Right into the ground.

You know that feeling when you’ve been staring at your manuscript so long you start to wonder if words have always looked this weird? Yeah. Been there. Lived there. Decorated the place.

But don’t just take my word for it—Winston Churchill once said, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.”
And honestly? The man had a point.

I won’t lie to you: I am a closet perfectionist with ADHD, which is… let’s say not the most harmonious pairing. I change titles like outfits. I swap book covers because I get bored. I forget what I’ve written approximately every 11 seconds. My Google Drive is basically a haunted house full of documents whispering, “Finish meeee…”

And I’m trying—really trying—to break the cycle.

One thing that’s helped is my weekly serial fiction, a modern-day vampire drama about a woman in Pittsburgh who is trying very hard not to kill people anymore. I’m writing it in first person, which I’ve never done before, and the truly wild part? I don’t overthink it. I write an episode, do a quick tidy-up, and hit publish. Every Saturday. No agonizing. No spiraling. No rereading something 47 times because I swear that comma wasn’t there five minutes ago.

It feels reckless and dangerous.
And a little delicious.

Do I sometimes forget a character name from five episodes back? Absolutely.
Do I have any idea where the hell the story is going? Not a clue.
Am I having fun? You better believe it.

Because here’s the truth: just like you, I want my work to be good. I want it to reflect my effort, my voice, my weird little brain. I want people to enjoy it, and I want to feel proud of it—regardless of the genre or pen name on the cover.

So why, you ask, did I have a fully finished novel sitting in a folder since 2014?

Because I overanalyzed it right into oblivion.
Then I buried it.
Then I forgot where I buried it.

A few weeks ago, I finally dug it up, dusted it off, gave it one good edit, slapped a cover on that puppy, and sent it out into the world.

Why?
Because it’s a good book.
Because I’m proud of it.
And because someone out there is going to enjoy reading it.

Is it best-seller material? Who knows. Maybe, maybe not. But the only way to find out is to keep going. Keep writing. And for heaven’s sake—keep publishing.

And that book wasn’t alone. I’ve got more manuscripts that have been aging like forgotten leftovers, getting stranger and less recognizable the longer they sit untouched. It’s a shame, really, letting stories lose their sparkle when they were meant to glow.

I made a promise to myself:
No more hiding my work.
No more over-polishing until the soul rubs off.
No more letting fear masquerade as “being thorough.”

I will create because I can’t not create.
And I will share because the characters deserve to be seen.

Please, don’t do what I’ve done. Don’t overanalyze your writing so much that it never sees daylight. Revise, yes. Polish, absolutely. But don’t silence the wild, beating heart of your creativity. Don’t linger so long in perfectionism that you forget progress is the point.

Bring your work into the world.

Show people what you’ve spent hours, days, months—or in my case, years—crafting.
Share the stories only you can tell.

Dutch Lodge is finally out.
Killer Heels—written in 2014 and left in a digital drawer for far too long—is finally seeing the sun.

In the end, if you write for yourself and fall in love with the people you’ve created, others will love them too. You’ll find your readers, your kindred spirits, your tribe. What thrills me might bore you; what delights you might not be my cup of tea. That’s the beauty of storytelling—we’re all weird in our own wonderful ways.

Trust the process.
Keep writing.
Keep publishing.

And above all, don’t bury your brilliance.

Until next time,
Dip from your inkwell often,
Mira Wolfe Writes…