The blank page is uncharted territory. I stand on it, unsteady, struggling to take the first step, not even knowing where to go. All the dunes in the desert look the same from the distance, but there might as well be treasure behind one.

I must confess my writing process is rather inconsistent. At times I go through confident phases when I can power through self-doubt and post content as it is, satisfied that I did my best to create a story I enjoy.

Other times though, it seems like there’s nothing I can do to fix the myriad issues I find on each sentence. I get stuck on endless revisions, always wishing my writing was stronger, more expressive, more descriptive, but not knowing how to make it so.

Lately, I’ve been spending more money than I ought in online courses, and these people agree on one thing–consistency over perfection.

My perfectionist brain jumped at the though. People do care about perfection. Otherwise, why would they take the trouble of pointing out every mistake?

But perfection, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. How can anyone measure perfection in fiction? I’m sure some will object to my starting a sentence with a conjunction or the odd word choice or sentence construction here and there.

The thing is, perfectionism means well. It’s trying to protect you from failure, rejection or ridicule. Unfortunately, it does it by preventing you from doing the thing in the first place. After all, if you never publish your writing or your music or your art, you can’t fail, can you? Nobody can reject or criticise something they’ve never seen.

So, this year, my goal is to go for consistency over perfection, even if it means to be vulnerable. This blog post, I believe, is a good start.

Coming up next: A little vignette about a young woman reflecting about her short life, and a post about my favourite book of all time.