I was trying to think of a story for the Darkness & Good blog the other day, because it’s my turn to post this week, and me and short story ideas are kind of hit and miss sometimes (AH HA HA ALL THE TIME HA HA SOMETIMES HA), and first of all, I ACTUALLY THOUGHT OF A STORY RIGHT WHEN I NEEDED ONE AMEN HALLELUJAH, and second of all, in doing so I had a bit of a revelation about myself. The story starts with the protagonist making a stupid mistake that they really should have known better than to make, and it puts their life in danger. Usually in my stories what happens next is sudden, inescapable DEATH.
But this time, I realised that that’s how the story would usually go, and it made me realise something else: I’m really not good at giving myself permission to make mistakes. Like, really not good. I’m better than I used to be, and I know enough now to recognise when I’m beating myself up over something I shouldn’t be and to take steps to stop that, but yeah. I still have this subconscious expectation that I really should be superwoman. Making mistakes when I didn’t know what was going on or what was happening? Yeah, okay, that sucks, but it happens. Making mistakes when I really should have known better? That is pretty much unforgiveable.
Except, it shouldn’t be. I’m human. I’m not *actually* any better than anyone else, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to retrain damaging perfectionist tendencies. I’m learning where the boundaries are between ‘good enough’ and ‘killing myself with perfect’, and I’m getting better at realising innately what my mum taught me while I was first married and studying at uni: I only have 100% of myself to give, and the more things I spread that between, the less I have to devote to each thing. I can’t expect to achieve 100% in fifty-million things, because that’s fifty-million-hundred percent, and ain’t nobody got time for that.
But. My fiction, apparently, still keeps telling me otherwise. I still keep writing stories where stupid mistakes cost people their lives, out of this perverse and totally subconscious belief that I’m not allowed to make stupid mistakes, that I’m better than that, that doing so is a failing on my part.
So this time, I let the protagonist win. This time, she got hit by a mistake, and came back up swinging, learned from her mistake and triumphed in the end. Because let’s face it, that’s what I do in life. You make a mistake, and you’re allowed to beat yourself for a minute or two, but then you have to figure out what you did wrong, what you’re going to fix the situation, and how to avoid making the same mistake again. Sometimes that actually means remembering to not over-commit yourself, or making sure you protect your sleep so you’re not walking about like the zombified dead–shockingly enough, sleep deprivation is not conducive to avoiding mistakes!!!!!!
If you’re interested, you can read the short story below. But either way, leave a comment and let me know: Do you get frustrated when you make mistakes too? How do you cope with residual perfectionism, if so?
FOOL ME ONCE
Larelle sank into her armchair by the fire, cosy and pleasantly drowsy. The comforting scent of woodsmoke wound around her, and she sighed. The kids had been a riot today; she was smashed. Even sitting upright was too much effort, and she slumped against the padded innards of the chair, wondering if curling her legs up under her would be worth the effort/comfort trade off. Thank heavens it was Friday.
A knock sounded at her apartment door and, staring into the flickering blue-orange flames and glowing embers, Larelle called out, “Come in!”
The door creaked open. Larelle waited for Jason’s footsteps, but they didn’t come.
“You’re early,” she said, pivoting around to the door, thoughts full of languid disappointment that she had not had time to change.
Her heart skipped, then double-pounded. The figure smiling toothily on the near side of the threshold was not Jason.
Partially because Jason wasn’t six-foot-three with long, dark hair and muscles like something out of a firemen’s calendar—but mainly because Jason couldn’t leer at her with jet black eyes—sclera included—and pointed, gleaming fangs.
“Actually,” the vampire-apparent said, “I believe I’m exactly on time. I do like to eat dessert before my mains. Bad habit, I know.”
“Better for the digestive system,” Larelle said reflexively; her Year 3 students had been studying the systems of the human body this month.
Not that she’d told them the bit about dessert first, of course. She wanted permanency, not a civil lawsuit from parents. “And can’t you only enter houses when invited?”
“True,” said the vampire, and he licked his fangs. “And it was so sweet of you to invite me in.” He rubbed his hands gleefully. “Shall we begin?”
Larelle’s chest constricted and her fingers tightened around each other in her lap as the fatal words played through her mind: Come in.
Idiot. She’d even had a peephole installed in the door right after that werewolf had attacked old Mrs Franklin, but did she bother to use it? No. Too much effort.
The fire crackled its critique of her work ethics, the pine she’d thrown on to get the blaze going fast snapping and popping.
Well, you know what else is a lot of effort? Larelle asked herself scathingly as she stood and paced towards the vampire. Staking predators. Next time, just use the bloody peephole. She grinned toothily, revealing the flecks of iron in her teeth—fillings she’d had done specially.
The vamp’s cocksure smile slipped a little before he covered it with a grin even wider than hers—Too wide, she thought. He’s covering.
“Oh yes,” Larelle said, raising the iron-and-hardwood-and-silver poker from the fireplace—the ultimate multipurpose weapon against the supernatural. “Do let’s begin.”
The vampire lunged, but Larelle had done more than the basic training required by the government. She went down on one knee.
He grabbed over her head.
She stabbed the poker upward.
He died a fast, gurgling death.
She hoped it was painful.
Someone knocked at the door. Probably this was now Jason, but Larelle pulled the poker from the vampire’s chest with a wet schlurp, wiped the vampire’s copper-scented, pale-blue blood off on his shirt, and headed to the peephole to make sure.
She wasn’t making that mistake again.