But part of perfectionism is the avoidance of shame caused by someone else negatively judging your work. Sure, while having an accountability partner would, in fact, be helpful, pulling the trigger on getting one ain't easy.

(Wow, I'm being negative with these annotations. Sorry, though. Can't help it. It's how I feel. Would love someone to help me feel differently! ;-)

Yep, success is addicting...which then probably makes finishing projects easier, because of course...you want that high again.

But what if you haven't had that first taste of success yet? What if, as a result of having not experienced the joy it brings you and those you've helped, you then become uber-perfectionistic, causing you to obsess over every little detail in your project? That right there is (for me) why my projects don't get finished. I want my material to help people so badly that I, ironically, wind up injuring my confidence and momentum.

If I broke down writing projects into even more sub-projects, one of those would be editing. It's what throws me for a curve most of the time. I'll write something great, begin editing it, then a brilliant new take on a point comes to mind out of nowhere, something so great you can't just let it go. You have to build it into the piece. But, when you try to cram it in there, other parts of the material begin to fall apart. Pretty soon you've written a brand new article; an article that—yup—needs to be edited. And you can't promise yourself the same flash of brilliance won't strike again.

This sentence is proof of the need for copyeditors.

Copyediting vs grammar knowledge. Or, and grammar knowledge.