Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.
~Ray Bradbury
Recently I've been forcing myself to let go of perfectionism and really try to write faster. Why would I want to write faster, you might ask? Well, because I'm running out of time. I'm not dying or anything, I just feel like like time is tick, tick, ticking away and I've got about three projects brewing in the back of my mind while I slowly revise my way through a book that's due to be released in 2015. I could continue at my current pace and get those other three projects done sometime in 2020, or I could pick up the pace and try to get them into the light much sooner. And here's the thing I've discovered, Ray Bradbury is right, you can't overthink things, you've just got to DO things. I think this even holds true during revision, which I've usually thought of as a more cerebral activity than writing the first draft. Don't get me wrong, I don't think you should approach revision the same way you approach writing the first draft, but I do think it's easy to get caught up being too clinical during revision. By letting go of that clinical attitude, which can be rooted in perfectionism, I've found that I'm moving along a good deal faster. Not only that, but I feel like my writing is getting much stronger. So, here's to you Mr. Bradbury, and here's to doing things, not just trying to do things.
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