When it comes to my writing—especially with a new idea—I tend to get caught up in the details of how the final product will look before I even begin. This tendency has also shown up in my personal life; wanting to know exactly how things will turn out. However, that’s not realistic in life, nor is it realistic to writing. A few weeks ago I shared about a creative bolt of lightning that struck in the form of a new story idea. Countless attempts have been made to start this story, but each time I find myself hitting the backspace button more often than I’d care to admit.

There is some part of me that doesn’t want to start writing until I have a clear sequence of events, or at least a fully functioning main character that I can see clearly in my mind. I finally got a few sentences written down, but even that wasn’t smooth sailing. My groove was suddenly halted because of a single word “tang”. Was this the word I wanted to use or was there a better one? Cue searching the thesaurus for possible alternatives. I was barely three sentences in and I was already starting to edit!

So I had to literally stop, pause, take a breath, and realize how counterproductive I was being. If I stop to edit every few sentences I’d have the first draft of this story done by… hmm, 2030? I’m not sure where along the line I picked up this habit of wanting things to be perfect and clearly laid out, but some of the most exciting things in my life have been the ones I hadn’t (and couldn’t) prepare for or plan out. The crazy thing is, when I finally stopped trying to get in my own way I wrote an intro that I am very happy with!

So I am going to challenge myself when it comes to my writing to just let my fingers fly across the keyboard and see what comes out and save the tweaking and editing until more of the story has come to light. Maybe if I can master the art of relinquishing the need to edit as I go, it will start translating into other areas of my life. Going with the flow sounds much less stressful.

For now, I will leave you with a similar challenge: find an area of your life—whether it be your personal life or a creative hobby—to let go and enjoy yourself more even if you don’t necessarily know exactly where the road will take you!

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