about perfectionism

I have been busy with a lot of different things. I have been substitute teaching, I have been getting other stuff done around the house. I think I have been procrastinating because I am feeling the influence of undue perfectionism. This is ironic, because as I have been thinking about it, the novel I am writing right now is essentially about perfectionism. A major theme is focusing so much on making things perfect that you end up messing things up beyond repair - or at least so difficult to repair that the one who made the mistake will never see things set right. As I write, when it is time to fix something that does not fit with the story line, it is difficult to go back and just fix it. I get stuck trying to fix everything before I go on. I want to set it all right before I go on. I forget that this is still a rough draft. The obsessive fixing needs to come later, after I have things laid out more. I am trying to be too perfectionistic while I write a novel that has at its core a theme of the danger of perfectionism. Ah, the joy of irony. I am going to try to go through and finish making the changes I need to make to get the story line back on track. Then I am going to continue to get the story line on the page. I don't want this bump in the road to stop me, even though I have been slacking for the past several days because I am not sure what I should do next. The only way to figure out what to do next is simply to try something. Today I will try something, then something else, then something else. I will get it done a single task at a time.