by Suzanne Lieurance
Every writer knows that perfectionism is the enemy of finishing. It’s practically a cliché at this point. And yet knowing this doesn’t seem to stop it.
You start a chapter feeling good. A few paragraphs in, you read back what you’ve written and something tightens. It’s not quite right. You go back and fix it. Then fix it again. An hour later, you’re still on the same page you started on.
The problem isn’t that you have high standards. The problem is that you’ve confused revision with progress.
Perfectionism doesn’t look like what you think it looks like.
Most writers picture a perfectionist as someone who agonizes over every sentence, endlessly polishing. And yes, that’s one version of it. But perfectionism also shows up as never quite starting, because the opening isn’t ready yet. It shows up as finishing a draft and immediately deciding it needs to be torn down. It shows up as abandoning projects that aren’t developing the way you imagined.
In every case, the standard isn’t the problem. The timing is. Perfectionism applies the standard of a finished work to a draft that’s still becoming. It’s the wrong tool at the wrong stage.
What finishers do instead.
Finishers don’t have lower standards. They have better timing. They know that the draft’s only job is to exist — to give them something to work with. The quality comes later, in revision, when the thing is whole enough to improve.
This means writing sentences you know aren’t right and leaving them. It means getting to the end of a scene even when the middle is lumpy. It means trusting that you can fix it later, because you can — but only if there’s something there to fix.
Done is a foundation. Perfect is something you build on top of it. You can’t build on nothing.
A practical reframe for your next stuck moment.
When you catch yourself going back to revise instead of moving forward, ask yourself one question: is this revision making the draft better, or is it keeping me from writing the next part?
If it’s the second one, write a note in brackets — [fix this later] — and keep going. The note is permission. You’re not pretending the problem isn’t there. You’re just choosing to handle it at the right time.
The goal for a draft is not excellence.
The goal is completion.
Excellence is what happens after.
Each issue of Manifesting Monthly magazine goes deep on the inner work of becoming a writer who finishes — including the identity shift that makes letting go of perfectionism feel natural, not forced. Subscribe here now and get your first issued delivered instantly to your e-mailbox.
Suzanne Lieurance is the author of over 40 published books and a transformational Law of Attraction coach for writers who are ready to stop waiting to feel like the real thing. At Write by the Sea, she guides writers through the identity shift that changes everything — not just the writing, but the whole life built around it. She is the publisher of Manifesting Monthly and the host of Monday Morning Manifestors.
