My popcorn analogy for handling creative imperfections

You can't get every kernel.

Photo by Yulia Khlebnikova on Unsplash

I recently rediscovered popcorn. I think it’s one of those things that diet culture stole from me for so long. Why would I eat POPCORN? It’s not WORTH THE CALORIES. Ugh. Anyway, I used to love eating popcorn with my mom. Popcorn to me tastes like Lucy and Ethel mashing grapes in a vat. Or Norman Bates pulling the shower curtain back on Marion Crane. It tastes like Nick at Nite reruns and Julia Roberts rom-coms and Hitchcocks rented from Blockbuster Video and 90s childhood bliss.

Popcorn is awesome. So in addition to loading up on my solo movie dates (I will do a whole post on the joy of solo movies later), I’ve been making it at home. I’m talking that Orville Redenbacher, toss it in the microwave jam. Nothing fancy. Hot, greasy, delicious. (My 5-year-old also loves it so it’s the perfect accompaniment for Pixar and Disney Princesses, too.) So one of these times, I actually read in full the directions on the box. Now, I know not to use the popcorn button on the microwave. (Learned that lesson the hard way babysitting for my neighbors out 16 … can still smell *that* smoke.) But anyway, I’m reading the package and under "Helpful Hints” it says:

It is normal for some unpopped kernels to remain in a fully popped bag.

Okay, so it might be my OCD talking, but I always interpreted those kernels as little nuggets of my failure at popping that bag properly. The more there were, the more proof that I’d taken it out too early. Without realizing it, I was always chasing the high of that perfectly popped bag, not a kernel in sight.

But that’s not possible. Because every kernel pops at a slightly different pace. Which means that if you set out to pop EVERY, LAST, ONE, you will *burn* about half the bag.

So I really started thinking about this because I got a comment from a new reader who asked me how I handle rereading my work and tolerating the “cringe.” My first thought was that I just don’t really cringe when I read my work, and it’s not because I’m a better writer than everyone else (LOL). I think it’s a couple of things. First, I don’t reread it as I write, only once I’m done with a session, but more importantly, I just don’t expect every sentence to be beautiful. I write with a focus on story and character, always have, and the prose blooms from that. Now, is every sentence a hit? Certainly not. Some are filler and excess and will be cut later. Some are pure function, getting you from one place to another. Some—rarely—are just great, the kind that make you smile, that remind you why you do this. Some you *think* are great, but they’re not. Kill your darlings, all that.

Back to that bag of popcorn. Some kernels are going to be veritably soaked in butter. Others, lightly dusted. Some explosively popped, the inside turning to fluffy clouds. Others, just barely. Some not popped at all. But taken all together, it’s still a damn delicious snack. One of the best humans have ever happened upon, in fact.

Writing is like that bag of popcorn. As is art. As is music. As is film. Is every single brushstroke on the Sistine Chapel ceiling perfect? Highly doubtful. We take it in as a whole. Is every sentence in your novel your best? No. But if you made every one your best, the beautiful lines you do have wouldn’t have room to breathe. Why is it that musicians mid-career albums are often so compelling? They’ve learned from their debuts, but they haven’t hit that overworked, overproduced vibe that comes with too much fame, money and simply too many cooks in the kitchen.

Perfectionism is lionized in our culture. We have TikToks telling us how to make up our faces so we don’t see a single pore. Plastic surgeons nipping and tucking away every “flaw.” We get angry if we see a mistake in something that’s supposed to be polished and professional. We are always going for a “seamless” look, in our clothes, in our cars, on our websites, in our houses. We want to lay a blurry filter over our whole lives, offer it all up to others in this gorgeous, perfectly lit, never trying too hard (never cringe!) way.

But that’s a recipe for misery. We all know that.

The quest for perfection makes it so hard to share our work. Fiction is raw. It’s personal. It’s subjective. Have enough people read any book, and there are some who will hate it. As storytellers, sometimes we tell ourselves that if we just keep working on it, if we just keep tinkering, we can make it perfect. We can make it above reproach.

But we can’t.

And if we work too much, we’ll burn the bag.

So please, let yourself put out imperfect work. Let yourself be human.

Let some of the kernels remain unpopped.

Happy reading, writing and storytelling.

xo,

Leah

P.S. If you want more anti-diet reading, I highly recommend checking out Virginia Sole-Smith and my friend, Anna Maltby’s Substacks!