Excerpt

i
On Perfectionism
by

Anne Lamott
i
“
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy
of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane
your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between
you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is
based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully
enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you
won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway
and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at
their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you,
wounds never have a chance to heal. Perfectionism is
one way our muscles cramp. In some cases we don’t
even know that the wounds and the cramping are
there, but both limit us. They keep us moving and
writing in tight, worried ways. They keep us standing
back or backing away from life, keep us from experi-
encing life in a naked and immediate way. So how do
we break through them and get on?

and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it. It’s easier if you believe in God, but not impossible if
you don’t. If you believe, then this God of yours might
Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking be capable of relieving you of some of this perfec-
inventiveness and playfulness and life force (these are tionism. Still, one of the most annoying things about
words we are allowed to use in California). Perfection- God is that he never just touches you with his magic
ism means that you try desperately not to leave so wand, like Glinda the Good, and gives you what you
much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show want. Like it would be so much skin off his nose. But
us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile he might give you the courage or the stamina to write
ground – you can still discover new treasures under lots and lots of terrible first drafts, and then you’d
all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix learn that good second drafts can spring from these,
things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is and you’d see that big sloppy imperfect messes have
as good as it’s going to get. Tidiness makes me think value. Now, it might be that your God is an uptight,
of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing judgmental perfectionist, sort of like Bob Dole or, for
needs to breathe and move. that matter, me. But a priest friend of mine has cau-
tioned me away from the standard God of our child-
When I was twenty-one, I had my tonsils removed. I hoods, who loves and guides you and then, if you are
was one of those people who got strep throat every bad, roasts you: God as high school principal in a gray
few minutes, and my doctor finally decided that I suit who never remembered your name but is always
needed to have my tonsils taken out. For the entire leafing unhappily through your files. If this is your God,
week afterward, swallowing hurt so much that I could maybe you need to blend in the influence of someone
barely open my mouth for a straw. I had a prescription who is ever so slightly more amused by you, someone
for painkillers, though, and when they ran out but the less anal. David Byrne is good, for instance. Gracie Al-
pain hadn’t, I called the nurse and said that she would len is good. Mr. Rogers will work.
really need to send another prescription over, and
maybe a little mixed grill of drugs because I was also If you don’t believe in God, it may help to remember
feeling somewhat anxious. But she wouldn’t. I asked this great line of Geneen Roth’s: that awareness is
to speak to her supervisor. She told me her supervi- learning to keep yourself company. And then learn
sor was at lunch and that I needed to buy some gum, to be more compassionate company, as if you were
of all things, and to chew it vigorously – the thought somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage. I
of which made me clutch at my throat. She explained doubt that you would read a close friend’s early efforts
that when we have a wound in our body, the nearby and, in his or her presence, roll your eyes and snicker. I
muscles cramp around it to protect it from any more doubt that you would pantomime sticking your finger
violation and from infection, and that I would need to down your throat. I think you might say something
use these muscles if I wanted them to relax again. So along the lines of, “Good for you. We can work out
finally my best friend Pammy went out and bought me some of the problems later, but for now, full steam
some gum, and I began to chew it, with great hostility ahead!”
and skepticism. The first bites caused a ripping sensa-
tion in the back of my throat, but within minutes all In any case, the bottom line is that if you want to
the pain was gone, permanently. write, you get to, but you probably won’t be able to
get very far if you don’t start trying to get over your
I think that something similar happens with our perfectionism. You set out to tell a story of some sort,
psychic muscles. They cramp around our wounds to tell the truth as you feel it, because something
– the pain from our childhood, the losses and disap- is calling you to do so. It calls you like the beckon-
pointments of adulthood, the humiliations suffered ing finger of smoke in cartoons that rises off the pie
in both – to keep us from getting hurt in the same cooling on the windowsill, slides under doors and into
place again, to keep foreign substances out. So those mouse holes or into the nostrils of the sleeping man

10 The Writer’s Guide to Poetry

or woman in the easy chair. Then the aromatic smoke go ahead and make big scrawls and mistakes. Use up
crooks its finger, and the mouse or the man or woman lots of paper. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form
rises and follows, nose in the air. But some days the of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend.
smoke is faint and you just have to follow it as best What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot

”
you can, sniffing away. Still, even on those days, you to mention when we were children was that we need
might notice how great perseverance feels. And the to make messes in order to find out who we are and
next day the scent may seem stronger – or it may just why we are here – and, by extension, what we’re sup-
be that you are developing a quiet doggedness. This posed to be writing.
is priceless. Perfectionism, on the other hand, will only
drive you mad.

Your day’s work might turn out to have been a mess.

So what? Vonnegut said, “When I write, I feel like an
armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” So

L EA RN MO RE

From Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Copyright © 1994 by Anne Lamott. Reprinted by permission of Vintage, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday
Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

The Writer’s Guide to Poetry 11