Passing Through the Imperfection

So it goes without saying that I'm a Seth Godin fan. I like to pass along his blog posts and insights, and while most of his musings are related to business or entrepreneurship, I find that many can be applied more broadly to the writing and/or creative processes.

For instance, in "The Road to Imperfection," he closed with this little gem:

We get to the work we seek by passing through imperfection.

As much as I wanted the first book I ever wrote (in college!) to become a bestseller, the truth was that it was utter crap. 

Fifteen to twenty full-length novels later (I don't know! I've lost count!), I still want the first draft of the book I'm working on to immediately go to auction.

But the fact is the first book is rarely sellable, and the first draft is never submission-ready.

We get to the work we seek by passing through imperfection.

We have to slog through the hard part--again and again (and again and again).

The slogging seems never-ending, but if we want to create works that matter:

we have to be willing to fail, and we have to work hard to close that gap between the creator we are and the creator we want to be.

Be Brilliant!

~Katie~