THE TRICKY ART OF FINISHING by James Mihaley

A good writer has many different skills.  They include the ability to write sharp dialogue, the ability to be funny, to be poignant, the ability to tell a good story, the ability to keep the story moving, the ability to create compelling characters. 

There is another talent that often gets overlooked and this is the ability to finish what you start.  I believe that this skill, this great gift, is just as important as any of the others I listed.

Paradoxically this skill can often be honed by learning how to discard stories that no longer serve you.  If you’re clamping on a like a pit bull to a book that, in your heart, you no longer believe in, and no one in your writing group is crazy about it either, then it may be in your best interest to let it go and move on.  Some novels are not meant to be finished.  They serve a vital purpose as a Herculean writing exercise, a noble apprenticeship, during which you develop the mastery required to fulfill your destiny as an author.  

One of the main reasons we refuse to let a story go is because we have already invested so much time and effort, so much blood and sweat, and the thought of letting that all go to waste is maddening but does it serve you to continue working on a project that you don’t believe in with all your heart and soul?  Moving on is not a bad thing.  We move on until we find that story we must tell, and when we find it, and we certainly will, nothing, absolutely nothing will keep us from finishing it.  It doesn’t matter if there are delays.  Your novel will survive them.  Your novel will overcome any adversity because this is a story you have to tell, a story the children of the world need to hear, and by God, you’re going to finish it!  You will persevere, you will chip away, line by line, paragraph by paragraph.  You will finish that book.  Nothing on Earth will stop you from telling the story you were put on this planet to create.