Finishing What You Start

Sometimes you run across exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.

Exhibit A – Chuck Wendig over at the terribleminds blog put up this terrific post  last Wednesday about doubt and writing and finishing what you start.  Please take a moment and go read it.  (By the way, if you’ve never read this blog before,  potty mouth language is used with abandon.  If this offends you, feel free to substitute the word “flock” or “freak” for the other “f” word.  But you should still read it. 😀 )

This post pinpointed EXACTLY the way I’ve been feeling.  I’m at a point in my work in progress where I feel like it’s a piece of pretentious crap. I’m at the point in my “career” where it seems like a joke. I’m stuck in the mud, mired in doubt.  The voices I’m hearing in my head are the ones you hear whenever you try to take a step forward, when you, an ordinary muggle, make a break for the fences.  Doubt, doubt, doubtedy doubt. Bad, bad, smack-self-in-face doubt.

So Mr. Wendig’s post struck a chord, as his posts so often do.  In it, he’s mostly talking about NaNoWriMo, but his advice works even if you, like me, are merely trying to slog through your next creative endeavor. Just the acknowledgment that other people feel the way I do, helped. Just the direction to throw off the expectations of myself, other people, and society at large, helped.  I stopped, took a deep breath, and said “yes, I can do this.  I can finish this. I can finish what I started”

Or as the penmonkey drill sergeant says:

“You can do this.
You will do this.
This is who you are and what you want.
Don’t stop.
Don’t blink.
Keep writing until the writing is done.
The end.”

Sir, yes sir! And thank you, sir!

No. Really.