When a thing is not done, continuing to work on it is the strength. When it is done, the strength lies in stopping. Work, appraise, complete; work, appraise, complete: this is the creative life.
The creative life and the writing process are cycles. We have ideas, we incubate them, we nurture them, we manifest them, we appraise, and then we revisit and revise them. We review again, oftentimes going back through a manuscript half a dozen, or a dozen or more times. We appraise again and again. Hopefully, we keep at it till the story is done. Then we acknowledge that we are finished and we let go. Finally, repeatedly, we begin again. Yes, this is the creative life.
When a project is long-term, such as a novel, maintaining interest and momentum over time can be trying. No matter how excited an author is about an idea when she first begins, there will be times when she simply wants to hit the delete key, to be done even though not complete. But the way in which an author continues to work through the difficult portions of her story defines the kind of writer she intends to be. She doesn’t give up when she hits a challenge in the craft or in her life. She forges on until the work is done. That is what a writer does. The strength is in her tenacity to continue.
At times we love our stories so much, grow to care for our characters to such a degree that we don’t want to let the story go. Hopefully, that is what our readers will think of the story too, and so we must release it to them. The strength is in the stopping.
Recognizing when a project has come to fruition is sometimes difficult for an author. Even when a project is not complete in the traditional meaning of the word, the project may actually be done. Seeing this can take a discerning eye, an open mind willing to absorb knowledge, and an open heart that knows creativity is not portioned.
Assuming the author’s tenacity to finish is there, why would an author stop working on a project if it isn’t “complete”?
What if that project was given (I believe we are gifted our ideas) to the author as a learning? What if the purpose of that particular writing piece was to serve as a means for the author to experiment with character development, or point of view, or an out-of-chronology story timeline? And maybe, having learned much, she is supposed to let go of the project because it fulfilled the gift, gave her the learning experience she was meant to have. The purpose of the story may never have been to be read by an audience, to be “completed,” yet its work was “done.” So the author stops with it and celebrates her new knowledge. Here, too, the strength lies in the stopping.
Then she dips into the bottomless well of new ideas to begin the cycle again.
This creativity tip is inspired by and loosely based on The 97 Best Creativity Tips Ever! by Dr. Eric Maisel (2011), and is used with his permission.
Gina Edwards is a retreat leader, a certified creativity coach, and a book editor. She is also a writer, so she’s intimately familiar with the challenges and elation that come with being one.
She supports all writers—published and aspiring—who want to write as an act of courageous and necessary self-expression.
Walking the writer’s path hand-in-hand with her clients and students, she helps them establish a writing practice and define a creative life on their own terms.