QUESTION:

If Practice makes Perfect, and nobody's perfect because everyone has to practice, then... why practice?

Yeah, Headache just by reading the title. I know. Most of you will stop right here. (And believe me, there's absolutely NO indignation on my part- in fact, I expect it... I'd stop, probably.)

But I read it somewhere. So it's in my head. So here it is now, out of it and in your hands. That's the process.

I hear it all the time, the above. Fair enough. Makes sense: The more you do something, the more 'adept' you become and the more it becomes 'you'. I get it.

My issue is with the word 'perfect'.

What the fuck does it mean?

What if perfection was in fact achieved (from a writer's perspective) several drafts ago? And you missed it because... you felt you hadn't practiced enough? There was the guilt that it needed "more going over"?

You see my problem? Taste is subjective- some like hot, some cold, some elaborate, some simple, some pathetic, some stoic; it is also dependent on the overall 'mood of the moment'. Taste in literature follows similar lines.

And we as writers aspire to get on that table... the tasting table. We want to be sampled; savoured. (Secretly we want to be devoured. By as many as possible- till there's no more... aka 'Sold Out'.)

So we practice and practice and we mull and we delete then go back and undo and we fidget with this word or that sentence... And we bemoan the whole while; having to undergo this tortuous procedure. And others support us- being on similar journeys of their own. 

We 'work' a story to death. Sometimes beyond. We revise and edit till that once-near perfection is but a distant memory; till we've simply 'undone' more than we can 'redo'. Till... the moment we think ourselves as failures and enter that dreaded 'writer's block' twilight. (Else we hand it over, accept the 'official' compromises and get published. And maybe secretly bitter... despite our commercial success.)

Sorry. I do none of that.

I rarely edit or in any way alter anything I write. (Apart from glaring typos - most of which I fix as I go.) Because:

Whatever words were written in that moment- they were my very best; the most 'perfect' words my mind could put together... else I'd have written other, different ones. These were the best 'fit'.

Now. If I were to go back and impose changes on them- because they were 'my first draft' and necessarily needed revision and editing- I'd fuck up that perfection since whatever editing took place, it would be with eyes outside of the moment (and any crap learned since in my head) and in my new current mood/state... not necessarily in sync with the old one.

So thus would begin the tussle between memory and the elusiveness of a better, even more 'perfect' representation of that memory. (Change a word here... a sentence there... add a paragraph- damn now it doesn't read the same! Undo, Undo, Undo...)

Why I never ask anyone to edit my work either. Allowing external words (and opinions/perspectives) into my own- well that just plain makes no sense! I was the only one in the moment; the one who then went on to write about it. 'You' weren't there and however you imagine the scene- they're not my eyes you're seeing it with!

I don't publish everything I write.

That's my practice till perfect.

I move on, piece to piece, tale to tale till one tells me "Yep, go ahead". That one I publish. The rest remain ever untouched- unless I go back and re-visit from scratch. Not an edit of an existing work but a brand new version of it- this new 'attempt' taking me whatever new direction new words bring. Maybe closer to publishing that particular work. Maybe not.

So why do I edit others' work- at times insistently? Why do I not walk the talk? Who gives me the authority anyway?

'They' do. Crude as this sounds, I can impose whatever the hell I want - I am a writer after all - but it's just words... till they accept them. They can just as easily tell me to go forth and multiply- taking them with me. (Okay, there's the romantic notion that I am in fact gently guiding fellow writers navigate the road to perfection. It's there. The notion of helping others- to better help myself.)

And... it's good practice.

So does practice make perfect? You know what perfect is? 

(God, I re-read the above and am now editing- just to add this: I sound like a heartless, egotistical, opinionated bitch. Yet I got the "Yep, go ahead"! On this piece.)