Good is the Enemy
I forget how the saying goes exactly. Good is the enemy of great? Done? Something like that.
For me good is just the enemy. And I’m facing off with it a lot recently.
I’m doing a challenge where I write a short story a week for a year. It’s a scary challenge, but something I have the time and ability to handle.
But wow is Good coming after me. I thought I’d made my peace with nothing I write or make every being good enough. I’ve been doing pretty well at finishing things anyway.
Something about this is making the old Not Good Enough mantra in my head stand up and start yelling though. I can’t be casual about my work right now, otherwise Good with freeze me up completely. I’m getting through it, and working out some ways to get past Good, and have fun with my art but it’s definitely a battle.
I’m also becoming more aware of how Good is stalking us all. I hear it’s echoes in creatives all around me, asking how to get ideas, how to start, how to finish, how to get themselves to create. How to be GOOD.
I’m just looking at my output recently, after slaying Good several times a week (it’s a zombie, keeps rising from the dead) and writing anyway, and I’m shocked at the things I’ve created. Things I have no idea what I was thinking. Stories about bunyips and space station con artists, and useless fire mages and alien pick up artists. Things I never would’ve written if I let Good tell me I wasn’t good enough. And I wonder about how much art the world is missing out on because it wasn’t made. Because the idea wasn’t Good.