[Darth-Apple]

As a musician, I'm always practicing and trying to get the "perfect take" on anything I ever press the record button on. I've come to realize that my best take is usually my first (or maybe my second) take on anything I ever do. After that, it goes downhill. 

Practicing too much can be a detriment to the overall feel of the finished product. It sounds sterile, too rehearsed, and too precise. I've been running into this problem quite a bit as of late. I'll do several takes and they all sound so alike that it's hard to tell the difference. Even on vocals (where each take *should* be quite different in terms of its feel) they all have variations in little pitch imperfections, and even the transitions between notes and the enunciations are almost exactly alike. 

Perfect is the enemy of good, as they say. And it's very true in the form of anything creative. You try to make it so good that you lose sight of the little details that make it feel alive, less precise, or more human. Too much practice or thought stifles creativity. 

The same goes for writing, or for any art form. Your best work is almost always spontaneous, unrehearsed, unpracticed, out-of-the-blue. As soon as you try to recreate it, you lose the mindset that got you there to begin with. Always capture ideas when they hit you, because they might not come back quite the same way again.

[Megan]

That is true. Often random doodles I do when bored tend to come out nicer then when I try more at it. Same with writing. I used to write random stuff when I was bored too, and I usually ended up with some nice stuff that way.

[Kyng]

Yeah, I think I'm pretty much the same way, especially with drawing. If I don't have the inspiration to do them spontaneously, it's a real slog.

One exception to this is forum themes, which I do like to spend a lot of time tweaking and perfecting (and I think they benefit from it in the end) - but, those are very much the exception.