Does Not Follow Through
For Writers: Finding Value In The Unfinished
When I was seven or eight I quit my piano career. My lovely and sweet teacher, of one year, dared to go on maternity leave not once thinking how it would affect my musical talent. Who would praise my five-finger scales? Who would clap at the end of my rendition, however clomping and dissonant, of THE CAT CAME BACK? I got a new teacher. It wasn’t the same. The new teacher told my mother my hands weren’t nimble enough. I could feel her judgment with each tick of the metronome. So, I quit.
I also quit acting lessons. I volunteered twice at my local theater sewing costumes and seating guests — stopped going. I never tried out for softball, even though I thought I might, possibly, maybe, ehhhh could be okay at it. By this time in high school, I’d developed a label for myself and my permanent record, which I’m told, exists somewhere: DOESN’T FOLLOW THROUGH.
Unfortunately, as a writer this label hangs over my head. I think about it directly sometimes, but most times it’s perched on the shelf between HASN’T HAD A VEGETABLE IN THREE DAYS and CALL YOUR DAD. It sends me unconscious not-good-enough-vibes and I feel weighed down by all the projects I’ve started and have yet to finish. Some of them I don’t want to finish.
These thoughts have the potential to paralyze, to beat me down to the point that I stop the thing to which I’ve dedicated hours, the thing in which I’m emotionally invested, the thing which, on good days, fits me like a perfectly tailored glove. Writing, for me, feels like peeling an orange, freeing the slices, slowly pulling away the pith. The zingy smell wakes me and, though the outside changes, the orange slices still fit together to make this circle of fruit.
I can’t let these thoughts stop me.
A made a change. Small. A switch of words in my head. I think about the characters left, coldly abandoned in Word documents mid-plot line, half-read writing manuals, the newsletter I haven’t sent out in months. I decide to think of these marks on my record as part of the work. I haven’t abandoned them. The unfinished is with me now as I write this. Here’s what I realized:
- The old Wordpress blog, the one I left behind, was a precursor to my website. When I started the blog I thought, “What is all this technology? What is a DOMAIN NAME?” I watched tutorials and read help posts. I taught myself the ins and outs of pages and posts and banners. It prepared me for the launch of my website.
- The writing group (a lovely gathering of writers) I stopped attending was a lesson in critiquing my own and others’ work. I know the “sandwich” method. I know what it’s like to take someone else’s words, provide feedback and encouragement. I know how to embrace what other people think and learn from it. This helped extensively when I was in the throes of editing my novel.
- The newsletter, which I may pick back up, helped me understand that I can try something new and intimidating and not know exactly what I’m doing and do it anyway. It taught me I have something to offer and that people would respond to what I had to say. If I hadn’t tried the newsletter, I’m not sure I’d be prepping the Title Page Podcast for release in February.
I wrote a book. I’m querying now and would love to see it published, but I WROTE A BOOK. I followed through and part of the reason I did is because of all the unfinished things that came before. I have to occasionally remind myself that I won’t always have a neat ending; what I’m working on, trying out, putting energy into at the moment, won’t always become what I’d intended, but that doesn’t mean the experience didn’t have value.
It’s the rhythm of writing. And now I can recognize the consistent thrumming, the composition and commonalities, the learning process that at one time seemed like unconnected staccato notes.
