Steven Pressfield

I mean...

It's so easy to, as a writer, to noodle all day with one paragraph, you know, and of course it's obviously, you know, resistance is watching and laughing at you.

You know, oh man, look at this poor idiot.

I've gotten him to completely blow the day on this one thing.

So that sort of perfectionism is a form of resistance and really has to be avoided at all costs.

On the other hand, you do want to produce something that's really good, you know, and not... But, you know, like Seth Godin says, when it's, you know, ship it, right?

When it's ready to go, you know, there comes a time when you know, I'm just noodling with this because I'm afraid of the response.

Is this going to fail?

Is it going to fizzle?

Is it going to crash and burn?

So I don't want to ship it out right now.

I had a friend, I tell this story, who had...

written this deeply personal novel about salvaging a ship.

He had been in the merchant marine and, you know, I mean, what a great metaphor that was.

And I read it.

It was in its mailing box back in the days when you typed it out on a typewriter, ready to go to his agent.

And he couldn't make himself send it off, you know.

And the sad part of the story is my friend died.

And so that was, I don't know whether that was perfectionism or just fear of being judged in the real world.

So it's a real vice, perfectionism, and to be guarded against at all costs, I think.