I don’t believe in astrology, so much so that whenever anyone asks me what my star sign is, I answer “Ophiucus”. Now largely forgotten, this dates back to an article I read on the BBC, which put forward the claim there was a 13th star sign and because of this, astrologers were changing the dates of all the star signs. This 13th sign was Ophiucus, and for a while, it looked like everything astrologers knew about your horoscope was wrong. I checked and my birth date fell under the new sign, and so I was thrilled.
So,don’t try to tell me what my personality traits are based on what my star sign is. There is, however,one Sagitarrius trait that rings true, which is that they struggle with finishing tasks and often jump from one project to another without completing what they start.
I could give you many examples, but the one that annoys me most is my inability or reluctance to finish the books I’ve started. I’ve already written about the time it’s taking me to finish the time-travel novel I first started in 2019. Breaking Many Worlds Apart into three and self-publishing each part separately has helped,but it’s still taken me a lot longer than I had hoped it would.
Part of the problem has been my insistence on only writing fiction if I am having fun. It can’t feel like work. For many years, whenever I wasn’t enjoying the writing, I stopped the book I was involved in, and started another one. Fortunately, I have stopped starting something new, and now circle back to a previous project, but I have a lot of unfinished books as a result.
I don’t think I’m alone. From what I can tell, many writers have novels they have started that lie unfinished, and there’s even an estimation that 80% of adults want to write a book, but only 3% get to the end of a first draft and so 97% of people who want to write a book never finish. It’s still annoying though when I meet a writer who is working on one project and manages to stick with it to the end.
During the pandemic, I became so annoyed with myself for seemingly being unable to finish anything, that I decided I needed to do something to make myself more accountable. I started by commissioning book covers. I thought that would inspire me and feel like the book was more tangible if I actually spent money on a cover. I’d done something similar before, creating my own covers, but when I commissioned my first cover, I was sure it would give me that extra drive to finish a project. It didn’t.
Above is the cover for one of the novels I’m writing that was designed by Christopher Paul Cook, an artist local to where I’m from (North Shields) - I commissioned him to do the cover because the novel is focused on characters that come from the area. Some day I hope to be able to use the cover on the actual book! Here’s another one:
I’m now embarrassed to say I took this a step further and actually ordered t-shirts and face masks of some of the book covers I commissioned (see below). This didn’t work either. Of course, the last thing I want to do was wear a t-shirt proudly displaying the title of a book I’ve started but not finished, or walk down the street during the pandemic wearing a mask with the title of an unfinished project, although at least the masks don’t have my name on them.
Now I’m stuck with masks I don’t need, but at least I have a goal: I’m going to finish those books before the next pandemic!
Finishing can definitely be tough. I think it's the feeling that it's all going to be over and you have to start over again from scratch. I write a book series and the benefit to that is that I'm never starting over with a new book because I always have existing characters and ongoing storylines. I suppose finishing though, is to be treated like the rest of it. It's a block in your head. Once removed, you will finish again and again, like it's nothing. It really isn't the big deal we often assume it will be. I think as fiction writers, we have big imaginations and sometimes, that is used for good but the opposite can be true, too. You picture all kinds of bad things happening if you do finish but of course, we can use the bad things happening if we don't finish scenario. We'll be gone one day with no finished work. And that may be the trick. Don't picture writing a perfect ending. Have one goal in mind- finish. Bad or good, if you finish, you did it. And you've broken the block. Thank you so much for sharing, Graham.