Finishing
June 27, 2017 § 23 Comments
Beginning in mid-2015, I broke a nearly-three-year run of rejections with a steady sequence of acceptances. When a writer friend helped me create a web page, I joked that I’d never again get an essay published. That was eight months ago, not that I’m counting. I have one “active” essay on Submittable, but at least six more in my files that are almost finished. Allison K. Williams’ “The Value of Getting Sh*t Done”–and common sense– tell me that one essay in my queue is not the way to change the situation. So, why can’t I finish?
I’m retired from a job in academic support at Oberlin College, where I worked with many students who had writer’s block. What advice would I have given them?
Step away from your draft
Do some free writing
Make a list or a word cloud or a sketch
Just do something, and see where it leads.
So I cleared my desk. I wrote the title of each essay on its own 3×5 card, and made notes about why I hadn’t finished it. Turns out I had perfectly valid reasons, even if only I could understand them. An essay about my dad’s last job, the one that may have caused his death (and my complicity therein) isn’t done because I’m waiting for an “e-mail with tech info about job from A.M.” Trust me, it’s essential. I’ve tabled another because I’m not sure I’ve adequately dealt with race issues. And one just sounded “trite.” Maybe the one I haven’t submitted because I’m waiting for a “sign from the universe” is harder to defend, but the essay in question is much more about someone else’s story than it is mine, so I need to get it right.
At any rate, as soon as I’d finished filling out those 3×5 cards, I began working on one of the essays. The next day I finished it, and submitted it to “Modern Love” at the New York Times. They responded within 24 hours, and my essay will run next week.
That last paragraph is fiction. What I really did was toss the cards to the side, check Facebook, make some tea, and read a couple of chapters in a novel.
I haven’t yet finished any of those essays.
This is the way it goes. I am reminded, again and again, that nothing about writing (at least for me) is straightforward. It never turns out the way I expect it to, but I keep returning to my desk, telling myself that something will eventually happen. Sometimes I manage to believe it.
Instead of finishing one of my essays, I wrote this post. OK, I drafted it and it sat on my desktop for a couple of weeks. Two days ago, I worked on it during a timed writing session with the friend who helped me with my website. She said, as she sometimes does when I read a draft to her, “I love it. I can’t think of a thing you should change. Submit it now.” But I didn’t. I’ve been tinkering with it, trying to find a snappy ending.
“Three writers go into a bar” seems too obvious.
I can’t even type, “The secret of writing is…” without laughing.
But there’s another possibility: If you’re reading this now, it means I finally finished a piece. Maybe that’s my snappy ending.
_______________________________
Melissa Ballard studied fashion merchandising, worked retail, and was a bank teller and a public school camp counselor before deciding higher education might be a good idea. Her essays appear in Brevity, Compose Journal, Full Grown People, Gravel and other publications. She just got the email about her dad’s job…ass in chair time.
Hilarious. And cringingly honest, thank you. Good luck! G
You had me at the Modern Love acceptance!
You seem to have found a beginning.
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Oh, 3 X 5 cards, that’s what I need. Here I’ve been relying on yellow legal pads. Or maybe yellow is the wrong color.
If I can’t write, at least I can read, or if I can’t read, I can sit on a bench in a museum with my hands behind me on the bench staring at a painting.
You are v. funny-dry, Melissa. Thanks.
This sounds strikingly familiar…The Artist’s Way.
…and I stopped doing morning pages 4 years ago. Maybe it is time to pick that back up. It’s kind of like free-association…just go with whatever is in your brain first thing in the morning. This practice makes very good use of legal pads, June Goodwin.
Step back from the canvas to get a higher perspective. I love the idea of cloud bubbles, as opposed to Venn diagrams.
Thanks for reading and commenting, everyone!
Just so you know, I read this and at the “Modern Love” paragraph shrieked with excitement, told the family that I now personally know someone who wrote for the NYTimes, burbling like a baby blowing saliva bubbles. Then I read the next paragraph. That was delightful! Let’s compare unfinished works as soon as I buy some 3×5 index cards. (Great idea, by the way.)
Perfect, Melissa. Thanks
Excellent and fun–thanks! Keep churning those ideas out and trimming away…the only way to get things done, as we all so well know. (The last paragraph was just right.)
Such a good antidote to all of those “I know it all: 7-steps to writing success stories” (that never help us anyway)
This strikes home for me. I have a story I’ve been working on for months. It keeps getting longer, but it never seems to get close to the end. I even have the closing words — the whole point of the story — but I can’t seem to write my way to them.
I’m a slush reader. I can’t tell you how many beginners cente a story around the punchline. Put your final lines away till you come up with a story idea.
I am fairly new to blogging but I have 14 blog posts in the hopper… FOURTEEN! That’s nuts! One of which is entitled “Begingers bloggers block” so, you know that one will take a while. I love the note card idea! I’m going to try it.
I just won a book award. I feel like I have climbed a hill. I can’t get up the energy to write a blog post, much less the two articles I have waiting. But I guess I’m not unique, so that’s a good thing. Glad I stopped by,
[…] time to assess what’s in the files and think about what we really want to finish. Melissa Ballard sat down with some index cards and her unfinished essays and asked of each one, what am I waiting for? What’s holding me […]
Thanks again for all the great comments. I feel as though we’re all in this together!
Sometimes I write something in 30 seconds and literally wonder if I plagiarized it from someone, it flows so easily. But most of the time, I draft and redraft, leave it and come back, or sit on it until it melts away into irrelevance. All part of the process. Congrats on getting a piece published in NYT though!
Love the ending.
Reblogged this on Notes from An Alien and commented:
Today’s re-blog author does talk about submission and rejection; but, the bulk of the essay works for self-publishing authors just as well 🙂
[…] readers are offended by the suggestive titles of her guest posts for Brevity’s Nonfiction Blog: Finishing, Stripper Girl, and Slow Flash. Or, having read the posts, disappointed she does not deliver on her […]