I self-published a cookbook last month. It wasn’t perfect. I didn’t know. I spent hours and had others spend hours proofreading, editing, reviewing and rewriting. It still wasn’t perfect and we didn’t know. I wrote this passage for the last page and submitted it for publishing:
“Is this project perfect? I don’t think so just yet, but it’s time to share. I humbly offer this cookbook to you knowing that I’ve painstakingly tested everything many times. I had smart people edit. I rewrote and revamped numerous times for comprehension. I had friends test a few of the trickier recipes and asked someone with Celiac to chime in too. This was a true “self-published” project and it may feel less slick than other cookbooks, but it’s full of joy and positive intention. I hope you can feel it.”
I realized that it wasn’t perfect after it had been published and many copies had been sold. I caught the errors, corrected, and resubmitted the manuscript to Amazon ensuring future copies would be “perfect”. I’d also previously created a support web page on which to post more pictures and information that I used to share the corrections for those who bought the first edition. The edit was some measurement issues that I think were accidentally changed with the find/change feature in Word. Nothing that will cause a crisis, but my transparent and authentic self couldn’t just let it go. I feared that others might fail due to my tech mishap. I was so upset!
It’s been four weeks since I caught the issues and re-published the second version. Another (insignificant) error recently showed itself and I had to choose to just accept the imperfections and move on. I’m far from a perfectionist, but this has been hard to circumvent. I tried to keep my ego at bay most of the time, but when I’ve bared my soul to the world and created something permanent, the ego gets very involved. And the ego is a temperamental beast.
I recently asked a friend if she knew what I meant when I said I feel like I’m naked in public as a result of publishing the cookbook and exposing myself to many people. She told me “No. I don’t know how you feel and I don’t know that many people do.” That assessment shocked me and sent me into a few week long deep diving expedition into what makes me tick and how this project has affected me. I forget that oftentimes what I think or do isn’t mainstream and it knocks me off kilter when I am externally reminded.
In hopes of finding my way back to a place of stable contemplation, my retrospection led me to listening to the book “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” by Elizabeth Gilbert on dog walks. Once again Liz rocked my world in a very timely manner with:
“It starts by forgetting about perfect. We don’t have time for perfect. In any event, perfection is unachievable: It’s a myth and a trap and a hamster wheel that will run you to death. The writer Rebecca Solnit puts it well: ‘So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else, because the perfect is not only the enemy of the good; it’s also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun… The most evil trick about perfectionism, though, is that it disguises itself as a virtue.’”
Here we are, 16 years after reading her book “Eat Pray Love” while living abroad with my boys from 2003 to 2007 and she has yet again forever altered my perspective and helped me regain my footing. It’s like Liz knew the topics that were taking me on a subterranean descent: errors, fear and intention. I felt restrained by my previous project. I want to move aggressively into a writing pursuit. I intend to publish the work with the help of others in a professional capacity, rather than self-publishing. I hope to wrangle my ideas and experiences into a fluid and colorful piece that in turn comforts and inspires others the way that so many books have soothed and tethered my gregarious soul. However, I want to write it for me. I want this to be the crescendo of my creative life lived to my full capacity. Cymbals and bass drums and everything. I want to be stubborn, creative, and committed. Liz reminded me that:
“A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner – continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you – is a fine art, in and of itself.”
So here I am. Knee deep in my document containing 98,000 words that I’ve been collecting for over a decade. I’ve been saying “I want to write a book” or “I should write a book.” since my 21-year-old son was ten. Very soon. The chapter skeleton is finally constructed, the actionable logistics are laid out and it’s time to roll. My expectations are clear and much like my personal social media post six months ago in which I committed to publishing the cookbook by Thanksgiving, this post is me polishing and defining my trajectory. I commit to finishing this intense creative endeavor in the next six months! (I wish I wasn’t so motivated by deadlines!) Stay tuned.
PS The picture is of Percy, my sweet, confused doggo friend who I visited this last weekend in South Carolina. Some times she is snuggly. Other times she gets angry and barks at me. She’s not perfect, just like I am not. When the fire is on, she finds peace in the flames. There’s probably a metaphor there, but I’m too tired for exploration right now.
Kibby Jardine 