on petting

few days ago, finished the prior scene.
then i broke. ...breaked? took a break.
though the first thing might be accurate too, i had a Rough day in there.
1.6 yesterday.
2.8 today.
meant to post again sooner but both of the last days i expected to write more than what i did in the first session and then post after that. and then i didn't actually end up doing that.
oh well.

The Oatmeal has a really good comic about perfectionism. you should click that link and go read it.
but if you are determined not to, the tl;dr is it gives an operative word for the process of lingering very long on a piece of work, making small changes, just trying to get it to be "good enough" or "fix" things. this is called Petting, and it is a word that became integrated in our development vocabulary during e19/postgame's development (especially with regards to sprites.)

the bottom line and the problem with petting is that, in all metrics except your insecurity, The Thing is Done.

but also, i have said quite strictly and repeatedly that writing requires you to go back and edit it to make it good later.

so it might seem that these ideas-- No Petting but You Must Edit-- are at odds. how do we navigate that?

the answer lies in understanding your emotional state.

the problem with petting is that, emotionally speaking, you have finished the work. you are not going to get anything personally fulfilling out of continuing to pick at it. it is Done and you are Done With It but because you think it is Not Good Enough you can't admit that. you have to fix it. in doing so, you are willfully ignoring your emotional condition.

it is common advice that you cannot edit writing right after you finish writing it. you need a fresh point of view, people say. or you need someone else to read it. this is common enough that i don't think i need to make it its own assertion. instead, we can talk about why this is the case. in contrast to the experience of Petting, you can only properly Edit from a different emotional state. time is one way of achieving that. exposing yourself to the pain and vulnerability of having someone else read a draft is another way to do so. and there are countless other ways too.

but that is the primary difference between Editing and Petting-- your emotional condition.
all the more reason not to turn a blind eye to it.

incidentally, this is also why breaks are helpful.