The revised Love and Rockets goes back today. This is one of those times when it’s hard to say when. I could keep working on it for another month, but even if I had another month, sooner or later it’s just time to stop. The goal is not to rework any single ms. to death in the hopeless quest for perfection, because if you do that you never have a body of work. It’s time to acknowledge that I’ve done a good job and that my job now is to send it on to the next stage of the process, not draw this stage out forever. It’s much improved and I’m glad. There’s still one scene that I’m not confident works as well as I want it to, but this is where it’s important to remember that perfection is not an achievable goal. The best I can do with the time I have is achievable, and I’ve done that.
Post-project let-down, probably. I felt like Yule hadn’t really worked as well as I’d wanted it to, either, but the editor and subsequent readers and reviewers alike have a different opinion.
The person on the inside of the creative process sees the idea that is never quite fully realized, no matter how hard or long or well you work to turn that idea into reality. That’s just how it is, because an idea has no physical form and anything in physical form is imperfect. Nothing ever lives up to the initial vision. It’s always humbling to see how far you fall short. It’s not a bad thing to have an ideal to aim for, or to aim higher than you can reach. That’s how you keep stretching and improving. I’d rather stretch myself and fall a little short than aim too low.
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