It’s one thing to write. It’s another to shape a work to completion.
These two are different parts of the same thing. No judgement here. I write this piece to try to determine the role of saying “it is done,” and what that is in your life. To look squarely, and know whether or not it’s a piece that you want or need or are happy to dance around.
And maybe none of this matters if you are fine with writing and not wrapping up a project before moving on to the next. Writing bits and pieces, ideas, observations—journal-like material—might be where you’re at. I’ve written about keeping a journal, and at times wished I were more diligent with my own. Journals don’t have ends, not even chapter ends. They meander and shape over a lifetime. Life well lived. It can be enough.
Nothing about writing is straightforward
I have a number of unfinished projects, too many to count. Most are picturebooks—which for me are notorious for needing—needing!—to languish. They nibble at things. They niggle at me. Eventually, if they are meant to be, pieces fall into place. I poke at them, set them aside. Some take a decade to shape into a neat three to five hundred words. I finish novels more quickly.
I’ve also learned to be patient with the process, to accept that it comes as it does, and to know the difference—in my gut—between procrastination and true gestation, almost like an athlete or dancer might know how far to push a healing muscle, or what’s necessary as a “break.”
Joy in completion
But then there’s this—a particular joy. And I’ll admit to being biased in this.
The truth is that I feel a deep need to complete a work now and then. I don’t need to complete everything; if I did, I’d be stuck with some long ago manuscript that, frankly, didn’t deserve to be finished!
There are times when I have to recognize to move on. And there are time I need to bring to an end in order to write on to the next, in order to solidify thoughts on the immediate.
Incidentally, I have a number of unfinished post drafts here on Substack. It’s that “patience” piece being exercised; those drafts are not complete ideas. One of these pieces was titled LIVE BODY DAY.
I’m going to copy/paste here what I had to date:
When avalanche-rescue dogs are being trained, at some point in the process, the trainers stage a rescue of a living person. They do this because they know that to keep these animals motivated, they need to have times of rescuing someone who is breathing and happy and responsive to being found.
My singer son and I were talking about artists and dopamine levels, how we begin our days with expectations that Something will Happen or Grow. But once a story is accepted or a gig netted or an album released, the dopamine level actually drops. And we’re off to the next task and goal and acceptance.
Breathing and happy
This unfinished post—barely begun, really—has been sitting for several months. I lost my way from exploring the immediay of the idea of a “live body day” and how badly artists need that.
It wasn’t until I was into the act of thinking and writing about “completion” in this post, that I realized where my “live body” moments come. Of course they occur when I open an email from my agent that says “So and so wants to make an offer…” or when my publisher sends a link to a good review. But those are external carrots.
The live-body moments that most resonate, that most sustain me, are those that come when I can write The End.
That moment of discovering the breathing and happy and responsive to being found is, for me, the completion of a piece. Because in completing there’s a release. I no longer need to hold this story, this idea, in my mind. It’s grown up enough to leave home and go free, and leave me to focus, wholly, on the next.
What does it mean to you to complete a project?
It’s a good and tough question. For the ‘day job’ writing it’s easy: it’s done when the editor stops sending it back. It’s even doner when I get the printed book in the post.
For the fiction I write here, do I just carry on writing and posting first drafts forever, or do I ever go back and turn one or some into a book? Do I try to place said book with an agent and a publisher?
If so, why? How many first drafts do I forego writing to have time for that?
Other than the sketchiest of ideas, I finish and ‘publish’ here almost every story I start. I often write them ‘just in time’ for my Tuesday and Friday posting schedule. I enjoy the tightrope walk: will I lose the plot?
I don’t know whether this creative play will always be enough, but I’m still enjoying it thus far.
You reminded me - I have a story about huskies I need to finish... and just look how long it took me to send this note.