Finishing Things

When I first started making things, I thought the hard part of making things was the making of things. I was always reading about people who never wrote their novels or their plays or songs or whatever. From reading all these creativity books, I got the sense that just FINISHING something would put me ahead of the pack. This sense is often reinforced, even now. Just the other day I was listening to a podcast about writing and the guest and the host agreed that 95% of writers don’t finish their manuscripts. They made it sound like, just by finishing something, you were already well on your way to success.

But I’ve been finishing things my whole creative life and I’m no closer to the front of the pack than I was when I began. Despite a large body of work behind me, I still feel like I’m running like mad to keep up.

I finish things. It’s not that special. I’ve got, just sitting on my hard drive — four novels, six short stories, three children’s picture books, twelve full length plays and eight short ones. There are also a couple of complete series of poems. I finish one of these blogs approximately every five days and record a song and podcast for them once a week, as well. Given all the hype given to finishing things, I think, early on, I thought a marching band might burst through the wall and play me a congratulatory fight song every time I finished something. But that has yet to happen.

In fact, if I want to see any kind of acknowledgment for ANY thing I create, I have generally had to create some kind of structure for it myself. Wanted to see my plays on stage? I had to produce them. Wanted to share my novel for young people with more people than I could read it to at a time? I recorded a podcast of it.
Wanted anyone to read my thoughts about struggling artistry or the state of the arts or feminism or whatever? No one would publish such things — I had to start a blog.

Part of all of this is that I am impatient. I do not want to wait to be discovered. I do not want to wait to submit to all the appropriate authorities or even wait to find out who the proper authorities are. I recognize that my “I’ll just do it myself” impulse is sometimes a block to finding someone to do it for me and therefore a block to a standard sort of success. Maybe if I were better at submitting and waiting, I might have found some other path after finishing — but waiting is just not my way. Finishing things IS. And I guess I feel like I was sold a false bill of goods at some point. Somewhere I got the idea that finishing things would make me so special that success would be more or less guaranteed. It is not.

I mean — sure — finishing stuff is important. An unfinished novel, play, screenplay, story, essay, whatever, is for sure going nowhere. But a finished thing can just as easily go nowhere. I guess a lot of people have to believe that the marching band will come in when they finally finish their thing — just to keep them motivated. But I have no such illusion anymore. I know that whatever satisfaction I have at the completion of a work has to come from the work itself and not whatever goodies I imagine it might yield me.

I read Marge Piercy’s “ For the Young Who Want to “ when I was young and wanted to and her line about work being its own reward has been strong within me ever since. Unfortunately, her poem didn’t tell me what to do when I finished something — so I had to work that out for myself. I’ll share it with you, in case you need that bit, too. Yes, finish something. Then start the next thing. And if you happen to get a marching band, enjoy it! Then start the next thing.