Is There Ever Reason to Be Less Than Perfect?
By: Natalie Frank
Tags: Writing Life, Perfectionism, Mindset, Writing, Writing Tips

As writers, we are often our own worst enemies. We struggle to write, struggle to edit, then struggle to accept it’s been edited enough and it’s time to send it out into the world. We always believe there is something else that we can add, subtract or change to make our writing stronger and so it’s difficult to accept that while not perfect, it’s just time to let it go.

Writing on a platform like Medium, there is a careful balance between making sure your writing is edited and free of mistakes and typos while not holding it back for excessive editing to change minor points. This is because these types of platforms are more akin to blogs rather than content websites and so readers expect a relatively regular schedule of publishing.

I have noticed when I don’t publish something new for several days that my reads, follows and engagement falls off. Perhaps this is related to popularity with those who already have a large and regular following less likely to see such a fall off. I suspect that popularity would also affect the degree to which your own involvement with other writer’s articles plays a role in how well your articles perform when you haven’t published in a while. When I’m not active on Medium, related social media pages even for a single day, I likewise see a drop in my article stats.

Similarly, I have noticed that the popularity of my writing increased with the number of posts I published a month. There was a point that it increased exponentially which occurred the month when I began publishing at least four articles a week. Reinforced in my efforts by these number, I pushed myself to write five a week and to try for six and this meant sometimes putting things out there that were just easy to write despite not always being perfect in craft, message or topic.

I had noticed that articles written in the first person which included personal accounts seemed to perform better than magazine style articles, yet these weren’t easy for me to write, especially at the beginning. Rather than waiting for a topic to come to mind that I could reflect on or relate from a personal point of view, when stuck I’d fall back on research related articles or those which just explained for example, psychological disorders and issues. While not happy I could often only write articles that seemed dry, I also knew that to wait for inspiration to hit would mean I barely wrote or published.

I think as writers we often want to inspire or impress readers with our humor or ability to create what I call eureka passages which make them think differently about something. We want readers to relate to us and our experiences, to connect with us on both an intellectual and emotional level. However, for many of us, this is a difficult thing to do and there are some that seem to instinctively know how to do this while others don’t.

I am definitely in the latter category. Coming from an academic background I had difficulty transitioning into more of a personal, less formal, writing style and I suspect that may been something that I felt comfortable with in academia, never needing to put your personal views on the line.

When I first started writing on Medium, I continued writing the way I felt most comfortable. I didn’t expect a huge following, especially to begin with, but hoped to grow it over time. I read the other articles on the platform, paying attention to which had the highest engagement. While some were well written magazine style articles the majority of those that I was most drawn to came from personal experiences and expressed personal viewpoints. So I worked toward writing these types of posts.

Yet it was difficult to manage this and more often than not I just wasn’t able to come up with something I thought I could do justice to. Even when I did, I usually found that the article quickly turned back to formality. This meant I was almost never pleased with what I published, even those articles that were accepted for inclusion in publications or curated.

Over time, I had to accept a hard truth. If I waited for ideas and a clear conceptualization that allowed me to meet my loftier goals of true reader connection and engagement, refusing to publish anything unless I thought it had a good shot at this, I would be publishing infrequently. While this may be okay for those who write as a hobby, for those of us who are aiming writing a career, which necessitates a certain amount of popularity and a regular following, it may not be enough.

In order to have time to write new material regularly, engage with other writers and support their efforts as you would like them to support yours, you have to be able to get posts out relatively quickly. This is especially crucial for those of us who may not be able to write quality posts daily. In order to accomplish this, writers need to accept that every post is not going to be perfect in content, tone, wording and message.

Striving to get your point across in a clear manner through clean writing is likely enough to establish a following that will grow over time. Striving for every post to be award winning, however, will not likely help you gain a regular readership.

The painful truth is, no matter how good a writer you are, or how unique and inspirational your writing may be, given the huge amount of content available online, out of site is out of mind. Strive for consistency and the occasional post that really touches readers rather than a viral post every time you publish.