As I start feeling like novel writing is beyond my reach, I've resumed reading (rereading) fiction for pleasure. And what I notice when reading really fine writers is that they mess up a lot. Typos here, misused words there, characters talking about things they'd have no way of knowing about over there. But it doesn't kill the book. Yes it would be nice if everyone were perfect all the time, but really, really good 90% of the time and a little iffy for the other 10 is sufficient.
Those of us who are perfectionists need to learn to give ourselves a break. (Well, this one of us at least.) Creating, plotting and writing a novel is quite hard enough. Heck, creating, plotting and writing a story is quite hard enough. I need to focus on getting the flow flowing, and worry about perfection later. Now that I can edit my own stuff again, that ought to be fun.
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