Starting Again
Gentle reader, I come before you today, shame-faced and tail-tucked, to do my first post in months. It is the perennial cry, the chorus of my lifetime, perhaps my single biggest fault:
Emily does not finish what she starts.
My Achilles' heel, the most likely cause of my downfall and eventual death, the biggest obstacle between me and any kind of success.
Diets, home improvement projects, self improvement projects, novels, short stories, jokes, songs, relationships, telephone conversations, blog posts, lists... you name it, I haven't finished it. I may forever remain one CPR course short of a teaching credential.
It's not just procrastination, either, although I am also an expert at that. No, what happens is, I start all kinds of things with vim and vigor, raring to go, and I make good headway. I'll fill out 87% of a job application, hit the "references" section, and think, "Hey, I should message so and so and get their cell number, and check if it's ok to use them as a reference."
Six months later, I come across the nearly-finished application in a desk drawer and think, "Oh, that's probably why I didn't get that job."
It's not ideal.
In my writing, this manifests itself as 3,000 "once upon a time"s and 13 "happily ever afters."
I am far from being the only writer who falls into this trap. Beginnings are easy! Beginnings are fun! Beginnings are full of possibility!
Middles are hard.
Endings are practically death.
I have a theory about this kind of person, the kind of person that I am, and that you might be a little bit, too.
We're cowards.
If I never finish anything, then I'll never really get rejected. Sure, by not ever applying for the job, I didn't get hired, but they also never outright rejected me, either. I never texted that guy back, so we're not dating now, but at least he never broke up with me.
If I never blog, I can have this great imaginary fantasy of all the followers I'd get if I did blog, and I never have to be afraid of blogging, and nobody reading it.
If I never finish my book, then it can never be rejected by agents and laughed out of town by publishers. I can go on forever, imagining the great things that might happen, someday, and I never have to be confronted with reality.
Of course, if I never finish anything, I never experience success, either. It's a cop out. It's pretending to sprain my ankle and sitting on the sidelines during soccer, because, hey, I'm not winning, but at least I'm not losing.
No one ever got anywhere worth going by playing it safe-- or not playing it at all, since that's even safer. Everything worth having in life is a gamble. What are you willing to risk?
Emily does not finish what she starts.
My Achilles' heel, the most likely cause of my downfall and eventual death, the biggest obstacle between me and any kind of success.
Diets, home improvement projects, self improvement projects, novels, short stories, jokes, songs, relationships, telephone conversations, blog posts, lists... you name it, I haven't finished it. I may forever remain one CPR course short of a teaching credential.
It's not just procrastination, either, although I am also an expert at that. No, what happens is, I start all kinds of things with vim and vigor, raring to go, and I make good headway. I'll fill out 87% of a job application, hit the "references" section, and think, "Hey, I should message so and so and get their cell number, and check if it's ok to use them as a reference."
Six months later, I come across the nearly-finished application in a desk drawer and think, "Oh, that's probably why I didn't get that job."
It's not ideal.
In my writing, this manifests itself as 3,000 "once upon a time"s and 13 "happily ever afters."
I am far from being the only writer who falls into this trap. Beginnings are easy! Beginnings are fun! Beginnings are full of possibility!
Middles are hard.
Endings are practically death.
I have a theory about this kind of person, the kind of person that I am, and that you might be a little bit, too.
We're cowards.
If I never finish anything, then I'll never really get rejected. Sure, by not ever applying for the job, I didn't get hired, but they also never outright rejected me, either. I never texted that guy back, so we're not dating now, but at least he never broke up with me.
If I never blog, I can have this great imaginary fantasy of all the followers I'd get if I did blog, and I never have to be afraid of blogging, and nobody reading it.
If I never finish my book, then it can never be rejected by agents and laughed out of town by publishers. I can go on forever, imagining the great things that might happen, someday, and I never have to be confronted with reality.
Of course, if I never finish anything, I never experience success, either. It's a cop out. It's pretending to sprain my ankle and sitting on the sidelines during soccer, because, hey, I'm not winning, but at least I'm not losing.
No one ever got anywhere worth going by playing it safe-- or not playing it at all, since that's even safer. Everything worth having in life is a gamble. What are you willing to risk?
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