When is it good enough?

by Carolyn Mamchur

Does it depend upon the what and why and how we are creating something?

This question asked by most creatives has me by the throat, presses hard against my chest. “When is it good enough to share, to show, to sell, to publish, to wear, to record?”

In academia, where standards are to public in top tier journals, where competition is fierce, and where you are always expected to push yourself to do your absolute best, I rarely asked myself this question. Everyone knows you must try your very best to make it.

As a person who has chosen the subject of writing to dominate her teaching career, how many times have I not insisted that writing is re-writing. Not editing grammar, spelling, the stuff computers have started doing for us, but actual re-writing. I remind my students that even Ernest Hemingway, when interviewed about writing one of his famous, best-selling novels, commented that he had written the ending over and over again.

“You couldn’t decide how to end it?”

“Well no, I knew that.”

“What, then?”

“Getting the words right.”

There’s good reason re-writing is a natural part of the process. A first draft often draws upon unconscious thought. Ideas, images, flow into the writer’s mind and find…