Even presidents make mistakes putting on their pants one leg at a time.
As I forge ahead with my nascent blogging efforts — writing too much about bogging itself, I’m sure you’ll agree — I find myself realizing that the biggest challenge that I face is forcing myself to fail.
If that sounds cliche, that’s because it is.
If that sounds resoundingly true, that’s because it is.
(Fluffy sounding clichés tend to also be profound truths, but that’s another post.)
Today I had a great lunch with Kate Stanworth, a fellow photographer and writer here in Buenos Aires, and I gave her my standard pitch on the critical importance of blogging for the creative story-teller. As always, I insisted that she could only learn about blogging by actually doing, encouraging her that there was no one out there “judging,” that we all are given the space and time we need to comfortably find our own voice in the Blogosphere.
I was self-conscious that I was acting like an expert when — only 22 posts in — most of my expertise is entirely theoretically, and therefore seriously suspect. Still, I was comforted by the fact that by the end of the day I would likely have another post up.
On returning home just now, in my daily e-mail from BBC News, I find this item mentioning that President Obama said, “I think I screwed up.” It was regarding something political, which I won’t get into. But it was of those nice, “Yup, everyone screws up” moments, which of course I know, but which my misplaced, over-the-top perfectionism doesn’t really quite embrace.
The difference between the president and me is that he is committed to not making this kind of error again, while I am committed to trying to make as many god-damned mistakes as I can. It’s the only way to learn, no?
#1 by Jason on February 4, 2009 - 20:02
I’m with you, brother E. I didn’t really start writing until I decided to embrace the philosophy–make it suck. By deciding to write the worst screenplays that I possibly could, I actually wrote… which is sorta key to becoming a writer, n’est-ce pas? And I was pleasantly surprised at the results. Oh sure, they sucked, but not nearly as much as I thought they would. And once I’d rewritten them 10 times, well, they were downright readable.
ANYWAY, I wholly endorse your current course of action. As we nerdy internet folks say–FF–that’s Fail Fast for you non-tech folks. Fail. Suck. And move on. Eventually you’ll do something that works. Much to your own amazement.