The beginning?

Lovely readers!!

Today is the last day of the October blog challenge! I challenged myself to write every day, and I did just that. Some days I worked on flexing my fiction muscles, and that was not for the blog, so there are a few days missing, but I am proud to say that for over a month I have written every day. And today being no exception I am going to talk about something that a friend told me a few days ago about procrastination vs perfectionism. Apparently procrastinators have difficulty getting things started, while perfectionists have an issue releasing things out into the world until they are perfect (and lets face it - how often does THAT happen?) It was interesting to hear that - I always thought I was a bit of a procrastinator (and sometimes I am) but for the most part, I am happy to start things. It is just that somewhere along the process, I start to judge it - is it good enough? What will so and so think? And my pace slows… And soon enough - I may not finish it, or I might finish it, and it never see the light of day. So my favourite thing about this blog challenge was that I forced myself to put something out there almost every day. The posts weren’t always perfect, and (like yesterday and today) I could not get to post the photos that I wanted to post, but I followed through on my commitment. And I learned that sometimes I have to put the messy version out there until it gets better. Because, sometimes I only get better through the process of putting stuff out there. Because the perfect blog post (in my head) is never as good as the imperfect one that I publish. And because it never sounds the same on paper as it does in my head, and I got better at that translation the more I did it. Progress over perfection. Clarity through action.

So for my next trick - I am going to write a novel in November. I don’t plan to publish it, but I will definitely let you know at the end of November how it went. I finally understand (as I stated in my post a few days ago) that the only way to know if I can do this is to actually do it! In addition - November is also independence month here in Barbados, and so I don’t plan to take a break from sending island love next month. I have been asked on a few occasions to share some blogs about island life and what it is like, and I will take the opportunity to do that during November, so watch out for that. Thank you for journeying with me - I have totally enjoyed the October blogging challenge and look forward to doing it again next year.

What are you being a perfectionist about that you need to release into the world? What are you procrastinating about? Hit publish. And again. And again. You will be amazed at what might happen!!

I send you big love from a small island

PS - due to the issues I am still having with my photos, I am going to kick off the independence celebrations early with a photo from the North Western Coast of Barbados that I took last year. See you in November!!!