At what point do you stop trying to improve your work?

I have a friend who is a songwriter and musician. He writes a lot of songs, and some of them are absolutely beautiful.  We’ve been friends for nearly a decade, and in that time, he has not released a single album-length recording, and has released perhaps a handful of single tracks.  I have a number of recordings that he has made, and when I hear them (I listen to my music library on “shuffle”), I never think “Boy, this needed more time in the studio.” What I think is “he worked on this years ago, and it was good enough to be released, but now he’s on to new projects, and this will never get released.” But, to my friend, there’s always a reason that it’s not ready.

Lately he’s been saying that he’s got things set up so that he will start finishing albums. But, to me, the recordings that he thinks are unfinished are already good as they are and all they need are packaging and promotion. In any event, I am very much hoping that he will actually finish and release some projects—it would certainly help his business to have recordings that he could sell.
Making the decision to stop working on a project is emotionally difficult but necessary.

Last night, I was at the creative writers’ group that I sometimes attend—I dabble with sci-fi/fantasy, but with my serious efforts directed towards two books on research writing to follow up my first dissertation book (Getting the Best of Your Dissertation)—and I got into a similar dynamic with one of the writers: pushing him to finish, while he said he was trying to make changes to improve it. At one of the first meetings I attended, he shared a draft of the last chapter of the first volume of the epic he’s writing. That was several months ago, and he’s still “knocking off rough edges,” while I’m pushing him to try to finish it, and make some moves to get it published (he’s planning on self-publishing on the Internet).

It’s not that I can’t see possibility to improve the work. It’s that I see greater desirability in finishing a work and moving on to the next.  It’s always tempting to try to improve on the weaknesses that you can see in your own work, but is that always a good choice?

One way I view his work is through the lens of what I could imagine doing better.  I understand that he is viewing his work through that lens—it makes sense; it’s what leads to writing well and improving.

But another way I view his work is through the lens of what will help him become a better and more successful writer. And through that lens, I think he’ll learn more, produce better work, and possibly even earn a few bucks, if he stops trying to improve his work, and starts going through the steps to actually get his work self-published. Maybe it’s worth proofreading, but trying to make changes to make the work better? I think that’s not the most productive use of his time and effort.

And yet another way that I view his work is through the lens of how his work compares to other stuff—especially to the worst stuff I’ve read.  His work does not compare favorably to my absolute favorites, but that’s a pretty stringent standard.  If I think about all the things I’ve read, though, his work appears in a different light.  I’ve read some really lousy writing. I’ve read some lousy writing from authors who have had many books published and who have followings. Compared to these writers, suddenly his works shows as a totally viable project comparable or superior in quality to many.

During the writers’ group meeting, this author and another member were talking about a movie they had both seen and that they both thought was poorly written.  If you see enough movies or read enough books, you’re going to be in a position to say “this one is better and that one is worse.”  It’s easy to do. And in criticizing those relatively weak works, it’s worth remembering that they were published (which is how you saw them).

When writing (or working on another creative process), it’s easy to get focused on the work and on what you’d like to do better. Trying to improve your work is good. But there is no clear-cut criteria by which you can be certain that you have done enough.  So, at what point do you stop trying to improve the work?

People can get stuck trying to improve their work. To break out of that trap, finding some outside criteria for comparison is useful. When are you going to stop working, and take steps to have the work become more public?  If you have been working on a project for a long time, and you don’t have someone to give you feedback, ask yourself how your work compares to some of the worst examples of what you’re doing—such a comparison might give you confidence to move forward and share your work with more people.