Unfinished Business

So a month since I turned in my 90+ pages, 50,000+ word manuscript to nanowrimo... the rough and tumble, barely chaptered, barely sectioned manuscript lies in a word document on my desktop, mocking me, taunting me, daring me to open it. It dares me to print it off and attempt to read it. It knows how much I struggle with my own heart as a writer, my skill, my voice, my everything.

I am awesome at starting creative projects, whether it's an afghan, the new fingerless gloves I'm crocheting (finished 1!), or a long piece of writing. I have 3 novella's/novels which I am now working on, and a complete manuscript which needs loads of editing.

I have about 6 books which I began reading (some years ago) and have not finished. I am an expert at unfinished business... sigh.

I don't know if this implies failure, per se. It just means my distractibility level is quite high. As I begin chipping away at the dull hunk of wood that I now see my novel as, I will need encouragement to keep going with it. While writing the manuscript itself was a battle in perseverance, I actually think the editing process will be the real work. Plunking out 3,000 words in an evening, regardless of quality just seemed normal after a few weeks, but battling to find the perfect words, images, descriptions... I might die before I complete this piece of work. But I don't want to give up on it.

Listening to the freakonomics podcast, an episode talked about failing fast--knowing when a business (or other) venture wouldn't work and quitting quickly so as to use a little energy as possible before throwing in the towel.

While this attitude might work well in business, I'm not sure how well it applies to art. I'm not sure if the market demand for an anger bar  matches the struggle Van Gogh had with his artistic ventures in his life. I'm in no way comparing myself to Van Gogh or my despicable manuscript to Starry Night--I doubt my novels and stories and poems will ever be considered art.

I think the point is that these horrid thoughts that I will fail as an author keep me procrastinating from working on my texts when, I'm not sure I can fail or succeed (at writing them anyway). I may fail at selling or marketing my stories one day, but if I work desperately hard with them, how can I fail to write them?

In my mind, it isn't me who has written the story... no. The stories choose me, pick me out of the sky and  plop into my brain, fizzle around in there with the images and emotions, and then beg me to squeeze them out into the world in my notebooks and type them on my laptop. I feel as though my stories choose me... not the other way around. I should hope that I do not give up on them, leaving the characters and plots half-formed, afraid to do them justice. I hope I am brave enough to make them shine, even if the world spits them back out at me.

I hope I have the gumption to see them through to the end, for their own sake, not mine.