Embrace Your Inner Dumpster Fire
If you aren’t having at least eighty-seven existential crises a year, are you really living your best life?!
The Plague of Perfectionism
Greetings, breachlings. It’s been months since I newslettered, and for that, I apologize. To be honest, I’ve been in limbo, and I was unsure what to write about. How many void screams are too many void screams? Trick question, I know. (There’s no such thing.) Anyway, I harvested the depths of my prickly brain sprouts for a suitable topic for your scrumptious eyeballs, and I figured I’d write about something that’s been plaguing me lately.
Today (or tonight, depending on where in the world your lair is located), I want to talk about perfectionism—or more specifically, imperfectionism, aka the art of fucking up. So grab a beer, pull up a chair, and let’s shoot the shit.
Perfectionism is my lifelong nemesis. I never would have defined myself as a perfectionist—I’m a rather imperfect belch of chaotic mayhem most days—but when a trusted friend called me a perfectionist (in a loving way, after bribing me with snacks), I had an “oh, shit, bokeh light montage, the main character just realized she was actually a frog all along” moment. Before her analysis, I didn’t think I was a perfectionist; I just wanted everything done exactly right. Cue the wizened fisherman’s knowing smile and nod.
For years, I welcomed this perfectionism. When stress demons rose, perfectionism gave me a rigid structure that my sloppy mind craved. But life is messy. Crazy. Sometimes batshit. And this is a beautiful thing. Some of my best moments have grown from some of my worst. In my humble, ludicrous, not to be taken seriously opinion, we need the bad times just as much as the good, if not more.
Obvious plot twist: This perfectionism eventually turned toxic. Depression, anxiety, rejection, and fear fed this gloom-horny beast. I self-sabotaged. I shut down. I clung to control when all felt impossible. And it only exacerbated everything. Burnout suffocated my creativity. Writing became immensely difficult. I could no longer surrender to the story, could no longer lose myself in my characters, and this terrified me. In an Emperor Palpatine-worthy spiral, I fucked up, and fucked up, and fucked up.
Yet from the maggot-squishy ground of my rock-bottom shit pit, I finally changed. And it wasn’t perfect. Or controlled. Or anything graceful. But it was change, and it was desperately needed.
My whole rambling point: Fuck perfectionism. It doesn’t exist, anyway, and it only solidifies tired routines and old insecurities. Perfectionism causes more issues than it solves, in my experience. Writing is about being novel (pun intended). There is a sort of delirious surrender that comes with bleeding our souls onto the page, and a bone-shattering courage to rip out our hearts and bare them for the vicious world to feast upon. And nothing about heart-ripping gore bombs is ever perfect or clean.
I still struggle with perfectionism to this day. It stalls me, chains me, but I’m slowly learning to cherish my imperfections, and I hope you are, too. You can always start over. No matter what happened, you can always start over and try again. Move on, and don’t beat yourself up for the past.
WARNING: SAPPINESS ENGAGED.
With these newsletters and my raw (if uncomfortable) transparency, I hope you know you’re not alone if you feel the same way.
SAPPINESS DISENGAGED. BACK TO EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE PROGRAMMING.
New Interviews
Steve Talks Books invited me to cause chaos on his channel and discuss spoilers for my very calm and not at all chaotic psychological thriller, I Will Kill You! Watch and subscribe here!
Also, I recently invaded The Writing Community Chat Show’s aftershow, hosted by Chris Aggett and Chris Hooley, along with authors Anya Pavelle and Brandon J. Morehouse. This delightful, debaucherous video is available to patrons (starting at only $4/month to watch raunchy and sometimes metaphysical bonus episodes). We stayed very professional in our sophisticated discourse of anatomy, barbecue, travel, exclusive updates, and the world circumcision map. If you would also like to participate in such FORE-ward discussions, WCCS’s Patreon is the place to be!
Recent Reads
I’ve read quite a bit over the last few months, so instead of bombarding you with a girthy list, I’ll highlight a few tree corpses I devoured!
An upcoming dark fantasy book by Rose J. Fairchild
Dead Culture (Gloomwood Book 4) by Ross Young
Portals of Magic: Poetry and Activity Book For Kids 6–10 by Lali A. Love
A Firecracker Wish by Ace Jamerson
Forest of Dreams and Whispers by Katherine Macdonald
The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow
The Island by Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant
You'd Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow
Podcasts/Channels to Stalk
The Writing Community Chat Show, Story of a Storyteller, The Tiny Bookcase, Boomers on Books, The Shadow’s Project, Steve Talks Books, What The Book, Human Chapters, Words & Pictures, Talk Wordy to Me
Aggressive Love
Be kind to yourself. Move on. Start over. No one is perfect except for Nicolas Cage. Everyone (except Lord Cage) fucks up. It’s impossible to not fuck up. Worship your mistakes. Fail hard, and fail often. Rise from Trash Mountain to claim your glorious rebirth. Embrace your inner dumpster fire.
Lots of love & chaos,
Halo
Ahhhh Halo. Sorry you've been through this chaotic misery. I feel it, I've been there, I may still be there, and so this is magnificently helpful in all its mayhematic glory. Thanks for this.
Well said, perfectionism sucks balls!