"Good Enough"
msagara writes here about the concept of "good enough," submitting work, and how writers talk about writing online in a way that can sometimes be misunderstood by non-writers.

A long time ago, in a comment thread, I indicated that the way authors talked about their own work, in the nearly context-less space provided by on-line venues, should be done with some caution, because many people who are not writers take it as a statement about the objective value of the work.

For this reason, for instance, writing "OMG I hate every word of this book it is all complete garbage" or "OMG if I didn't need to eat, I'd throw this book out the window" can have an unfortunate effect on readers who don't have to live with writers, or who are not also writers, because the long dark night of the novel is a months-long process with which all writers are familiar, and many readers are not.

She goes on to talk about how waiting to submit a manuscript "until you deem it perfect" would have meant she never submitted anything then or even now.

She also adds additional useful links here.


Anyway, in the context of the first part of her post (about how writers talk about writing), I wanted to throw out some definitions, which are only true FOR ME. Get that, FOR ME. But they may have resonance for many of you as well, and I hope will serve to help others understand some of what may go on in writers' brains at times.


Good enough:

As good as I can get it today (or this month or this year) either because
1) I am exhausted by working on it and need a break before I throw it off a bridge
2) I am at the limit of my current level of skill
3) I need to move on to another scene and/or chapter and will come back and fix it later
4) I need to set it aside for a time so that I can come back and look at it again later with fresher eyes
5) I believe it to be in decent (not perfect) shape and now need feedback in order to move forward with it
6) it does look good to me right now. How it will look tomorrow, next week, or next month is a different issue.



I hate this awful book, for it is a piece of rubbish:

I am in the middle of the novel. I do this every novel. Or almost every novel. It's part of the process of struggling with the text. When I don't do it, then I worry that by not hating the book it is a sign that the book must really be awful.



What was I thinking? Why do I even bother to write? Nothing I write is any good and I am a failure and a hack.

I have plunged into the soul-sucking abyss of self doubt. This happens occasionally (okay, okay, too often, but there you are). However, these episodes of self doubt, which spur me to stare at my text with despair and loathing, probably also are one of the reasons that and ways in which I improve as a writer (assuming I do improve, and I do think I have improved).



Anyway, seriously, I am likely going to be dead someday (unless there are some truly unexpected changes coming down the pike within the next fifty years either in medicine or the alien invasion department). For me--personally, as I can only speak for myself--that as much as I beat my head against the wall while writing, and struggling with the process, in the end and overall I am proud of my body of work. Is it perfect? Well, um, no. But it is always the best I can do at any given time, for which you may either feel sorry for me or impressed or, most likely, will understand that it is what it is.

You write what's in you to write with the tools you currently have at your disposal. The process includes doubt, exhaustion, exhilaration, head-desking, grim determination, glee, and everything in between. Kind of like life, now that I think of it.