Pressures of writing

My current daycare centre only accommodates children up until age 3, and my darling boy is turning three in less than two weeks. This is not as much of a tragedy as you might think; it's not like we're hard up for daycare now. He merely has to be moved from one centre within the larger complex into another, which will involve it's own set of adjustments of course ... but I am merely grateful that I don't have to go into full daycare search mode which in this city is a recipe for insanity and sobbing near the phone.

Anyway. There are no spots in the 3-5 centres currently, and given that the local government is all gung-ho about regulating daycare but not on actually spending any money on it (not that I'm bitter or trying to make a political statement here, although YES I AM) the licensing regulations of the province won't allow my child to stay at the 12-36 month centre more than one month post third birthday. So what do we do? Paperwork. 

I do have a point, stay with me.

So the daycare lady and I sat down (figuratively -- we spoke about it while I was trying to hold a squirming child who wanted to GO HOME ALREADY DAMMIT) and talked about this paperwork, some of which she has to complete and some of which I have to which will beg and plead with licensing to allow us to keep him at this centre just one more month until a space opens up at the big kid centre. My part is to write a letter telling them just how much my life would be ruined should my child not have daycare for a month.

So I came home, sat down at my computer, and wrote a letter. There wasn't much to go on, and I didn't want to seem overly dramatic about it, so I wrote a few paragraphs about how great the daycare is, and how they will be just fine accommodating a three year old amongst the smaller kids, and how much the daycare helps me be a good employee and pay my bills on time, etc. 

And I gave it to her, full of trepidation -- what if that's not what they want to hear?

But more: will she think it's good enough?

See, this is the peril of writing for a living: I have the crazy need to still, after ALMOST TEN YEARS, ensure that everything I write is excellent, down to the last email, because DAMN what if someone reads a letter I wrote that is totally NOT for my job and it's not absolutely perfect and they start thinking -- what, really, how they hell can this woman write for a living if she can't even spell?

Now I know this is not fair. Good god, most good writers have editors, that's what they are FOR after all. And who cares who judges me? Clearly I am good at my job or I wouldn't still be employed in the same field after all this time. 

But I admit that I was working with another writer this past week within my organization and she was defensive about her writing and couldn't spell the name of the company we were writing to despite repeated reminders, and then she got all snooty about it, and I was COMPLETELY judging her. Like -- I'm sorry, first of all, as a writer for an organization, you have to have at least BASIC copyediting skills, and one of those skills is looking at words and making sure that you are spelling the name of the company right, for God's sake. And one of the other most important parts of writing for someone else for money? NOT GETTING SNOOTY ABOUT IT WHEN THEY ASK FOR CHANGES. I cannot emphasize this enough, mostly because I know full well how freaking hard that is. I spent my first two years as a writer feeling completely demoralized because people kept criticizing my work, and I didn't want to BE a writer in the first place BECAUSE it involved so much criticism, and even now after nine years I sometimes get all ... Hey! I'm good at this, don't you dare suggest changes! ... about things (but only in my head, because I am a Polite Girl) but I have to let it go, because that's what I do. I signed up for this, the red pen life, and I just need to deal and a writer who can't ... well, you ain't going to last long.

I feel a little bad about it, I do. I feel pressured to be perfect, but mostly because I know that I look and I judge and maybe if I stopped doing that, I wouldn't feel the pressure. 

But perhaps I should also admit that I like writing well. I get personal satisfaction from a well organized, well argued document that flows well and reads well. And I've come to understand that for the most part, editors (whether professional or otherwise) make some good changes. And I appreciate them.

But mostly? I need to give myself a break. The daycare letter didn't need to be a work of art; it just needs to be a letter. And I need to remember that I *like* doing this, and therefore it shouldn't also be a source of angst. I can like making things perfect all I want, but there comes a time when I need to give over a letter, and not worry about how good it is and whether people will judge me for it.

A letter is just a letter, after all.