When I was a kid a teacher told my mother I would never learn to spell. Unfortunately as it turns out she was quite correct. I am not a good speller.
Does being a good speller automatically make someone a good story teller? I don’t think so. I don’t think I need to learn to spell to tell a good story, however when an error is caught I still feel anxiety. I still feel like I should have known that. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT!
There’s one thing I can do that many good spellers and perfectionist can’t. Finish a story.
I know a woman who has been working on chapter one of her manuscript for the past eleven years. It’s not that she doesn’t have a fully formed story in mind it’s just that she cannot get past the fact that chapter one is not exactly perfect so she can’t move on to chapter two. She in analysis paralysis and she spends all her time perfecting chapter one.
She’s been told many times, and I’ll tell you now, chapter one will never be perfect. And in some cases chapter one maybe scrapped altogether. Eventually, you have to break down and move on to chapter two and ultimately finish your story.
Once you’ve completed a whole manuscript, you can angst about perfecting the whole book. Even that can stunt you from moving ahead. At some point, you have to declare your work good enough and move to the next project. If you can’t then you’ll never get anywhere.
Sure there are a few noted authors who only ever penned one book, but is one book what you want? Or do you envision yourself with a career with more than one book?
For my part, I have too many stories rambling around in my head to stop at one book. I trip over stories as they push their way out of my brain. My pen can’t keep up with my thoughts. I lose fragments of sentences and paragraphs that I know are the most perfect thing I’ve ever written. Or at least as perfect and I’m ever going to make them.
Follow Me on Social Media:
Great post and some very valid points. I have never forgotten in the 4th grade, an in class spelling bee and I had the word “enough” and of course I spelled it “enuff”. Despite the ridicule I was subjected to I still had a passion for writing, and still had a heck of a time with spelling. I can understand being paralyzed by this but don’t be, move on, write in whatever form of English you want, Spell Check and Grammar Check will sort it out for you later. Thanks for the post Stacy.
I had spaghetti in 4th. Still struggle with it. Thanks for stopping by. I’m glad this spoke to you.