As a woman, I’ve often felt pressured to have the perfect body, the perfect waistline, the perfect skin to be desirable and confident. In reality, after 58 years of living, I’ve learned that the things about me and my body that I’ve viewed as imperfect—my freckles, my weight, my dislocating knees, my glasses—are what make me, me! These “imperfections” differentiate me from everyone else on the planet. 

As a professional editor, people pay me to scrutinize their writing and fix any and all imperfections in their manuscript. But a high-quality book is a complex piece of writing. So realistically, instead of aiming for perfection, I and my team of editors work with authors to produce highly polished books that are as error-free as possible. 

As a business owner, I started this business venture 10 years ago, pressuring myself to write a perfect business plan. Then I tried to execute on that plan perfectly, so I could serve my clients perfectly and be perfectly successful. In reality, my first business plan was anything but perfect. With a Ph.D. in English, I was trying to make my way out of an academic career into entrepreneurship, and I was much more naïve than I realized about the world of business. It took me plenty of mistakes and more years than I expected to create a successful business that looks nothing like what I laid out in that first imperfect business plan. 

But an imperfect plan led to a beautiful business that I’m now peacock proud of. 

So life’s ups and downs have taught me I don’t have to be perfect to be successful, desirable, confident, or beautiful—and neither do YOU, especially when it comes to writing a book. In fact, the book writing and publishing process may be one of the messiest, most imperfect journeys you ever embark on in your life. Any author who’s finished writing and publishing a book will tell you it’s worth it!