Today, I’m gonna be talking about (in a roundabout kinda way) goals… or just what is ‘good enough’ when it comes to my stories.
We all had to go to school (I hope). And chances are, we were all pressured to do the best we could when it came to ‘earning’ our grades. I remember a good friend that would always talk to me about how their mom would pressure him to get those A’s and not settle for anything less. Go for the best and leave everyone else in the dust.
This good friend’s dad also got in on the business of being the ‘best’ and signed him up for every sport known to man. My friend was probably the least athletic person I’ve ever known. He was goofy as heck and could fall off a skateboard that someone else was riding. Invariably, a week wouldn’t go by where he’d run into a wall or fall off a chair (some were on purpose… most weren’t). He was a professional klutz. When it came to sports, his favorite position was bench warmer.
But, he was happy. Even though his mom and dad would constantly ride him to be the best at everything possible, he was happy with almost any situation that presented itself. Why? I think it’s because he felt that ‘good enough’ was… good enough. Confusing, huh?
I think we got along well because we both thought this way. All throughout school, I never did my homework. I thought it was a waste of time and didn’t prove anything (just that you can sit for hours and regurgitate information). The tests (that I passed with flying colors) kept me afloat in school. I knew the information… and if I didn’t, I’d read the textbook on my own time and figure it out. I still wouldn’t do the homework, though.
One time, my mom got so frustrated after hearing, “He’s got the potential, he just needs to apply himself.” for the umpteenth time, that she had me bring home every textbook and had each teacher check a box to indicate if I had homework that night or not. That was a rough few months.
Needless to say, forcing me to do the homework didn’t prevent me from NOT turning it in the next day. Mom came to realize that no amount of browbeating would force me to do something that had very little impact on my grades. She understood that it wasn’t because I was behind in the knowledge, it was the method that I was rebelling against. I just wanted to do ‘good enough’ to pass.
So just what is ‘good enough’ to me? I’ve been reading books for a very long time. Before the boom of self-publishing, almost everything I read was mass-marketed. I’ve seen spelling errors, grammar mistakes, books that looked like it had never even come close to being looked at by an editor, and more. Did this make them bad books? Not necessarily. It essentially proved to me that no matter how many hands a book goes through on its way to being published, mistakes can be made and slip through.
What’s this got to do with my stuff? We all want to present our ‘best’ work. We want others to care about it as much as we do. We’ve poured hours of work and time into something that we eventually have to release into the wild. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to present something that is polished and flawless to the world… but there really is no such thing.
Ask any artist to look at their work and tell you what’s wrong with it… every single one of them will point out something. The masterpiece we imagine in our minds CAN be perfect, but there’s no such thing in the real world (if it’s actually such a thing… but that’s for another day). We buy products that follow the ‘good enough’ rule each and every day. They are ‘passable’. They get us by without resorting to the bells and whistles of luxury and/or extraneous things that weren’t requested.
This is how I see my stories. They need to do very few things. Provide entertainment, and maybe an idea or two that’s clear enough to understand without losing my reader. That’s it. It doesn’t need the fanciest and most magnificent prose I can spend hours and days and months on, tweaking it to within an inch of its life to get the most meaning from it. It doesn’t need a cover that looks like a Renaissance painting. All it has to do is catch the eye.
None of this means that I’m not going to put any effort into it, it just means that I’m not going to kill myself shooting for some unobtainable goal. Something so lofty that I’ll start getting nosebleeds when thinking about it. Too many people strive for the ends of the spectrum. Either they’re working tirelessly to provide something that could never be obtainable, or they’re pushing out crap with the least amount of effort possible. Me? I’m shooting for good enough… and you know what? It’s good enough.
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