Don't be blindsided by someone else's "perfection"

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A friend invited me to visit while she was house-sitting. I drove to a hamlet about an hour away and parked in a paved driveway. A winding sidewalk showed me the way to the front door. Taking baby steps, I admired the meticulous lawn with fresh mulch nestled around lush green bushes. Dead leaves and weeds had taken the high road, and the front porch was spotless; no trace of a spider web or wasp nest.

    I rang the doorbell, and my friend let me in. When we had finished eating lemon icebox pie, she led me on a tour of the house -- three floors of more meticulousness. Every room had been decorated in House Beautiful fashion, with such things as white coverlets and matching dust ruffles, accent pillows in soft aqua, and flowing curtains framing all the windows. Pictures, in the perfect shape and scene for the space, hung in every spot where a picture should be, and if I swore, I would swear that not one speck of dust rested on any surface. I hinted to my friend that the team of housekeepers and interior decorators should be awarded a trophy. She assured me that the owner vacuumed and dusted, as well as decorated every wall, every nook and space herself.

    After an enjoyable visit with my friend, I drove away from the rows of stately homes back to my neck of the woods, passing by hay fields in need of baling and barns in need of painting. I turned into my gravel driveway and into the garage. Getting out of the car, I stepped over a wayward leaf, and on the way to put my things away, I tripped over a dust bunny. Compared to where I had just been, I had work to do.

    So, I started cleaning, but not with a mop or a broom.

    I dusted an aging story and fluffed it up. I did a clean sweep of one chapter and made sure all the words were in order. I flipped through pages of synonyms in search of words that looked better than others, and I trashed all the words that had no real meaning and sentences that were only taking up space. Lastly, I stashed all the idle but meaningful words into a bin for safekeeping.

    Whether showcasing a small book or a great big house, the process is the same. Achieving a certain look of domestic satisfaction can mean hiring a designer to develop a floor plan and select furniture, seamstresses to sew yards of chintz into drapes, and painters to paint the walls of every room. The results end up being a team effort.

    Writers use similar strategies to make their books look prettier, and some have cheerleaders pushing them across the finish line. Last year, I read a book in which the author's acknowledgements, where she thanked those involved in her success, spanned a whopping seven pages. Seven! It became a New York Times Bestseller, and it's no wonder, with a whole community of consultants, editors, and Oprah behind it.

    But not all writers walk down the same path.

    Some authors write, edit, and publish their books with little assistance from anyone. Many have done it with minimal outside help and with favorable results, but sometimes, the peer pressure of someone else's achievement influences the course we initially set for ourselves. Staying focused is the key to any accomplishment, which means not letting the glossy cover of a fellow writer's new book, or the perfection of a storybook house, get in the way of our dreams.

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