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Release Dates Exist for a Reason · The Daily Writer

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Writer, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for writing success.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever watched behind-the-scenes documentaries for movies, you've probably heard directors talk about the impulse to keep tweaking a movie.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they'll say things like this the studio had to come and take the movie away from me.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what's this all about?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on here?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty simple, really.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: When you're working on a big creative project, whether it's a book or a movie, you can always see what needs to be fixed, and there are endless improvements that you can keep making till the cows come home.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Case in point, take George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: When he released the first Star Wars movie back in 1977, when I was a wee three years old, he was limited by the technology of the time.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: So in the late 1990s, he started doing special editions of the original Star Wars trilogy, and he added in special effects and scenes to try and bring the original movie closer to his vision.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, whether those were an improvement or not is a whole nother story.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, I'm looking at you, badly rendered Stormtroopers, and Banthas in the Desert right before the most icely cantina scene in A New Hope, but I digress.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, since that time, since 1977, George Lucas has continued to fiddle with his Star Wars movies endlessly, with several different editions since the original's release 45 years ago.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now we can criticize George Lucas all we want for some of the weird changes he made to the movies, but there's one thing that we cannot deny, and it's also one of the most important things that we can learn from.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And here it is.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: George Lucas released his movie back on May the 4th, 1977.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't wait until he felt quote unquote ready.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: He did the best he could within the time constraints that he had.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: He put that sucker out there into theaters, and then he made changes later on when he had the time and the money and the opportunity to do that.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a reason that movie release dates exist, because if release dates didn't exist, directors would never put their movie out there.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: They would continue to tweak and tinker with their movies until, well, probably forever, and we would never see them.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that is really good advice for us to follow, too.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Get the ball as far down the field as possible, then publish that thing.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm mixing my sci-fi movie, my sports and my writing metaphors here, but you get the point.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can always go back and release another version of the book, or you can change things in it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can put out a second edition, you can put out a special edition, like George Lucas, I guess.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just don't put any weird CGI in there.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm begging.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, honestly, it's pretty easy to do that today, especially if you self-publish your books.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: But don't let your success be killed by endlessly tweaking and trying to make your writing project perfect, because it's never, ever going to be perfect.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was made by you, a human being who is not perfect.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not perfect, and you're not perfect, and we're never ever going to put out anything that is remotely perfect.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: But if we just put stuff out there, we can keep getting better and better over time.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And more than anything, by far, the most important thing here is that we're putting out something that's going to bless people.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, maybe it's not perfect, but man, it's going to be really, really good, and you're going to change people's lives because you had the courage to follow a release date and to publish your work.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Here's your daily question Are you letting your perfectionism hold you back from finishing your project?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Be honest.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.