Writing and the Power of Vulnerability.

I have just sent out the reworked first 4 chapters of my manuscript to a select number of betareaders.

These are people whom I love and trust, who all have a particular outlook on different aspects of my writing and who I know will give me honest and useful feedback. They are aware of how writing is a craft I will forever be learning. I can be (quite) sure none of them will think any less of me when they spot the awful bits in my writing and the flaws in my thinking. Still, every time I send something out, I have to call on a deep layer of courage to get myself to click that 'send' button.

Of course, being me, I had to dig my teeth into that feeling. Find out about its nature and its origins. I didn't have to look far. I've written about perfection before, I've hinted at the human fear of 'not being good enough', of what could come back at you when you put yourself out there.

As if by cosmic accident, I found this video a few days ago. It's a TED talk by Brene Brown, a professor at the University of Houston, Texas, who has spent the past 10 years researching courage, authenticity, vulnerability and shame.

Some of what she says is probably (MBTI-) J stuff (the measuring stick, etc.), which I can only relate to from a distance, being far out on the Perceiving scale. But for the most part, what she talked about was very recognisable. And insightful. Take out the banana nut muffins and stuff in dark, Belgian chocolate, and we're talking very, very recognisable.

The talk is about 20 minutes long and well worth that time. As a bonus, Brene is an excellent speaker with a great sense of humour.

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Writing, Persian rugs and the paradox of perfection.

For the past 1,5 years, I've been writing on my first full-size novel. I hadn't written 'for real' since I was a teenager, and it was a really big step to take.

But so far it's been one of the best decisions I've ever made, with lots of positive consequences that have rippled through to almost every other aspect of my life. It's helped me to stand still and concentrate on the world around me more often, and - through doing that - it's bringing me a lot closer to myself and what I really value.

The process of writing has caused quite a few confrontations with myself; some anticipated and some totally unexpected. Fortunately they all occur in a safe environment: my own fictional world, a realm where lots of things pop up, but where I'm in control. Most of the time. I can more or less decide which issues to deal with first and when, by carefully popping in and out of that world whenever I please.

One of the things I found out along the way, is that I'm more of a character-driven than a plot-driven writer.
That didn't surprise me, really. Whenever I read something, observe people or even when I watch TV, I always connect with the characters first. It doesn't matter that much whether I like them or not, as long as I feel I can grasp them, understand where they come from or suspect that they have a good reason for doing what they do.

That, indirectly, lead to me a very important realisation: I suddenly understood that I loved my own characters way too much.
Because of this, I'd been trying to chisel them to such perfection that, if I would run into them in the flesh, I'd really really dislike them.
Even though I'd been aware of this risk before I started writing, and tried to avoid it, I'd still fallen into the trap. And I knew that, until I'd go back to the drawing board to touch them up with a bunch of carefully constructed vices, blemishes and shortcomings, my characters could never be my friends.
Because, let's face it, in reality, perfection is not just boring, it's utterly detestable.

So why do so many of us - myself included - keep striving for it: in what we do, in how we look or even in wanting to become "our perfect self"?
Is perfection something we'd even want to attain?

While thinking this over, I remembered one of my history teachers once telling us about the 'Persian flaw', an imperfection that Persian rug makers deliberately wove into their carpets, because only God is perfect.
That idea has always resonated with me. Regardless of our individual concepts of 'God' or our relationship with Him/Her/They/It, the Persian flaw always makes me wonder: how pointless (and/or conceited?) is it to strive for the full 100% of anything?

Instead, wouldn't it make more sense to spend that extra energy on revaluing our unique, individual set of imperfections, and to see how we can turn them into a gift, for ourselves and/or others?

What are your Persian flaws that set you apart from everybody else, and what good can they do?

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