Success One Piece at a Time
Success One Piece at a Time: Shrinking the Mountain
I’ve been writing a novel for years. This particular project started in 2007 as a short story that won an undergraduate writing competition. It was actually the beginning of the novel I had in mind but what I’d written felt like a complete piece all on its own. It felt good to have something that I’d been working on for so long bring me validation in the form of money and recognition from my university. What I thought was only a dream became a possibility and I wanted to make the possible into reality.
Here is when it got complicated: I wanted everything all at once. Novels are very long, to state the obvious. They require patience to write, time to get to know your characters so that you can write them convincingly, and tenacity to counter the desire to give up.
“My problem was that I wanted to work hard at making something perfect that wasn’t even finished.”
I was distracted by my need to have a finished product the moment I put my fingers to the keyboard and this made the act of creating impossible. Nothing I wrote was good enough and I could not move forward because I kept erasing everything I created. Eventually, I stopped writing altogether. This pattern happened several times and, most recently, has been the reason I’ve sat at my keyboard staring at the thing instead of working on it.
What is the lesson in all of this? I asked myself this question and couldn’t come up with anything. I’m not an introspective person in that way, where I can ask myself a question and answer it. But, this felt manageable because it felt as though it was my fault that my own progress was stunted. It wasn’t until I spoke with writer Erika L. Sánchez that I discovered I was treating writing my novel how I treat writing a poem, which is I kept revising and revising the little things, the minute details as soon as I finished a good stretch. But for a novel, I realized that I had to first finish the novel and allow myself room to make mistakes. I had to allow myself room to be imperfect in order to reach eventual perfection.
There are so many ways in which we become our own obstacle. Somehow, I had forgotten the old saying of “put one foot in front of the other.” Some call this method of the patient journey, taking baby steps. And you know how babies learn how to walk. It’s an ugly process, grueling with a lot of falling and bumping into things, meaning one has to make those mistakes and allow it.
“So the lesson I want to share here is to take things one step at a time.”
Break the cartwheel into pieces before trying the round off. Write the first sentence before thinking about the book. Play the first chord before trying to record a song. And most important, keep going through the failure in order to make it pass the failure.
Glappitnova unites influencers and talent from different industries through storytelling, performances, classes, and events for one crazy 8 day experience in Chicago.The opinions expressed here by Glappitnova.com contributors are their own, not those of Glappitnova.com.
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