I remember each week in Kindergarden we got special drawing/painting time. It was such a special time that before I began Kindergarden one of the required "school supplies" was a smock. I'd never owned a smock before. This apron-like attire was used to cover our clothing on the special art days.
My grandmother made my smock and I was so proud of it. I went almost the entire year without getting anything on my smock. Not one drop, not a splash, not a dribble of paint. I was so very careful.
I was so careful that I realized the first time I painted that I didn't get anything on me. To assure this fact stayed true, I decided to paint the same thing every week.
I remember one of my teachers asking me why I painted the same thing every week. I just shrugged but the real reason was because I didn't want my smock untidy.
So I painted the same thing EVERY week. I'm sure there are some psychological case studies that could be drawn from this behavior, but I realize now, it was the birth of my perfectionism. I found one way to do something and simply repeated what worked. I liked tidy. I disliked untidy. And thus the next 44 years of my life went!
I'm now reading the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. She expresses that it is important to be messy with your writing of your first draft. BE MESSY? Oh My! Now that's going to take some doing-me, untidy? Wow. I'll have to work on that-the perfectionist in me has prevented me from putting many things on paper....just now I wanted to write "prevented me from putting alot on paper" but I know it's untidy to write alot and thus I automatically rephrased my wording before I even put it down! I've got some work to do!
This might be a challenge but I have a feeling it might be fun (and a struggle at the same time) but maybe I'll just dirty up my smock.....what's the worst thing that can happen....according to Lamott I need a "shitty" first draft in order to get to a good second draft!
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