Loving the One You're With

Check out more of Erik Johansson's surrealist pictures!

And if you can’t be with the one you love, honey

Love the one you’re with.

~Stephen Stills

Oh, I want to write all the stories. I want to write them all the time and all at once! In December, I took stock of all my open projects. I’ve blogged about how important it is to finish. I believe that it is one of the keys to improving as a writer. Good stories need a beginning, a middle, and an end – and the process of creating a story has the same components.

Yet over last twelve months I managed to accrue several unfinished* projects.

When I get stuck, or my current draft starts feeling like a slog, that’s when one of my other unfinished stories starts to look oh so much more appealing. Writing a good story isn’t just mentally difficult, it’s emotionally challenging. I believe writing a good story, one that’s at the top of my game, should scare me. It’s natural when things get tough for that little voice to start saying that maybe I should jump ship.

This is the danger of multiple projects. I’m certainly not going to say you shouldn’t have a few irons in the fire. There are solid, legitimate reasons to let a certain piece of writing marinate for a time and that time can be spent on another project. But, it’s important to examine your reasons when the going gets tough, because that’s when you’ll hear the siren call of an unfinished project. I know, that other project looks amazing! And suddenly you’ve got so many great ideas for it. That’s what your journal is for, scribble down those ideas and get back to the project at hand; because it is crucial to commit emotionally to the story you’re writing. It’s scary. As a writer you know that it will cost something, but that’s your job – to give a little piece of your heart away with every story.

The good news is that all those other stories vamping around in the unfinished pile will wait until you get to them – and when you do you will be fully present when it’s their turn.

* I have finished things! I currently have ten stories in various slush piles, just no publication announcements yet. So the grind goes. The cure is to keep writing more and better material and to keep launching it out there.