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Transcript

No Such Thing as Perfect · The Daily Writer

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Writer, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for creative success.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: As you begin to make progress toward your writing goals this year, you'll probably run into some roadblocks.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Life will get messy, you'll feel tired, and even here in the first couple weeks of the year, you'll probably feel like giving up.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: But why do you feel like giving up?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it all comes down to having unrealistic expectations.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: We get discouraged when the picture we have in our heads doesn't match the reality we see before us.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: We see all the messes in front of us in our everyday lives, and we assume that the great books we love or any great work of art for that matter is perfect and it was made by people who didn't have to contend with the messiness that we have to contend with.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not the case.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Take the classic 1972 movie, The Godfather, for example.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's a scene in the later half of the movie where Sonny Corleone, played by James Kahn, hunts down his brother-in-law Carlo because he beat up his wife Connie.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Connie is Sonny's sister, and Sonny is not only protective of Connie, he's also a major hothead.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Sonny finds Carlo hanging out in the neighborhood street and they get into this big fist fight.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: He has Carlo up against a wall and he starts punching him.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: However, because of the camera angle, you can clearly see that James Con is not really hitting the actor playing Carlo.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he's a foot or two away from him.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, you wouldn't expect that they were actually making contact because we're talking about a movie here, which is, by definition, where the actors are not really making contact.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: However, it's a flaw that's so obvious it makes the fight a little bit comical.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: However, that doesn't detract from The Godfather's greatness.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: It makes the film a little bit more endearing because we know it's a work of art made by humans who were on a tight budget and a tight production schedule.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Every great work of art has flaws and mistakes.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, does this mean we shouldn't strive for excellence?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course not.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: We should do everything in our power to ensure that our writing flows well and that we're using proper grammar, punctuation, and so forth.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: But after we've done those things, there comes a point where we can no longer improve it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: We have to release it to the world and move on to the next thing.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: As Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert once said, creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Art is knowing which ones to keep.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So don't get hung up on the myth of perfectionism.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: You'll never be perfect, and there's no such thing as perfect writing.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: But that is exactly what makes your writing so perfectly human.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.