The Struggles of Perfectionism (In Myself and My Works)

There are a few things that I struggle with on a daily basis. As a person and as a writer.

The first thing is that I am a perfectionist. I drive myself crazy because I'm such a perfectionist. When I was in high school, I used to cry when I got anything less than an A. When someone criticized me, I took it to heart and did everything that I could to be better. I was a bully's fantasy.

And then I stopped caring so much. More about things that didn't matter (appearance, fashion, money, etc.) But this plague of perfectionism has never quite been cured, and I can see that most of all in my writing. FURY for example, is my downfall in perfectionism. Because no matter how hard I try or how many revisions it goes through, it's still not perfect. And it frustrates the heck out of me. But worse, like a little kid with a scab, I pick at it and pick at it until it's a bleeding mess. And the more it bleeds, the more I pick. Yuck.

My perfectionism binge tends to really kick in when someone is critiquing my work. I want everyone to just rave about how wonderful and brilliant and perfect it is. (Ok, we all want that.) And when someone has a nitpick, I track it down and see if I can fix it. Which, at times, can inhibit my work more than help it. I will fixate on that one problem and refuse to move on until I can make it better. Which means NO NEW WRITING.

Argh.

This isn't the fault of the critiquer. Not at all. It's just me and something I constantly have to overcome. And I really don't want someone to gloss over problem areas in my work for fear that I will do this... It's just an aggravation for me. I usually have to take a break from the work and just go do something else for a while. (I drew a picture of Achlys today, instead of writing on ONE THOUSAND.) Bad thing is, however, that I'm still not refocused enough to move on.

Double ARGH.