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“How do you feel about France?”

The question came in via email from author, editor, and teacher Allison K Williams (no period on that K—a story my editor’s soul of course had to ask about*).

It was not rhetorical. Allison leads a lot of retreats all around the world, and her usual co-teacher for this one found himself unable to go this year, so she invited me to fill in.

Allison is someone I’ve known peripherally through our similar fields of work and through mutual friends and colleagues for some time, and when one of them introduced us directly, thinking we’d have much in common, we realized in fact we did. We have since become friends and are both part of a small mastermind group of fellow professionals in our field where we get together regularly, virtually speaking.

I’ve learned that her approach to story craft and editing is very similar to mine and I have come to greatly admire her skill and knowledge, so I knew that in many ways would be a good match as co-teachers.

It wasn’t a last-minute invitation; she was asking months ahead of the event itself, which happened to fall at a time where a hole had just surprisingly opened up in my schedule. I love travel, love working with authors, and I have been retreat-curious for a long time, but hesitant to plan one on my own.

In many ways the offer couldn’t have been more perfect or more welcome.

And yet I hesitated.

Meticulous and thorough by nature, I asked Allison a lot of questions about the retreat itself, the location, the schedule, the logistics, what we’d be teaching, who the attendees would be, etc. She patiently fielded all of them, and every answer was pretty much just what I would want to hear, indicating the retreat was well planned, would offer useful and actionable information and resources to attendees, and sounded like a ton of fun: a week at a gorgeous boutique resort in a stunning location in the southwestern Pyrenees region of France working closely with authors alongside a friend and colleague I deeply enjoy.

And yet… “Can I have a couple of days to think about it?” I asked Allison. Again she graciously accommodated me.

I talked it over with my husband. I weighed all the information and considered all the eventualities and concerns I might have, ranging from being away from home and work for a week (on the heels of two other trips I’m taking this summer), to the higher demands of a retreat than a typical writer’s conference, to the sheer logistics of travel.

Despite my keen interest I was still waffling on whether I should commit, and finally I called my best friend to talk out my thoughts with her.

I didn’t get very far. As soon as I told her about the opportunity and how I felt about Allison, she said, “Of course you have to do it.”

And suddenly it was all so crystal-clear: The retreat ticked nearly every box I would have wanted to check in being part of an event like that, and yet I was hesitating because I couldn’t predict or control for every factor.

Break Out of the Loop

I don’t think I’m alone in this kind of overthinking and overanalysis paralysis. I heard from an author just this week who’d been working on a manuscript for quite some time and was now waffling on whether he should change the point of view from third person to first. And that’s far from unusual; I often talk to others who get lost in minutiae and details in the search for the perfect, exact right way to write their story.

Regular readers already know what I’m going to say about that: There’s no such thing. You cannot control for every variable. There is no right path you must miraculously discover, and you will never know whether the decisions you make are the “right” ones, even after they are made. Choose a path and walk down it, because the option is to just stand at the trailhead staring down the possibilities ahead of you but never take a step forward.

Read more: “You Have to Make Choices and They All Have a Cost”

This applies to so many aspects of your writing: The idea that you’re still noodling on because you don’t think you’re quite ready to start writing it. The author who gets lost in research or outlining or studying craft in preparation to be able to write a story instead of actually writing it, which is the best way to find the answers they’re looking for. The authors who hem and haw over submitting their work, wanting to do just one more tweak or revision, or who bring in editor after editor to help them keep polishing it into perfection.

Again, regular readers can predict what I’m going to say here: There is no such thing. Perfect is a moving and entirely subjective target—a concept that does not exist.

All these authors are doing is getting so lost in rumination over something that they’re not actually doing the thing, the same way I was in obsessively parsing out every potential detail. I was trying to predict and pin down every unknown before accepting Allison’s delightful opportunity.

Read more: “The Great and Terrible Power of ‘No’ in Your Writing”

Allison herself helped me cut through my mental noise in the most tactful and gracious of ways. On my third or fourth round of follow-up questions she wrote, “I really appreciate your attention to detail and how prepared you want to be. Do know that I am totally confident about everything you deliver. It’s a pretty relaxed retreat.”

Her confidence and calm brought out my own, and I realized that I don’t need to know every little thing about what to expect. Not only can I not know exactly what the retreat will be like ahead of time, but if I did it would rob much of the spontaneity, authenticity, and magic from it. Much of the joy and experience of it will be what Allison and the other authors and I create organically together, in each moment.

And of course she was utterly right that that was all that really mattered. I don’t know what this experience is going to be like or whether it’s going to be something I want to repeat, but I know I want to have the experience.

Get Out of Your Way and Do the Thing

All the planning and imagining and research in the world aren’t going to give you the experience of writing the story. Until you do you won’t know whether it will come together, whether it can be as good on the page as it is in your head. Until you hit “send” and submit or publish it, you’ll never know how agents or editors or readers will respond to it.

Until you do the thing, you will never know what you can do. You may live your life in a safe little box, protected from failure or disappointment or difficulty…but withering into stagnation. That’s no life at all. And it’s no way to build a creative career: Writers write.

Teachers teach. I’m off in August to Pau, France for a week of a writers’ retreat that looks to be wonderful, informative, constructive, supportive, and fun. I have faith that it will be because of what Allison, the other writers, and I will bring to it.

That’s all I really need to know. The journey happens while we’re there, taking it together.

If you want to find out more along with me on what to expect at the retreat—my very first one!—join me and Allison for a virtual open house Saturday, May 16, at 3pm EST (12pm PST) as we talk and answer your questions about the craft lessons we’ll be teaching and all the other hands-on writing activities (live edits, one-on-ones, free writing time, and more), daily discussions, and the outings, chef-prepared food, wine and cheese tastings, accommodations, and the idyllic setting in southwestern France surrounded by the Pyrenees (the mountains, not the dogs, although HOW COOL would that be?). Learn more about the retreat here, and you can register for the free open house May 16 here.

Authors, since this will be my first time, I’d love to hear your thoughts on writing retreats. Have you attended them before? What were they like, and how did they impact your writing and your career?

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*And about that “K” in Allison’s name. Here’s the lovely story of why she doesn’t use a period after it: “I needed a distinguishing initial, as the actor Allison Williams was getting famous right when I was publishing,” Allison explained. “I had a dear friend, Kate, who was a writing muse and influenced my work and my process a lot, so I took that initial to honor her, and I’m glad I did it before she died as she was very pleased by that!”