Satisfied With “Good Enough?”

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When is “good enough” not enough? When should you strive for something better? And when do you know that it’s time to be done writing a project?

An Unexpected Email

The week before Christmas 2018, I contacted a self-publisher for the first time. I thought it was like Amazon self-publishing: download a program, put the book together yourself, and they’ll print it for you. Not so. The publisher surprised me by notifying me that they would send me a publishing kit by mail.

Cool. I thought.

And then I got an email from an agent saying that she needed me to confirm my mailing address for the kit, and that there was a paper in there that they’d signed so I could confidently disclose my book to them.

A flood of self-consciousness overwhelmed me. I wanted to pull back my email, my phone number, and everything about me. I’m not ready for publishing, I thought. Besides, I wasn’t nearly finished with my project: a compilation of military poems. That evening, I slapped together a poem in a desperate attempt to up my count of items to include in the book.

I didn’t want to talk with the agent, even amid my excitement. I looked over the few poems that I had completed, and only two or three looked worthy of sharing with the world.

These aren’t good.

I realized that for too long, I’ve been satisfied with “good enough.”

Mediocrity’s Trap

Back in 2018, in The Cocky Crash I shared about my need for critiques from the real world, from the people that weren’t afraid to give me feedback that would hurt. Without those critiques, it’s too easy to slip into lazy writing. It’s too easy to let folks read your work when those people think your work is always great. It’s easy to not do your best when you’ll get compliments anyway.

“To be a warrior [or author] is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior [or author], in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.” – Carlos Castaneda

Writing work that’s worthy of publishing is an endless struggle. It requires research, observation, and critical imagination. It demands every ounce of working hard, of giving your absolute best, of knowing your work couldn’t be better.

It’s asking the question of, “Is this what I want to see published?” as you write. If not, you’ve got to make it better.

The Balance

At the same time, there’s the knowledge that something could always be fixed, something could always be better. And if you kept poking at and tweaking your work, chances are it would never get published because it would never be ready.

There comes a time when you need to ask, “Is my work ready? It may not be perfect, but have I done my best?”

And that’s when it’s time to be done. That’s when you face your self-consciousness and send your work off anyway. If you get a rejection letter, oh well. Take a break, then see what you can fix. Send it off again. And again.

“If I waited for perfection…I would never write a word.” – Margaret Atwood

Don’t let excellence scare you away from writing. “It is better to write a bad first draft than to write no first draft at all.” – Will Shetterly

Find the balance of refusing to be satisfied with “good enough,” while knowing in your heart when it’s time to be done.

“There isn’t, unfortunately, any way of discovering whether you can write a publishable novel except by writing it.” – John Braine

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Does your writing need perfecting? Or is it time to go for publishing, or whatever the next step may look like for you?

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