Staying on the Road to Completion

By Lacey Gunter

The message of how important it is to follow through and complete your WIP comes up frequently in writing conferences and classes. For those of you who have completed manuscripts before, you know that this task can be really tough. That romance you felt with the characters and the story at the start of writing has usually long since fizzled before you finish. It is hard and sometimes almost painful work. You have to be a strict task master with yourself to finish and you probably sometimes ask yourself if maybe it would be better just to set aside your WIP and work on something else.

 Are there situations when finishing your WIP really isn't that important? I am a bit of a finishing junkie. I love that feeling of having something complete. This is not because I have a great natural talent for follow through. Quite the opposite, I have a natural tenancy for procrastination and distraction. It is for this reason that I feel so good when I complete something. I have overcome my natural tendencies and conquered the task. Having said that, I do feel there is one situation where shelfing a WIP and starting something new is a good idea. If you have discovered or learned some information which presents credible evidence that your WIP is simply unmarketable and completing it will not benefit you in some way (i.e. it is not a story you need to tell such as a family history and you don't need to prove to yourself you can complete a manuscript), then, by all means, stop wasting your time and move on to something more productive.  Most desires to quit a manuscript don't fall into this category. So when those feelings of disenchantment strike, what do you do to overcome it?

Here are some strategies I have learned to help me stay on the road to completion:

1. Set clear concise and achievable goals: Small tasks can be easily winged. It's a lot harder to complete a big multistage task in a reasonable amount of time without a little planning. And breaking that big task up into manageable chunks can make the task seem less overwhelming.

2. Couple those goals with deadlines and consequences: Being a natural procrastinator, my creative juices are usually like thick sludge right up until the last possible moment when they finally start to flow like a river. One way I have found to combat this is to create deadlines for myself. I don't mean those flimsy artificial deadlines you write on your calendar and no one else really cares or sees except for maybe your spouse. Instead I create real deadlines in which I will face some level of consequence for failing to meet, such as public embarrassment. One example of this might be joining a critique group where you are required to submit something for critique on a consistent schedule. No one wants to ready the same chapter they read last month with little or no improvement. You lack of progress with grow annoying very quickly. Things like this can be a very good motivator.

3. Learn the difference between a break and a reward: Everyone needs breaks. Your ability to think creatively, focus on the task and produce good writing wanes over time without small periods of rest. Everyone knows this. But don't let your self-directed breaks look more like the kind of activities you do when you've already completed a hard day's worth of work. What do breaks look like in a supervised work place? You go the bathroom, eat a small meal or snack, maybe take a very short walk or do a small amount of reading and then you are right back on the job.  This is what a break should look like. It should not look like an hour and a half on Facebook or Pinterest. These are the types of activities that should be used as awards for accomplishing a difficult task.  If you feel you need more time away from a stressful scene in your WIP than a short break will allow, make it the kind of break that counts. Go to a different, more enjoyable section of your WIP and work on that. This is the way to stay on task and get things done.

4. Choose imperfection over a stop in production: Don't let yourself get so stuck on getting the perfect writing or the perfect storyline that you end up doing nothing at all. This type of thinking does more than just waste time. It can erode your confidence to a point of impeding your ability to succeed or even progress. When I find myself in a state like this, I repeat the mantra to myself "something really is better than nothing". Get something down. Go back and edit it later when the pressure is not so high and you are able to think a little more clearly or can see it from a different perspective. It is amazing how well this technique works.

These are some of the strategies I use frequently to help finish my WIPs. What techniques have you found successful?

Don't give up. You can do it!

Perfection, I must have prefection!

By Lacey Gunter

As my kids and I wandered the parking lot of the local, hip shopping center hosting a chalk art festival this weekend, I was fascinated by things people could do with several pieces of chalk and a parking spot. You can look at the pictures in this post to see what I mean. It was beautiful, it was amazing and quite frankly it was intimidating.

 At the center of the shopping plaza they were handing out a piece of chalk to whoever wanted to draw on the sidewalk areas not being used by the artists. My children gladly jumped at the chalk and immediately took to the sidewalks leaving their little mark on the plaza. I reluctantly grabbed a piece of chalk and went and sat by where my kids were drawing.  I thought about drawing something.  But after seeing such masterpieces in such vivid colors and detail, I looked at my single color of chalk and shrank at the task.  I racked my brain trying to think of what I could possibly draw that would look nice in just one color. All the while, my kids were relishing in the enjoyment of the moment, with little care as to whether their drawing stacked up to even the scribbles on the sidewalk next to them, let alone the master pieces in the parking lot. Who cares? They were having fun and drawing from their heart and that is all that really mattered to them.

 Why couldn't I be as free as them and draw because it was fun? Sure, I still had on my work clothes from earlier that day, but I could have at least manged to squat long enough to scribble out my name in fancy letters or some cute doodle.

Ah, perfectionism it is such a double edged sword. You can bet all those artists who spent hours, maybe days, slaving over their masterpieces in a parking lot stall were seeking for perfection. It is often how such amazing talent and such beautiful pieces of art come to be. And, yet, that same force which can drive an individual to do such amazing things can also cripple them from ever starting the task if it seems too difficult or they feel inferior to their competitors.

Does this ever happen to you with your writing? It does sometimes for me. If I don't quite know how to make a story great, I often have a difficult time getting myself to start on it.  I can also spend a week slaving over a single sentence, unwilling to move on because I know it is not perfect like I want it.

Perfectionism can definitely be a barrier sometimes. But it also seems like our ultra competitive, obsession based culture demands it. So how do we cope with this?  I don't have a lot of great answers, but here are few things I tell myself, that help me:

1. Great works of art and writing come in lots of different packages. Not every art that speaks to my soul is done in the same style as a da Vinci.  I can be just as fascinated with a beautifully cartoonish picture book. And a comical and silly chapter book can be just as wonderful to my children as a life changing novel can be to me. So my version of writing doesn't have to look or be like the lastest New York Times bestseller to be worthwhile.

2. It's okay to be by yourself away from the critiquing eyes of others when you want to try something new. You don't have to go to the center of the plaza to attempt a chalk art master piece as long as you are willing to try it out by yourself in the privacy of your own home.  Just be sure to promise yourself you will share your talents later when you are no longer a novice. 


3. Even the masters had to learn to be masters.  Don't look at the ending product of years of study and expect to achieve the same for yourself after only days or weeks. It doesn't mean you couldn't or can't achieve that level of skill, you just have to put in the time and effort.

So what about you? Are any of you MMW's perfectionists when it comes to your writing?  How has it helped you and how do you overcome the struggles? And don't worry, I'm not looking for the perfect answer.