navigating perfectionism and writer’s block
Tags: Creativity, Writing, Writers Block, Perfectionism

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I’ve had a writer’s block for almost 4 (or 5?) years now.

I don’t even know if I can call myself a writer anymore since it’s been ages since I actually wrote something that wasn’t for academic purposes or published any of my works on a public platform. I’ve been writing short stories and poems since I was about five years old and at age fifteen, I started writing fanfics on fanfiction.net. I know there are people who have certain views (that definitely aren’t positive) about fanfiction, but I absolutely enjoyed writing fanfics. Especially since it was the first time that I had such an active audience for my stories. But I stopped writing fanfics during my junior year of college — partly because I was no longer invested in the manga that I was writing about, partly because I was just busy with college and partly because I was in a creative slump.

And so, I completely stopped writing.

Days turned into weeks, which became months and eventually trickled into several years. I told myself I just needed to wait for the “perfect” time for inspiration to strike me again. If I waited longer for the right idea to pop into my head, the words would just naturally pour out of me.

But there really is never a “perfect” time to start writing again.

I’ve been itching to do something creative for the past few months now (actually, I’ll be honest, past few years). But I never really bothered to sit down and actually start anything because I’d constantly come up with excuses and convince myself that I was “too busy” with either school or work to actually start something creative right now. I kept telling myself that I’d start a creative project after I finished that last big project at work or after I got my master’s degree, or when I had more “free time”. And then March 2020 happened and the Covid-19 pandemic struck (and is still ongoing despite what folks insta stories might otherwise indicate) and suddenly I had a lot more “free time” on my hands.

And yet I found myself not being able to write.

So, it really was not the “lack of free time” that was setting me back. Rather, it was my own desire to have everything be perfect. I just had to find the “perfect” topic to write about, at the “perfect” instance on the “perfect” platform. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even begin to write anything because I wasn’t able to map out the idea in my own head first since I kept criticizing every single idea that I had.

And that’s a big problem. Because I was so caught up in thinking about the ways my piece could go wrong and not be received well or that my idea wasn’t “unique” enough, that I never even opened up a blank word doc. I always thought my tendency of being a perfectionist was a positive trait that I had. But perfectionism literally hindered me from even starting a project. If I didn’t start anything, I’d have nothing to criticize.

I was only focused on the end-goal and had set my expectations for myself up so high that I lost sight of why I enjoyed writing in the first place. It’s not because I want a bunch of people to read my works and admire it (although that would be nice), or because I want to make a living out of writing. No, it’s none of that.

I just simply enjoy the process of writing and expressing myself in a way that I am not really able to do so in other mediums. Writing is definitely one of my favorite creative outlets. My writing style might not be as polished or as interesting as other writers out there. I don’t even know if I have a distinct writing style yet. And my writing and pieces are far from “perfect”. But writing is something that truly brings me joy.

And so, I’m going to start writing again. I’m going to do my best to not really think about the response (or lack thereof) my pieces get or be too self-critical about my writing. Instead, I’m going to write about topics that I genuinely find interesting, even if no one else does. And it is okay if my piece doesn’t come out exactly how I hoped it would.

I can simply just write another one.