Something Is Better than Nothing

Is my motherhood mantra true for my writing life?

There’s a phrase I repeat when our little (and not-so-little) growing people get stuck: “Something is better than nothing; now is better than later.” The envelope doesn’t have to be addressed with perfectly shaped letters for it to get to where it needs to go. The parking job might take a couple back-ups and start-overs before the minivan is safely between the lines. (This is why it’s a good idea to park waaaaay at the back of the parking lot for a couple weeks…months…years.) But it’s all good because we are learning to learn. Ultimately, we are learning frustration tolerance and resilience in the face of failure. The fear of failure can be crippling. Learners at all stages, but especially beginning learners, need frequent reminders that progress takes movement, and imperfect movement is better than standing still and fretting about the inevitable mistakes. Whether it’s learning cursive or geometry, studying for the ACT, or trying out a new recipe, there’s not much progress one can make without trying and failing on repeat. The important part about all that failure is seeing it as a learning opportunity instead of a big neon light flashing “The End.”

Yesterday I pulled up my Substack and twiddled with a couple verbs and vague words that were bugging me. I found a repetitive sentence. I wanted to scrap one post completely and start over. I had started publishing on a whim very much in the spirit of something being better than nothing. I had promised my sister-in-law to have a post ready to go sometime this week, and I beat the Sunday deadline with five days to spare by sitting down and writing on command and hitting “publish” in one sitting, without giving myself time to second-guess. But is my motherhood mantra true for a writer? Shouldn’t a writer edit and polish and get those words all shined up and ready to face the big world? If the brilliance that gave us The Importance of Being Earnest spent all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out, don’t I owe it to myself to write not just something but something brilliant?

This desire to be impressive, the Mr. Darcy syndrome if you will, makes us writers unwilling to write anything unless it will amaze the whole room. I know, I know, Darcy didn’t really want to amaze the whole room, but Elizabeth teased him that they were “each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition unwilling to speak” unless their words were “handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb,” and he declared it was “no very striking resemblance” to her own character (Austen, Pride and Prejudice 63). The “Lizzy teasing Darcy syndrome” might be more accurate but doesn’t have the same ring. While the desire to write well is a good one, the impulse can so easily lead one into self-conscious writing. Writing with an aim to impress, rather than an aim to communicate the truth with which you have been entrusted, is a quick onramp to that crippling fear of failure. You have been entrusted with your memories, your experiences, your witness. Perhaps you have a plot of ground to call your own, a pet or child to tame, a parent to care for, a neighbor to love, a meal to prepare, a job to do. These opportunities were given to you, as potential talents, not to be buried safely in a vault and shined into oblivion, but to be used and shared and increased.

Some prolific writers might need to slow down and take an afternoon quibbling with a comma. Many of us need to get our butts in the seat and write. It’s a verb. Am I still a writer when I haven’t sent a poem out for publication in almost a decade? Am I still a writer if I’m only a funeral and wedding poet? Am I still a writer if I’m only jotting down ideas on the backs of napkins and grocery lists? Yes, yes, and yes, but I welcome the challenge my sister-in-law gave me to write consistently and frequently and bravely. So I’m going to post this now and raise her challenge with one of my own: submit a poem for publication once a month in 2025 and see what the year will bring.