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BEST OF: No Such Thing as Perfect · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for creative success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: This week on the show, we're celebrating the release of a hundred weekday episodes of the Daily Rider Podcast.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And these are those short episodes you hear Monday through Friday, and these have been a huge hit with listeners.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I've chosen five of the most popular weekday episodes from the past few months to share again on the podcast this week.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is titled No Such Thing as Perfect.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: As you begin to make progress toward your writing goals this year, you're going to run into some roadblocks.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Life gets messy, you get tired, and even here in the first few months of this year, you probably are going to feel like giving up.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: But why do you feel like giving up?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, whenever we feel that way, it all comes down to unrealistic expectations.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: We get discouraged when the picture we have in our head doesn't match the reality in front of us.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: We see the messiness in front of us and assume that the great books we love, or any great work of art for that matter, is perfect.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not the case.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Take the classic 1972 movie The Godfather, for example.
• 1:17
  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.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now Connie is Sonny's sister, and Sonny is not only protective of Connie, he's also a major hothead.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So Sonny hunts down Carlo and finds him hanging out in the neighborhood street, and they proceed to get into a fight.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Sonny has Carlo up against the wall and he starts punching him.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: However, because of the camera angle of the shot, you can clearly see that James Con is not really hitting the actor playing Carlo.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's what you'd expect because this is a movie, and movies typically are not real.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: But it's funny because it's a flaw so obvious that it makes the fight a little bit comical.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: However, that doesn't detract from The Godfather's greatness.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it makes the film more endearing because it's a work of art made by humans who were on a tight budget and a tight production schedule.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Every great work of art has flaws and mistakes.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Does this mean that we shouldn't strive for excellence?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course not.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: We should do everything we can to make sure our writing flows well and that we're using proper grammar, punctuation, and so forth.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: But after we've done those things, there comes a point where we can no longer improve it.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to release it to the world and just move on to the next thing.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: As Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, said, creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Art is knowing which ones to keep.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get hung up on the myth of perfectionism.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: You'll never be perfect, and there's no such thing as perfect writing.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: But that's exactly what makes your writing so perfectly human.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, what makes this podcast meaningful in the first place is that you are listening to it.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Without amazing people like yourself listening and taking action on what they hear, there honestly wouldn't be much point to the show to begin with.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want you to know I sincerely appreciate you, and I'm grateful for the time that you're taking to listen to this podcast.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.