When it comes to approaching the first draft, perfectionists do not have it easy. Why? Because for any first draft to be able to arrive at something meaningful, interesting, and engaging, it needs to be allowed to flow freely from the writer’s unconscious mind. Such flow is necessary because, as Flannery O’Conner famously said, we often don’t know what we think until we read what we say.

The problem is when flow truly flows, it’s usually a mess, full of bad grammar, fragments, and disjointed ideas- the stuff of a perfectionist’s nightmare.

Where intellectually, the perfectionist may understand that this unschooled excavation of the mind is not only important for getting to the locus of a story or the purpose of your ideas, but critical.

Emotionally, however, the perfectionist, who is accustomed to managing their affairs so they perform at a high level, often sees this linguistic equivalent of a garbage fire, feels terror at being confronted with such an uncontrolled jumble, and begins editing those early ideas right away. (Nothing to see here!)

This instinct to edit the early writing to make it presentable- even though it’s not being presented to anyone but the writer- ensures it will remain exactly that: nothing to see here.

Not only do you end up with thin, even uninspired writing, the process of editing while writing is like trying to stop a bull from charging. You might be strong, but the bull is stronger. Those clashing forces set the perfectionist writer up for frustration and potential writer’s block.

Why Writing Has to Be a Two-Part Process

Producing a written text has two parts. One part is the generation of content; the other part is the editing of content.

Applied Linguist, Janet L. Kayfetz

Writing must be a two-part process:

1. The early “let ‘er rip” phase, when the ideas manifest and work themselves through
2. The “clean up on aisle 7″ phase when we put on our beady-eyed editor glasses and judge the heck out of the material that was allowed to come to life in its own right time to make it sit up and act right.

If you merge these two parts and judge, critique, or edit a first draft as it is being conceived may make the writing look presentable, but its essence will be superficial, reserved, and perhaps lacking in the riskiness or freshness that comes from exploration and going rogue.

Sometimes the happiest accidents are those that set work apart and put it on the map.

Not only will scrambling to cover the cracks in the first-draft while writing turn the work into all show but no substance, truncating one’s ideas can also lead to frustration because you know you’ve stopped some very interesting stuff from happening, and once it’s gone, it’s near impossible to call it back. 

While being a perfectionist in certain instances can be helpful- when applying for a mortgage, for example- it works against the writer, who needs to allow their writing free rein. Such writing is what ultimately becomes something that affects change, infiltrates its readers and makes them feel and think, and adds to the literature of its kind in unique ways.

How Can You Stop Being a Perfectionist and Just Write Your First Draft?

If you’re a perfectionist, how can you fight against your natural urge to edit and instead just allow yourself to write your first draft (warts and all)?

Visualization, trust, and accountability

Note: a glass of wine or soothing cup of tea never hurt either.

Try Visualization

In her seminal book, Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg talks about the writing process as your two hands. You have your writer hand, and you have your editor hand. Each hand has to be free to do its job. Let the writing hand write, and later, once the ideas are down, let the editor hand go to town and do what it does best.

If, however, your writing hand is doing its first-draft work when suddenly your editor hand comes in and clenches it, you’ll see that not only can you physically no longer do much of anything, most of all writing, you’re also now physically embodying stress. (In novels, don’t the characters “clench their hands” when times get tense?)

Tip: If you can’t hold on to the first-draft reverie required to get into flow and keep looking back to critique your early writing, take a breath or two.

Then visualize your two hands floating through the air in front of you free as balloons, and know that each hand- in its own right time- will do a great job.

Trust Yourself

You are smart, you are capable, and you can absolutely stop being a perfectionist and just write your first draft!

If your perfectionist hackles come up during your first draft and you start itching to touch that backspace or delete button, deepen your feelings of trust- really sit with them.

Remind yourself either by journaling, leaving notes for yourself, or saying it aloud, that you must allow this first draft process to happen- this is the natural order of creative work, and you cannot fight nature because nature always wins.

Let go, trust in the process, and know you’ll have much more interesting material to work with if you let it all pour out (especially the stuff you would have otherwise chopped out for fear it’d be seen in mixed company!)