I happened to turn on the radio the other day (yes I still listen to the radio)and a recording of an interview with Ann Pratchett at SF City Lectures was being replayed. While she talked about many aspects of her writing, the part that resonated with me the most, being both a writer and an educator, was when she said (and I am paraphrasing) that she has cultivated a sense of forgiveness. And so when she writes the first sentence on the page she forgives herself that the words she’s writing are not the perfect novel that she pictured in her head. The interviewer paused for a moment, and then Ann Pratchett went on to say that the dissonance between the perfect piece written in one’s head and the words that come out on the page plague the professional novelist as much as (in her example) the eighth grade student writing a geography paper.
Perfectionism is a real thing that many students (and adults!) feel and it is of course absurd to think that each idea, problem or science experiment must be perfect the first time it hits the page or the first time you’re solving it. Because we live in a society that puts so much value on achievement, it makes sense then that we assume We live in an achievement culture, and so often we only see the perfected version of someone’s work. Of course then we assume that if our own work isn’t perfect the first time, then it must mean that something is “wrong” with us. And yet what we don’t see is the hours and hours of work that it took for that piece to be perfected. School is about making mistakes, revising and trying again. Write that shitty (excuse my language) first draft, try the math problem, and do the science experiment.
It won’t be the perfect scenario that you had in your head (thank goodness). Forgive yourself for it and then celebrate its imperfection on the page. Will you have to revise? Well, I certainly hope so.
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Wishing you all a wonderful week!
Warmly,
Sarah
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