All that glitters...could be a mimic

How something appears aspirational (glittering, polished, viral-worthy) can actually be a mimic: draining your energy, devouring your joy, and keeping you from making messy, magical art.

Jul 12, 2025

Hey there, goblin-kind.1 As part of my Artist Way series, I’ve been literally stuck on one topic: perfectionism. It’s not something I always believed I had. Of course things aren’t going to be perfect the first round. Of course every creative needs a shitty first draft… But in my case, I typically abandon those shitty first drafts, deeming them too shitty to even work on.

Perfectionism is like a treasure chest in a dungeon—enticing, gleaming, promising ancient artifacts or wealth, "safe." But once you reach for it? Snap, it’s alive! It wants your soul! I’ve re-primed the canvas three times already. THREE! I hated my brushes. I hated the colors I was choosing. I hated myself. And that’s when I realized: I wasn’t painting—I was feeding a mimic.

How Perfectionism Masquerades as Discipline

It looks like ambition. It talks like dedication. It smells like success. It could be gold. But beneath its slimy maw, it’s really just a creativity trap—one that tells you not to start unless you can guarantee a successful outcome. Or that your sketch isn't "worthy" of being seen. (Also, who says anyone but you needs to see your art??)

Artists (and I’m using myself as an example here) often:

Edit endlessly instead of finishing—therefore abandoning it.
Get stuck in planning instead of making—all the planning, never the execution.
Abandon projects that aren’t instantly brilliant—like repainting the same canvas a million times.
Compare their first drafts to someone else’s polished showpiece—and we all know what the thief of joy is.
Give up on the journey (artistic or otherwise) after one bad day, one skipped workout, or one failed attempt.

All of this can be disguised as productivity. “I am editing. I have been painting. I’m not comparing, I’m gathering inspiration. I painted something that I was happy with the last time I painted, so I’ll just wait until I have the time to bang it all out in one go again.” All of these are lies that the mimic of perfectionism tells us time and time again.

But the truth is, sometimes you open a treasure chest, and all you find is a couple of empty vials, some cobwebs and a single copper piece.

The Toll of Serving the Mimic

Julia Cameron asks a really pointed question in The Artist’s Way: “What do you gain from abandoning your project?” I always thought she meant, “What would you lose from abandoning your project?” Because that’s easier to answer; I’d lose the opportunity to create, I wouldn’t be creating at all, etc. But let’s reframe it to answer the question she posed.

But if I were to abandon the project, I’d get:

Time back—by not doing art, which is something I actually enjoy.
Confidence—because I can find it in something unrelated to art, if I try hard enough.
Joy—because if I don’t create, there’s nothing to compare.
My willingness to make "bad" art? There will be no will at all.

And those points sound much worse than continuing and failing. Thinking of my inner artist-child, I can’t abandon her. It’s like a dust sprite giving you their first pressed flower, and you crumple it up to wipe dragon snot off your boots—while they watch, blinking real slow.

While I was busy overworking (or avoiding) one project, a whole hoard of ideas died in the cave, because I wasn’t exploring. I wasn’t testing and allowing hiccups and failures to happen.

Goblin Remedies for Gold Traps

A goblin doesn’t make perfect art. A goblin makes art, eats a rat or mushroom or whatever, and then scampers off to make something else.

Use a sketchbook to shake out the "ugly drafts" from your pen/cil.
Post unfinished things like a proud goblin showing off the shiny rocks he found that are, in fact, not hunks of precious gems.
Treat art like potion-making—not every batch has to cure the king.
Invite failure to coffee. Let it critique your brushstrokes while it eats your snacks.

Overall, keep exploring and creating past all of your failures, and the diamond will glow in the rough.

Closing Reflection

I’m not here to win awards or “likes” from invisible masters. I’m here to make weird things. Messy things. Feign gore and glory from my imaginational stories and create beasts that might bite back—but they’re mine.

Perfectionism doesn’t just stunt finished work—it axes beginnings. I can’t count how many pieces I never made because the first sketch looked "off," or the idea didn’t burst out of me fully formed, or the passion fizzled after I "planned it" to death.

I’ve abandoned paintings after five minutes. I’ve redrawn the same lines until the paper disintegrated from the eraser’s abuse. The gold mimic (our metaphor for perfectionism) doesn’t just bite when you’re polishing—it waits until you’re holding it close. A tongue sticks out, and you drop the work and run.

Don’t wait until inspiration is flawless. Scrawl with sticks in the dirt. Tape a banana to the wall and call it sculpture. Dungeon crawl until you come across the chest with the real treasure.

Anyway… that was kinda rambly, but I hope it spoke to some of you feral things out there. Until our next encounter, goblins!