I am the worst kind of perfectionist, the kind who not only likes getting things absolutely right, but who likes -- hates to fail at, can’t bear not -- getting things right the first time. I am in the wrong profession.
There is no such thing as getting it right the first time in writing. In fact, there’s often no such thing as getting it right the last time: there are plenty of things I’ve written that I wish I’d worded differently (disappointing), that contain errors that had to be corrected after the fact (mortifying), or that are just very meh (meh).
Editors exist to prevent as many of these mistakes as possible from seeing the light of day, and everyone, as my former colleague the great Ann Friedman likes to say, needs an editor. But sometimes mistakes make it through because guess what, editors make mistakes, too.
I’ve spent the week writing about ballet and mental health, about anxiety and depression and burnout and, of course, eating disorders, all of which are a big problem in ballet, a hypercompetitive and subjective field with a sky-high injury rate, where jobs are in short supply and come with very little stability.
Which means I spent a lot of the week writing about perfectionism, the thing that unites all ballet dancers, and undoes a lot of them, too.
Perfectionism can be productive: there can be real joy in practicing until you get something right, of making small improvements until the final product is polished and shiny and ready to show to the world. I mean, there’s a reason training montages are so damn satisfying.
But it can also be destructive when it’s not accompanied by patience, and grace, and the knowledge that failure is inevitable. One reason I think perfectionism is so rampant in ballet is that in a sense, you’re never not performing. Even in class, or in rehearsal, you are being watched. You are being assessed and scrutinized. Even in places where mistakes are meant to be allowed, there’s a desire to be show-ready. Because you’re always on show. Eventually, you learn to self-assess and self-scrutinize, and if that self-appraisal isn’t accompanied by patience and forgiveness, it curdles into self-cruelty.
So many of the dancers I’ve interviewed for this book described themselves as perfectionists, and so many of them learned in ballet to be cruel to themselves, to hold themselves to high standards and hate themselves when they inevitably fell short.
Perfectionism has served me pretty well in life. Blind loyalty to deadlines has served me pretty well so far (how much do I like deadlines? I used to get annoyed when my period didn’t show up a day early, because on time is late). Adherence to schedules has served me pretty well (how much do I like schedules? When my fiance and I got engaged, it was scheduled. It’s on my Google calendar forever as “engagement dinner”). Ballet trained me well: I like structure, and I like getting things right.
But this is my first draft of my first book. It’s not going to be perfect. It certainly wasn’t perfect this week: I’m writing what I’m fairly sure is a shitty first draft of a chapter about perfection. The irony is not lost on me, though it is also not really amusing me. It happens. We go to sleep, we wake up, we try again. And we thank god that editors exist.
That’s it from me this week. Please forgive any typos. This was an first draft.
See you next week,
Chloe.