You Have To Take One Idea To The Finish Line...

"I realize how hard it is after putting in a full day of work to come home and do more work on your personal projects. But you have to do it. It is that simple. And you have to take one idea to the finish line. Listen, almost every artist I know has a personal project brewing, a kids book, a novel, a movie script idea… But very few ever take it to a point that they can show it to publishers, because it is always easier to start a new idea than to finish an old one."

~ Scott Fischer, being interviewed on The ArtOrder Blog.

As an Artist and a Writer, I can totally agree with this, it is easier to start a new idea than to finish an old one. And probably the main reason why I have never finished a writing project. Last year I started writing a novel I posted on this blog, Ghosts of Time. I started writing with lots of enthusiasm, and got good feedback on the first two posts I made. Then I started reading a blog post (apologies I can't remember which blog it was on now), but it said that once you had published your novel on your blog, you couldn't sell it to a publisher. Something about you having already used your first publishing rights on your blog. This made me panic and stop writing my novel. I loved the idea so much, I thought it would make a great and unusual novel, and one day I'd like to get it published.

This is still true, but why did I stop writing it altogether? I could have continued writing it, just not publishing it until I try to get it professionally published. The thing was, I loved the feedback, and the excitement at having posted it to be read online. To be able to get some feedback as to how my writing was coming along, that people were excited and wanted to read more. I also felt I was held accountable and had to produce a new chapter as people were waiting to read more. I loved that.

I started reading my Ghosts Of Time posts again recently, to post on a Goodreads.com group, Ambitious Writers. And I surprised myself with how good they were. Sure, I know I'm not a published author, and I am in no way perfect with my writing. But it still amazes me that I feel the same excitement reading my writing, as I did writing my writing. I loved it, and I wanted to read more. And in order to read more of it, I must write more of it.

But I want to be able to publish it? Therefore, I must not post it on here as I write it. But I do miss the excitement of posting on here and feeling excited about updating it. Then I remembered another writer's blog I read often. The Writeaholic's Blog. Aheila, who writes The Writeaholic's Blog, writes web series on her blog, which you can find from the links across the top of her blog (see Killing Time OST and Other Stories links on her blog). But she also writes stories (novels I believe), which she doesn't post on her blog, but lets us know how she's doing with them in her posts. Such as when she's writing for the Nanowrimo challenge. Perhaps I could find a story to write as a web series (a fun story I'm happy to share and hopefully increase people's awareness of my writing, as well as improve my writing skills), and keep my precious original story I want to write as a novel to be published offline, and then I can publish it without any troubles. That sounds like a plan! :)