THE RUSH FOR A BARGAIN

The day after Christmas, shoppers abound. They fly in their cars to the nearest department store offering the best bargains. Many of these same folks just received dozens of wonderful gifts from under their trees, but “there must be bargains out there, right?” So the chase begins.

“Oooh, a bathrobe. I didn’t get one. And it only has a small tear in the sleeve.”
“Look. A Keurig. Only some scratches on the reservoir. No biggie.”
“Man, a broken hammer. But what a deal!”

How often do we allow our work to have the same tears, scratches, and complete breaks? And we are also in a hurry. A hurry to send out a work that is nowhere near ready to be submitted.

“But it’s a bargain! I’ve worked it enough and rewritten it until it’s ‘okay.’ So I should send it out, right?”

When our work is rushed to the finish line, it shows. It’s that simple. We want so badly for someone to read it, enjoy it, and validate us that we rush it to be finished, and all we really end up with is a bargain. And it’s not even that, if truth be told. Instead, it’s an unfinished, unpolished, and eventually, unread work. No one will rush to buy it.

We all need to take our time writing, rewriting, proofing, and polishing before we submit. We want a work of art, not an old bathrobe with a torn sleeve!