Hit 'Send' Already!

by Elizabeth Solar

With a final glance at a piece I recently wrote, I chugged the dredges from my starter cup of coffee, uploaded a word doc to several publication sites, and pressed ‘send.’

It was an unusual piece for this prose devotee. The poem came to me as an out-of-genre experience while I lay in savasana during yoga, then immediately committed to the page upon my return from class.

 More unusual? I actually sent out a piece for publication. 

For a moment I put aside my tendency to stall, and hit send.  My trademark procrastination is actually  a result of perfectionism, which is really the result of a deep seated fear of rejection.  

Who among us has edited the same chapter with the same regularity as the tides? How about a show of hands for that entire manuscript banished to the dark recesses of a computer hard-drive because it’s ‘just not ready yet?’

If you’ve answered in the affirmative, your perfectionism is showing. The pursuit of perfection puts all things on permanent hold because it seems whatever we do is not marketable enough, clever enough, or good enough. It is the tyranny of ego - yes, ego -  that convinces us when our story is perfect, our work will be done. 

We worship at the altar of perfectionism at the expense creativity, self-confidence and joy until defeated by our own self-sabotage, we lie prostrate, and cry “See, I am not worthy.”

To that I say: Get over yourself. Afraid to submit because you fear judgment and rejection?  Rest assured, it awaits you.  In any life adventure worth pursuing, rejection, judgment and disappointment come with the territory.

Are you really going to hold that short story, poem, screenplay, or novel hostage to a desk drawer, or digital file folder because you deny your own brilliance, passion and delight?

Let’s do the unthinkable. Take that ‘not quite good enough draft,’ sign your name to it, and send it to a local newspaper, or online literary magazine.  Post it on a blog. Enter it in a writing contest. And remember,  ‘You must be present to win.’

What if the goal is not just to publish, become rich and famous, and win the Nobel Prize? What if we are writing for the love of it, and the gratitude to express and share a feeling, idea or world view with another person?   

Would you risk that failure? Or  success?     

“If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word,’ said Margaret Atwood.

 If that philosophy works for her, maybe it’s good enough for the rest of us.

 Let’s not over think this. Just press send.