Inspiration from Arcane
In the gorgeously animated series Arcane, based off League of Legend video game characters, is a quote by one of the protagonists: “There is no prize for perfection. Only an end to pursuit.”
The character may have been talking about something as minor as altering the minds of every human, but despite the frivolous throw-away line 🙂 the sentiment aptly applies to our writing life.
We often strive for perfection—as represented by the manuscript that lands an agent or a publisher or hits the bestseller lists, not to mention the awards and accolades it could earn. While we know, cognitively, that none of those criteria prove perfection (ever read a bestseller you loathe?? Wonder why that book won a prestigious award??) we often feel like we’re not making it like those other authors because we don’t (yet) have the perfect manuscript. If only we did… and so we keep striving.
Yet if there were objective perfection in a novel (an idea as fantastical as, well, the world of Arcane), it would be a loss for us all. It’s the pursuit of our own talents, our own capabilities, our own limits, that drive us to write better—and, not surprisingly, to produce better books. It’s not perfection that makes us better. It’s the pursuit of being the best writer we can be. They are vastly different notions, and for that I’m grateful. It takes the perfectionist pressure off, don’t you think?