Finishing What You Write

 

Starting a new writing project is fun, inspiring, and even exhilarating. We've taken a bit of an idea and began enlarging on it, bringing it to a fuller thought than when that snippet came to us. Writers who write by the seat of their pants, often referred to as 'pantser's, enjoy seeing where the original thoughts will lead them. 

But what about finishing what you started? Most writers have a number of unfinished stories, essays, and poems in their files. Why? Isn't the idea of writing to start and then finish so we can then jump into the submission process? 

There are a few reasons that writers abandon a writing project. One is fear that, once completed, you're going to have to do something with what you've written, and maybe you're a bit worried about finding a place that will publish your work, concerned about the whole submission process. Another fear is that maybe your idea didn't turn out as well as you'd hoped. 

Another problem can be that you get stuck in the middle of what you're writing and don't know where to go next. In fiction, maybe you've set up a problem for the hero, but you have no idea how to get him out of it. So, it's easier to quit, telling yourself you can work on it later. If it's a personal essay, you start with an experience that you've had, but you don't know how to bring it to the point where you've learned something along the way. 

There's always the problem that you didn't have time to finish. With the busy lives we lead, time sometimes becomes our biggest enemy. Maybe you started writing a story but had to set it aside because of family or work obligations that seem to go on and on for way too long. There sits your unfinished story, not completed only because you haven't had time to work on it. 

Sometimes, you don't finish a writing project because you don't like the way it's turning out. More than once, I've thought to myself--'This is pure drivel.' and I either throw the partially written piece away or put it in a file. We shouldn't throw our work away; put it in a file and go back to it someday. Time away can give you new perspectives when you do look at it later, sometimes much later. 

Yes, there are myriad reasons we don't finish some of the writing projects we start. It's not a crime. Maybe this wasn't the right time to finish the story idea you had that at first seemed so great. It's alright to have unfinished writing in your files. The important thing is to go back now and then and look at them. Six months later, you might have a better idea how to finish what you had started. Pull out that poem that you stashed before ever doing any editing or revising. 

Finish what you start is good advice, but you don't have to finish in one fell swoop.