Connection beats perfection
What's beneath our words is worth sharing
Everything we ever say – and everything we ever don’t – we’ve felt and thought first. Sometimes the gap between is a good thing: time to decide what to share, what to keep for ourselves alone. The problem is how fast the gap widens. Particularly when it’s the gap between the perfect thing in our head and the messy first draft that is the only road from head to world.
That gap is why so many books aren’t finished, or even truly started (and, let’s face it, why so many conversations aren’t opened, jobs left unapplied for, changes left unmade).
Here is an answer.
You’re probably not going to like it.
Show Up Imperfect.
Say The Thing, a phrase at the heart of the Writers’ Gym, was first said to me by Ariel Fisher when I was writing for Fangoria. I use it every day to identify what I want to say and why I want to say it. It’s tempting as a beginner writer to believe it’s only the best ideas, the most useful, the truest, that make it out there. That’s a great reason to channel our creative energy into looking for others’ permission, or overwriting to sound like a writer, or waiting for absolute certainty in our feelings before daring to put our words out there. Perfection and certainty aren’t prerequisites for communication. Courage and curiosity are.
Your words don’t need to be perfect. They need to be understood. Which means they need to be good enough, clear enough. Enough is, often, enough.
Is it strange to hear an author, a writing coach, encouraging you not to get hung up on the words? Writing is a means to the end. The end is not perfect words. It’s connecting with each other.
Connection beats perfection. (For a start, it exists.)
My LAMDA students Ram and Amerie Said The Thing to me this week after their recent LAMDA Exams. Their results matter to them not simply because of the destination (distinctions) but because of the journey they haven’t forgotten now they’re on to the next one: their LAMDA coaching isn’t just about looking at the next achievement, it’s appreciating how impossible the one they’ve just achieved once seemed and honouring what they had to do and think in order to change it from impossible to hard and worth it! Ram, for example, used to think he couldn’t do his speechwriting on his own. That all the speechwriting had to be in our sessions, never between. Then we picked a subject he truly loved and I knew nothing about – football – and he told his truth in his own words. This week, I received a gift from Ram. One he had voluntarily written himself:
This was such a personal gift, such a thoughtful thank-you, that it will serve me as a reminder for the rest of my career that Saying The Thing is worth the fear of vulnerability in meaning it.
Ram’s sister Amerie painted a picture for me to say thank you. It was inspired by Teddy, my cat, my teaching assistant until his death in 2019 and one of Amerie’s first memories of LAMDA coaching. She remembers him because he made her feel calm and happy as he sat between us on the sofa in my old living room, a decade ago, while she wrote, spoke, rehearsed and performed. It wasn’t what Teddy said that made him important to Amerie…
Teddy’s presence in Amerie’s painting is itself a reminder that, in the end, it’s not what we say but how we make others feel that they remember:
It’s not our words that make the connection. It’s our willingness to reach out with them. If you’ve got something to say, a story you’re ready to explore, the world is as ready as you are.
You probably know I start every week with The Writing Room. Anyone on my mailing list (that’s you) is welcome to join for the full two hours or just a few minutes and write together. You don’t have to call yourself a writer. There are no ‘have to’s at all. It’s time for you to do whatever you want and need. We unmute for an optional chat at 12.50pm.
Other ways to build you writing and creative confidence this October:
The Writers’ Gym monthly calendar
Writing a Short Story Cycle | Saturday 26 October | Southwest London and online
Riverscribes Creative Writing | Tuesdays 1, 15, 29 October | Riverside Studios