A Moment of Betterment in Flux
By Milo Todd | August 10, 2020 |
Please welcome guest Milo Todd to Writer Unboxed today! Milo is a Lambda Literary Fellow in Fiction, a writing instructor at GrubStreet, a regular presenter at the Muse and the Marketplace and the Boston Book Festival, and a consultant for transgender inclusion within the classroom. He wrote THE FALCON OF DOVES, a novel about a trans pirate and his surrogate cis father, during GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator Program, where he was a Pechet Fellow. An excerpt of the story was published in “Emerge: 2019 Lambda Fellows Anthology.” Milo’s work also has appeared on Dead Darlings, Grub Writes, Everyday Feminism, and others.
You can learn more about Milo by visiting his website, and by following him on Twitter and Instagram at @todd_milo.
A Moment of Betterment in Flux
I instruct writing sessions, talk on panels, and chat with fellow budding writers at events. “How do you know when you’re finished?” is the most popular question I’m asked. Or rather, as I can see from the worry in their eyes that mirrors my own insecurities, “How do you know when it’s perfect?”
I tell them it’ll never be finished because it’ll never be perfect, and it’ll never be perfect because your work is always a reflection of yourself. Your work can only be passed off to that place of permanence when you feel you’ve done the best job you can in your current state of being in this current state of time in this current state of the world.
I say this because I’ve experienced it many times myself. After countless editorial passes with the diligence of an unhealthy perfectionist, I finally noticed that a detail in a scene I’d long since believed to be safe was wrong. Set in the late 1600s, my novel offhandedly mentioned a sugar cube, but sugar cubes weren’t invented until the mid-1800s. I was not only frustrated for overlooking this fact for years, but I’d also recently sent that exact scene off for publication in an anthology. It was too late for an edit. That flaw would be in print. Even if my full novel was ever published, I’d know there was that version of the scene floating around the literary stratosphere.
When I was on a writing panel last year, the presenter read aloud my pitch as part of my introduction—which included the phrase “sea daddy,” the term of the time for non-biological father-son relationships on the sea—and the crowd gave a few suggestive, lighthearted hoots. “Please change that phrase on your website to ‘surrogate father,’” my agent asked me soon after, we readying for the submission process. “I worry it’ll be misconstrued if any of the publishers Google you before reading.” I changed it, but the audio recording of the panel still remains on the permanence of the internet.
There are also countless examples beyond my own experiences. The “text speak” of YA novels is now considered cringeworthy. Countless hist fics were left in shambles when Jack the Ripper was believed to have finally been identified. I still have a 90s hardcover copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with a typo on page 285. Even “Jurassic Park” has lost some of its glow since scientists learned that most dinosaurs likely quacked instead of roared.
Change is swift, inevitable, and constant. It is the enemy of words fixed in place. If you’ve done what you believe is the best job you can—in research, in craft, in editing, in beta and sensitivity readers, in community, in self-reflection—then the issue isn’t imperfection so much as the anxiety of change, even if it’s for the better. For once you’ve changed, once you’ve improved yourself, you’re embarrassed that your old self not only ever existed, but that everyone can still see it.
“I swear I don’t think that way anymore,” you want to tell the world when you realize one of your plot points was shortsighted or bigoted. “I swear this was accurate at the time,” you want to say about your modern-day book that is no longer modern. “I swear I didn’t see that missing comma even after fourteen line edits by my own hand, eight by my agent, and six by my editor,” says every writer who has ever been published.
I swear I’m a better person now.
I swear I’m a better person now.
I swear I’m a better person now.
What a nice thing, to forever want to improve yourself, for wanting the world to know how far you’ve come in stride with it and in spite of yourself. A piece of published writing is not a state of perfection. It is a moment of betterment in flux. It is a physical marker you’ve placed down to look back upon later, to note how much further you’ve since come, even when you thought you’d already come so far. To do this publicly risks bigger consequences. But perhaps, when others know, when they see you improving yourself, it’ll encourage them to do the same.
Every writer hopes to change the world. It’s okay to feel humbled at the same time. Just keep improving yourself, for whether you like it or not, there will always be something to improve.
Over to you, WU Community: How have you changed as a person? In what ways has this affected your writing? Do you have any pieces, published or unpublished, that have since humbled you? If you could tell your earlier writer self only one fact about the future (either about your improved self or changes in the world), what would it be?
Milo Todd is co-EIC at Foglifter Journal, runs The Queer Writer newsletter, and teaches creative writing and transgender history. He’s received awards, accolades, and fellowships from such places as Lambda Literary, Tin House, Pitch Wars, GrubStreet, Monson Arts, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. His debut, THE LILAC PEOPLE, publishes through Counterpoint on 4/29/25.
“Writing is a moment of betterment in flux.” How beautiful and true. If I could tell my earlier self anything it would probably be to keep moving forward and to show myself compassion, then to show that same compassion to the rest of the world. Thank you, Milo, for a wonderful start to my day.
Thank you, Susan! I wish I could do the same for my own earlier self, in writing and beyond!
I can accept my mistakes due to growth, but what really annoys me are things I actually knew that I got wrong because I overlooked them amid so many other details to get right. :) Ah, well.
I am grateful that my first finished novel never got published, though at the time I found it quite frustrating! Not that it wasn’t perfect (it wasn’t) and not that it wasn’t the best I could do at the time (it was) but that it just wasn’t good enough. My message to my younger self is always and forever, “Be patient. Keep working. It’ll happen.”
Same, Erin! I get tunnel vision sometimes when I write and factcheck myself, and I hate when I miss the most obvious things. That’s a wonderful message for your younger self, too.
This is absolutely BRILLIANT – and I really don’t say that often.
Yes.
There are many examples, but the first one, simple to explain, that comes to mind is the periods in my very first publishing novel.
One period at the bottom of the page is missing. One sentence at the top of the page has two.
So, it is as if one period ran to be with the other. Ha!
Loved this post.
That’s so sweet of you to say, Kathryn, than you! And yes, typos in printed work is one of my worst fears! I’m glad to see that it’s not the end of the world when it happens, though.
Hello Milo!
Ah, that “unhealthy perfectionist” mindset is one I know only too well. I am, quite often, my own worst enemy.
Your post reminded me that I need to look at my failings with patience and with some compassion for the past version of me who was doing the best she could at that time.
That advice is applicable to my writing life and beyond. Thank you for the gentle reminder.
Thank you, Ruth! Patience and compassion is so important for us unhealthy perfectionists, and I’m glad this reminder to myself worked out to be a reminder for you, too!
Great post, Milo! And welcome to Writer Unboxed. It’s so hard to let go of our perfectionist aspirations. And it’s hard to forgive ourselves for past mistakes. I’m working on both of these things myself. Thanks for sharing!
Julie
Thank you, Julie! I’m glad to hear you’re learning to be gentler with yourself.
Maybe this will change as I develop more backlist, but honestly? I don’t look at my past writing except if it’s the rare piece which still brings me a sense of pride. As a hyperconscientious nutcase, I never put anything out unless it’s the best I can do at the time. And I’m always aware I’m falling short of my ideals, anyway. So I choose to ignore where I was in favor of where I am going. It’s the only way I get anything down on the page.
That’s a great stance to have, Jan!
We now have the capability, especially those of us who are self-published, of correcting the past.
By redoing the original file, and updating the pdf for your ebook and print book, you can remove an embarrassing error from the record for all those who buy or download in the future.
It is a heady power, and takes a bit of effort, but it is possible to update without introducing more errors.
I was rereading a piece from my only published novel so far, and found another one! Small, not critical, but annoying. I’ve been bookmarking the Kindle version on my ereader, and will fix the current small crop which has one that really bothered me.
I like the concept of perfectibility.
Thank you for sharing that, Alicia! I didn’t know that was something people could do these days.
Lovely essay, Milo. “What a nice thing, to forever want to improve yourself, for wanting the world to know how far you’ve come in stride with it and in spite of yourself. A piece of published writing is not a state of perfection. It is a moment of betterment in flux. It is a physical marker you’ve placed down to look back upon later, to note how much further you’ve since come, even when you thought you’d already come so far. To do this publicly risks bigger consequences.” So true, esp. these days.
I would tell my younger writer self that perfection can be the enemy of the good, to remember that only God is perfect! Alas, my younger self was an atheist, so I’m not sure she would listen. Yet, it is through this writing life that the hounds of heaven caught me and never have I been more grateful or happier. I’ll always be an apprentice of the craft, but also a mentor to others.
Thank you, Vijaya! I love the concept that perfection can be the enemy of the good.
Milo, nice to read your stuff here. I have blown it both in substance and style in my writing many times, but I swear I’m a better person now.
“Betterment in flux” has an appealing grace note of compassion and possibility—thank you for that.
Quacking like a dinosaur here and ever…
Thanks, Tom! I’m glad we can quack together.
Good post, Milo. Writers are like parents, stories are our children. We send them out into the world, hoping they reflect our better selves and not our flaws, that people will appreciate and respect them. And that they’ll bring us back a little money.
Love this simile, Christine!
Milo, this is gold: “A piece of published writing is not a state of perfection….It is a physical marker you’ve placed down to look back upon later, to note how much further you’ve since come, even when you thought you’d already come so far.”
My first published poem, which appeared nearly 30 years ago, is not one I would have written or submitted now, but I am not embarrassed by it or regretful. It reflects where I was then, and that was then. I’ve since been able to publish better poems, more complex and often with more edge. Some of them could use just a little more work…just a little more…only a little tweak here and some sanding and polishing there….
I constantly have to remind myself that my writing and I are works in progress; we track together (like the daemons and their people in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials) but I can hope that unlike Pullman’s daemons, my works will outlive me—misplaced commas, factual errors, and all.
What a wonderful way of looking at it, Anna! Thank you for sharing and for the kind words.