
Speaker: And if you succeed in at least telling yourself a reminder of it's okay not to be perfect one time, but you don't do it another time, that's okay.
Speaker: You don't have to be perfect in rejecting perfection because we're human, we make mistakes.
Speaker: And also that defeats the purpose of trying to forgive ourselves for not being perfect.
Speaker: The journey is messy because humans are messy.
Speaker: And with that, I'll say this is the Writish Podcast, and we'll be back with another episode next week.
Speaker: And don't forget to follow us on Instagram at the Writish Podcast and on Hive and Kofi at Writish.
Speaker: Bye.
