I'm great at starting. I can start a story, a dozen stories. Finishing? No. I have tried every trick. I try writing short. Story boarding, etcetc. And then it leaves. The whisp of muse, the idea that THIS one THIS story will be the one. The one I finish, the one I edit, the one I treasure. I have this delusion that not only will I finish one (i've submitted unfinished, and sketchily finished ones) I'll SUBMIT a finished one. A complete beginnning middle end story will not only happen for me, but be the one that helps make me the writer everyone seeems to believe I am.
I have the ability to create beauty. I am as sure of that as I am of breathing. But am I capable of producing (ever) a finished product? do I fear finishing anything more substansial then a poem? It's not length or substance. I find myself as comfortable with horror as I am with romance, though I'm smoopier then I like to admit with my "sweet" stories. I think it's the looking. I shouldn't look back at my story. I invariably do. Instead of pressing forward (as I should, oh I should) I dawdle and look over what I've written and inveitably all I can see is crap. The weak plot, the transparent charactors. the MANY many many spelling and gramattical mistakes.
I'm trying to conquer some of these fears by allowing myself my imperfections in blog form. by allowing myself to write myself in the moment, in my truth. Perhaps if I can forgive my mistakes, transperencies, and flaws- I can forgive those that show up in my written world. I just want to finish one.
I have been trying to do that for most of my life. I'd win a few awards in high school and some cats in college thought enough of my ability to enlist my help with some assignments. Every now and then in my journal I have a 'spark'.
ReplyDeleteThe talent is when you can sustain that spark until it burns as match flame. Then keep the winds from blowing that out and you can set the kindling afire and it burns.
Once that happens, who knows how brightly and how big the fire will grow!
Your profile pic makes me think of a younger, pouty Madonna... hope you take that as the compliment as it is intended to be!!
Don't look back. DO NOT LOOK BACK!!! Or start at the end... write that first. But whatever you do, promise yourself that it is ok to write shit. All first (and second) drafts are crappy. When you are all done and you go back through, you will pull out what is good and craft it into the story you intended to write. But in the meantime, do not look back.
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