Last night I was chatting with my friend about how my writing is going. She was impressed when I told her I had 80K words of a novel that I've been working on since NaNoWriMo 2013. I told her that while I was glad to have so many words in my doc, I was also bummed because it's literally just 1 of 4 unfinished novels I've worked on in the last 5 years. And that's not including a nonfiction book proposal (as yet unsold) that I collaborated on for a couple months in 2012. I've put substantial time into each of these projects--each is about 200+ pages (except for the book proposal, which is 60 pages).

I really don't like the feeling of not having finished anything in so long. However, because I work full time, and don't write for my income but rather just my desire to do it, I also feel like it's important for my writing to not feel like a slog--then I just won't do it at all. So I switch around so that I'm working on projects that are engaging for me on the day that I have time to work on it. But that makes me feel like I am not fully committed to one project! And that none of these projects will ever get finished! And that is bad for my self-esteem.

How do you guys deal with this? Any tips?

Lucy, I have abandoned many books over the years. They sit like broken down cars along the side of life's road probably never to be started again. I still have all of them. I've got several on 3.5 floppy disks. I've got folders of typewritten pages stuffed in boxes - that my wife keeps threatening to throw out. I know that none of them will ever see the light of day and that someday I'll put them out in the trash.

Some were discarded after 50 pages, others have over 100 pages. One encompassed over 200 pages when something went wrong - I don't recall what - and I left it. I try to view all of them as flawed from the beginning. Either I didn't think them through before I started typing (most probable scenario), or they simply weren't my 'cup of tea' which was born out as I hammered my way through them before eventually realizing my mistake.

I currently have three books in various stages of completion. Two of them I've put aside to focus on the one that I think has the most promise. It is also proving to be the most difficult of the three. I don't feel guilty about the other two. Maybe I'll finish them, or maybe they'll take their place along the side of the road with the many others. 

Lucy, it is a slog, a slog solving the problems and a slog doing the research, at least when you’re writing a historical piece. All I can say is, if it’s a story you have to tell, you’ll push it out eventually. I find joy in the small victories, a new slant on an episode long written, a chapter finalized (until it isn’t). Maybe a bit of research makes me chuckle, no particular use for it at the moment, but – bam! – into my note files for future exploitation. Yeah, my note files. No one's taken me up on my quirky word challenge. I couldn't care less. I found a good one last night in a book I was working on. I'll enter it later. I'm quite happy playing in that sand box all by myself. 

.

I’ve been on my thing since around nineteen-eighty-five, when I took an illustration class and started a short story to go with an image. That was the fore-runner of you-know-who.

--edited by Mimi Speike on 9/13/2014, 7:10 PM--

Lucy,

No slogging allowed. Work on things only when you want to do it, and there should be no slogging, But set markers for when you have completed some part of the book.

Having written mostly short stories to date, I like Scott's approach.

I have a lot of pressures on my time, and I don't get to write very often. I have deadlines. Right now I'm writing to deadlines on two shorter pieces for periodicals, and I'm working on a 40 minute presentation I will deliver early next month. I will meet these deadlines because I have to; it would be embarrassing to let down those I have promised.

I've been working on a first novel for a long time. I've given myself until late winter to finish. I enjoy working with the story, but to make any progress at all, I have to set smaller goals or markers; finish a chapter, get the backstory in the right places, describe the physical scenes for the action; edit the dialogue in chapters one through three, that sort of thing. There's a reward when I reach each marker, and that get's me ready for the next.

I understand, Lucy. Been there, done the partially-finished manuscripts languishing in a desk drawer.

In my case I got over my head with "the long form". It's just not my preferred type-length for writing. I execute best with the poem, essay or short story. Too many "roads untraveled" (paralyzing narrative possibilities) with the novel. Also, passion seems to be a problem for me; that is to say, whilst writing the novel I seem to suffer a dearth of it. Perhaps you've experienced the same?

Good luck, though, with these temporarily stalled projects. You may return to them in the future. (And for that matter, good luck on all your future writing projects!)

PS. I do believe, however, that every piece of writing we do--unfinished or no--makes us better writers. Surely we can take some hard-earned, well-deserved comfort from that?

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 9/23/2014, 10:47 PM--

@Perry: Very cool! What rewards do you use? Or is it just the reward of having hit a milestone?

@Carl: Yes, it is comforting when you think about it that way. Thanks for the kind words of good luck! Curious to know what you are working on right now!

@Mimi: I love how illustrating Sly made you want to write his story!!

@Scott: How long does it take you to write one chapter?

This weekend I returned to a project that I hadn't worked on since March of 2013 (!!!) I might be flattering myself but I was totally delighted by it and worked on it a bunch. I think I'm going to post a chapter of it on Book Country and see what people think. It was so great to give myself permission to switch over to a project that felt more fun. Thanks for all your words of encouragement!! You guys rock.

@Lucy: I'm working on two very different short stories that I'll post for critique soon. Revising old poems. Jotting down all manner of things literary and inspirational: quotes, proposed character names, bitter-sweet anecdotes that chronicle stand-out moments in other writers' lives. Leaving tape-recorder messages to my future self consisting of story fragments, narrative impulses, weird dreams, transfixing hypnagogic visions and other chimerical ephemera that may inspire future writings.

With apologies to Dylan Thomas: I will not go gentle into that good night! After slipping and hitting my head I will age, age, against the dryer's dying light . . . 

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 9/17/2014, 11:37 PM--

@Lucy,

My reward for finishing a story, a chapter, a scene, is the satisfaction that comes with progress toward a larger goal.

That's not to say other rewards could not be utilized. A half day of trout fishing? Time to drive a horse around the property? A half bottle of wine? Maybe a whole bottle?

Perry

@Lucy: I use a tape recorder to capture those moments of inspiration when story ideas, fragments of plots, compelling ideas and/or themes arise from the subconscious, entirely unbidden and unexpected--but most welcome!

I used to write these fleeting fancies down in a "future projects" notebook. However, I switched to a tape recorder some years ago when I realized (1) I could capture more information faster this way than writing it down, (2) I would elaborate at greater length verbally than I would in cursive form, hence get more "grist-for-the-mill" to re-inspire and re-invigorate myself later, and (3) tone of voice would guide me in re-creating a certain mood or particularly strong emotion when I began to write.  

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 9/16/2014, 10:26 AM--

It relieves me considerably to see that I'm not the only one with this problem!

I've got eight unfinished novels bouncing around; wordcounts ranging anywhere from 2,000 to 60,000.  I don't think the problem is a lack of interest in the stories we write, but more of a loss of momentum.  NaNo is a magical time where we push through any obstacle through all odds and triumph in fifty thousandish glory.  But after that, life happens.  I find it next to impossible to maintain that kind of dedication for much more than the month. 

So we do what we can with what we're dealt, I suppose.  One thing that works for me when I'm feeling novel return-y is to roll a pair of eight sided dice.  It captures at least some of that NaNo urgency:

"Mm-kay, looks like I'm writing on... (roll)... The Bristledell Conscription.  And I'll be writing... (roll)... 700 words on it today."

Wow @Russell! I like your style and flexibility with the dice-rolling strategy!

Do you do NaNo every year? I am going to try it for the second time this year, I think. Though my little bout with Project Infidelity this weekend makes me wonder how I will prepare.

@Lucy:   Go for it!  You'll never regret a NaNo!    I certainly try for it every year, though I don't always go the distance.  I actually hit 50k maybe 1 of every 3 attempts.  No attempt should be seen as a failure though.  I find I'm often more attached to some of my incomplete stories than my finished works. 

@Scott:   I've heard that that strategy is a great way to get things rolling.  I think it was Ray Bradbury who said that is the best way to get a novel written was never to write a novel.  I may have to give that a try myself. 

A tape recorder! I do sticky notes, mounds of them, and other scraps, backs of receipts, anything I can lay hands on when the juice flows. I'm looking at a mountain of papers on the bookshelf next to my bed as I write. I'll get to them any day now. There's gold in that thar hill of close-to-indecipherable scribbles. I'm always yelling at my husband: don't you touch that mess! I need that stuff.

--edited by Mimi Speike on 9/16/2014, 3:05 PM--

@Lucy: Old tapes? Tucked into a cabinet. As for letting someone else listen to them--good god, no! I can't imagine anything more outre, unintelligible and dull to others' ears.

--edited by Carl E. Reed on 9/17/2014, 9:25 AM--

@Lucy

I took a decade to complete my one novel, eight years of "doodling" and two years of serious daily writing. The end result included insights I gained over the years. Maybe we have to learn some things we don't yet know before we can understand the story we have in mind. Then we'll just sit down and write it.

 I detect the signs of your being an auditory person....someone for whom sounds are more important than visions or feelings. Do you love music? Are you touched most by the rhythm and sound quality of poetry? Is it easier for you to talk to yourself than to put words on the page? If you think you might come under that heading, I would try the recording experiment. Instead of feeling like a slog it might feel like a release. What feels good, you'll do.

My background is in psychology, as you may notice.

Annie