“The End”
As I typed the words for my fourth book (Eight Steps to Be An Authorpreneur), in four months, I felt a sense of joy like which far exceeded the hot air balloon ride over Valley of Kings in Egypt, climbing the Eiffel Tower at night, tracking to Macchu Picchu all put together.
True book #2 and #3 are not finished. They wavered my confidence, but I am back in my element as I finished book #4. I now know how to complete them.
I have been pondering why was I not able to finish them.
It was not due to the lack of effort. I didn’t slack and was as committed as I was for this book.
It was not due to a lack of material because I still managed to reach the word count.
I thought it was due to a lack of a narrative structure, but now I realize even that was not the case. Both books had a structure that could work.
The main reason I wasn’t able to finish them - I was going for perfection.
I wanted my second to be better than the first and the third book better than the second. I wanted them to be perfect.
I removed that caveat when I started working on book #4. I told myself I didn’t want this book to be perfect. I want this book to be excellent.
Excellence and perfection are not the same things.
Excellence is trying with all your heart. It’s making promises and keeping them. It is doing your best with what you have got, whether it is knowledge, experience, or skills. It’s knowing your limitations and planning accordingly. It’s the slow and consistent journey of mastering your craft. It’s bringing the best that you can to each moment—while accepting that there will be a few typos, broken links, and gaps along the way because we’re human.
Excellence is attainable.
Perfection is not.
Perfection is strict, robotic, error-free in a way that’s not possible for living human beings made of flesh and bone. It’s an unrealistic standard that is painful to strive for and even more painful when (of course, as always) it goes unreached. It’s clawing desperately for something that does not even exist on this earth. It’s futile.
Tomorrow my book is going to the editor. He will point out some mistakes, tighten some sentences, correct my grammar. Book will get better but still not perfect.
I am happy with my imperfections.
I hope you are too.
A reader wrote to me that she couldn’t download the book from Amazon. I sent her a PDF version. If you experienced the same problem, write to me, and I will send you the PDF version too. Free of course.
That’s it from me this week.
I would love to hear from you. Please drop me a line in the comments section.
Take care.
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