Lack of perfection…

So you would think that writing a short story would be the absolute perfect assignment for me.

You would think that, but you would be wrong.  Very wrong.

Here’s the problem: I am a writer.  Writing is just what I do, and I know I’m good at it.  Maybe I’m not publishable yet, but I’m working on getting there.  But anyway, because I am a writer I a) write purely for myself, b) am a perfectionist about my writing, and c) hate 90-95% of what I write anyway.  So writing a story for school is a huge problem because a) it means writing for someone else, b) I refuse to write anything unless I have a brilliant idea, and as I have no brilliant ideas, I have not written anything yet … even though the story is due Friday, and c) whatever I write I know I will hate so much I probably won’t even be able to bring myself to proofread it.

Now, I ask you, why?  There is seriously no justice in the world.  All my non-writer friends settled on ideas and began writing weeks ago; but I, the writer, haven’t even decided what to write about!  I am one of the most laidback people I know.  I’m not a perfectionist about anything … except writing.  Of all the things I have to be a perfectionist about, it had to be writing!

Of course, I know what will happen.  I will settle on a very bad idea at the last minute, and the story will be horrible, and I’ll never be able to bear looking at it again.  Which is what happened last year.  Which is what will happen every time I have an assignment like this.

Sometimes, actually being good at something is not a good thing.