It’s not often that we get more than a few flurries here in central Texas, much less record breaking snow fall. But here we are, after getting almost 5 inches of snow. People who live in places with actual seasons are not usually fans of snow after the first romantic snow fall, but here where I live, we are all over it. Mostly because we don’t have snow plows, so if it snows, we get some time off. We don’t have to deal with it for more than a day or two. The fact that our six foot snowman is still standing is a pleasant surprise, but I don’t expect to see him waving me off when I leave for work on this delayed opening Monday. 

The best part about the snow here is that is forces a slow down. Expectations are lower. Granted, they haven’t been that high since COVID-19 stay at home orders (which truthfully in my neck of the woods are more like unenforced suggestions) but it’s a different kind of stay at home and be slow. A stay at home where everyone is outside making snowmen and throwing slush balls at each other. My dog wants to go out every five minutes to see if anything has changed since his last excursion. (No, it hasn’t.)

Annnnnd, I am not sure where I am going with this. Today’s post was supposed to be how done is better than perfect, and how I am battling my inner perfectionist by both doing the work of writing bad stories and actually posting them. The main problem with the last two weeks is that I was still writing them Saturday/Sunday, and not revising them on the weekend. So what I posted was just about as close to a first draft with spell check turned on as you can get. And what’s the adage, all writing is really re-writing? Yeah, that has not been happening. So my goal this week is to have the draft of the story written by Wednesday night. Full story, all three to four thousand words. Then the rest of the week I can revise, add little things like emotion and descriptions and setting, the things I leave out, and maybe even copy edit so all the verb tenses would be correct by Sunday’s posting. Setting the bar high, I know. 

Done is better than perfect is the mantra that is supposed to get one past procrastination. I like what Cal Newport says about procrastination. (He may have gotten it from somewhere else, but researching that right now would be my favorite form of procrastination, and I am trying to write a blog post.)

Procrastination, apparently, happens when your brain doesn’t think that you really have a plan for what you are doing, or if you have a plan, it’s not a good plan. I can totally relate to this, as my issue with writing earlier in the week has been I don’t know the characters, I don’t know the story. So my brain says, “Hey Clueless, you don’t know what is going on. Let’s get a dopamine hit from Instagram instead. Look at all the pretty planners!” Which sometimes seems like a good idea, and then I am drafting a first draft on Sunday morning. So I am attempting to pre-write today/tonight and start drafting tomorrow. I am trying to fool my brain into thinking that I have a good plan and it’s all going to work. I have fooled it so far into getting up at 5:00 am to write each day, and to getting a daily blog post out. Nothing like distraction by production, right?