Work (not) in Progress

For almost as long as I’ve been reading books, I’ve wanted to write them.  I started writing a mystery series when I was 8.  (“Michael’s early period,”  a critic might say, “reflects an unmistakable Scooby-doo influence.”)  I was writing poetry even before that, and later started more ambitious projects, mostly sci-fi monster disasters, like my sadly unfinished Giant Ant Attack, which would have terrified mankind.  Unfinished would aptly describe most every story or essay I’ve started since then.  I mean, I have a hard time finishing a grocery list these days.

 Here are the two typical life cycles of my writing projects:

idea – excitement – first draft – sharing idea – death

or

 idea – excitement – first draft – editing – disgust – death

Both patterns move from ideas to actual writing, but then get lost along the way before completion.  The first pattern reflects what I’ll call the problem of premature articulation.  I have this creative energy, a passion to express an idea, but then blow my load telling someone about it.  Suddenly, I’ve lost the urgency to finish writing it and so another project dies. 

The second pattern involves going back to something I’ve started and reading what I’ve done so far.  This has invariably been like leaving an enjoyable meal half-eaten then coming back to it days or weeks later and finding a rancid mess.  “How could I have failed to realize this stinks?”  Someone, who I’ll make no effort to recall or credit, said there are no good writers, only good rewriters, advice I took to heart.  I hardly ever return to something I've written and feel even neutral about it.  I always set about rewriting, which generally takes all the energy intended for continuing the project.  If I come back to it again later, I can’t seem to stop myself rewriting again from the beginning.  This is the Groundhog Day problem, the inability to stop starting over.  I end up scrapping the project in disgust.

 Maybe if I try to post something weekly it will force me to finish a thought and then let go of it.  
            

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