#finishing

I’m gonna change it up here, and say it’s often not just fear, but also quite likely boredom.

You started knitting that scarf, but it’s a lot of repetition to get to the end, so you get bored and start doing something else, and the scarf is left by the wayside. You start painting the walls, but after that initial thrill of rolling out waves of colour there’s a lot of tedious details to actually complete it and you end up just moving the furniture back and ignoring the lack of cut in around the base boards.

A lot of larger projects have a element of boredom. For the simple fact that you have to repeat a skill a lot to get good at it. Anything from training to run a 5k to knitting a scarf.

You might think that boredom isn’t as much of a factor in writing. After all, you’re sending your character on journey, where lots of different things happen, it’s not like repeating the same knit stitch over and over again!

Except it kind of is?

Once you’ve settled into the rhythm of writing on a schedule, things can get pretty quiet.

Yes, the story you’re telling has excitement and drama. But the pace you write at is vastly slower than the pace you read at, so even dramatic or action filled scenes are slowed down to a glacial pace.

This is especially true if you’re a newer writer and end up focused on the specifics of grammar and sentence construction, rather than being able to enter a flow state. Everything can feel slow, clunky and—well—boring.

Add to the boredom the fears that build up around finishing and you have a perfect recipe for never finishing anything. After all, that’s a lot of hard work to make something just to have it never measure up to the standards in your head.

Which all probably means that you’ve got a lot of incomplete writing projects hanging around. From fanfic that only needs one chapter to be actually done, to short stories that are missing that one essential bit (an ending).

Having a lot of incomplete projects might not be something you’re thinking about regularly, but there’s a sort of background noise they create. A emotional weight that drains your energy without you even being aware of it. A reminder that you never finish anything.

It’s time to lessen that load.

I want you to finish something.

Take a look at your notes and files. Find something that can be completed within a week or two and think about the steps required to finish it. And then start them. Keep starting them until you run out of steps. (this pairs well with the March Madness challenge also going on here!)

Does that fic need a few thousand words to close out the storyline? Think about exactly what you need to tie up and then start writing those words. Is that story actually mostly done, but you have make an editing pass and then format it in order to submit it to that magazine? Doing that, and then send it. That’s a huge finishing win! (and something I'm personally terrible at.)

You might expect a rush of success when you finish something. But don’t be disheartened if you don’t feel like the world champ getting a ticker-tape parade through the streets. For many of us (me included) the main feeling on finishing something is simply relief. A reduction in pressure. A quiet satisfaction. But it hasn't always been that way. I used to feel physically sick at the thought of finishing anything, and it didn't go away when I actually crossed the line into finished.

Try to focus on whatever positive feelings you have, and breathe through any anxiety about it not being good enough or potentially failing. That's just the fear trying to stop you. It gets less scary with practice, and truly does start to feel good, becoming a sensation you actually look forward to.

Finishing something is a success all in itself, regardless if anyone else (or even you!) feels like it’s good enough. And closure is a sensation you deserve to get used to.