I think it can help to have things at different stages. So, you're working on the first draft of something new, and you've got something else that has been sent off somewhere (to agents or beta readers) where it's going to take months before you can move ahead, and something else that you're putting the finishing touches to/formatting/working on the cover/marketing, ready for publication. Well, that's the ideal...
The other thing is where you only have a small amount of time to dedicate to writing because of work. So maybe you have an hour in the morning or evening which you can dedicate to writing. Chipping slowly away at something in that way makes you keep your head down, and not get distracted by the big picture - which is too depressing (only 90k words to go...). I think it's that heads-up realisation of the slog involved which leads to boredom. But saying, "Right, just write 250 words today" (or whatever) I've found helps. It's the mentality of the marathon runner - who must also deal with boredom, I guess.
I finally read Stephen King's ON WRITING recently. If you have too you'll remember that he talks about hitting a project super hard when you are in that initial first flush of enthusiasm to squeeze as much creative juice out of it as possible. This is why he writes 2000 words *a day*! But not all of us have time for that... Also, he must have a boredom threshold too because he talks about hitting the wall with some projects too, like when writing THE STAND, where he fell into a plot hole that took him months and months to get out of.
Cal Newport talks about this in his new book Slow Productivity [I highly recommend by the way and I've written a couple posts about the concepts on my First Magnitude substack].
Anyway, his first principle of Slow Productivity is to Do Fewer Things, which he defines as "reduce obligations where you can and accomplish them with time to spare." He discusses Limiting the Big [in alignment with Wildly Important Goals - WIGs; just choose 2-3 big goals that direct your life]. Then limit the projects which align with the Big Goals.
All that to say - there is some "science-y" stuff to support your concept here. Great read; thank you for sharing your experiences and I love the illustrations!
Ha! Ha! Yes, you've hit a nerve here with me too Simon! When I look back on my life, I see several very promising - yet unfinished - projects strewn in my wake. Indeed, I now wonder if my brand new Substack page is going the way of all of them! Perhaps not surprisingly, now I'm in my autumn years, I find myself going back over them - updating and even completing them wherever possible. In my animation life/career, I regularly had my feet held to the fire with everything I did. The bulk of my work was in advertising, where I have been responsible for over 200 TV commercials over the decades. But that was always contract work, with a budget and a deadline and the threat of my income ending if I let my clients, and myself, down by not finishing anything. Yet I always wanted more from life than this. I always wanted to use my creative and artistic skills for the 'greater' and 'more meaningful' things. Inwardly I had always had a huge fascination for things spiritual, metaphysical, and yes, for my sins, even astrological. The deeper satisfaction I got from such things - things that had been hard for me to talk about in my professional world - had always brought such contrasting wonder, inspiration, and light to my life. So, I wanted to express this to others in ways that was far more subtle that the obvious - and yet enabled me to push my creative skills to new levels. So, I developed many starter projects in the form of books, short films, movie scripts, animated and illustrated esoteric things - all of which bubbled up in my mind incessantly. I always made a great start with them too. However, unlike you I believe, I never spoke to people about them as I soon learned about myself that if I shared words about them to others, the momentum of them would leave me and they would never be finished. So, I would work away in secret, taking advantage of any precious free moments I had outside of my paid animation work. But that often meant that 'personal' issues conflicted in my life - such as family, friends and everyday chores were being neglected. This brought about a crisis of priority, so that something had to give. Ultimately it was the projects, one after another, after another. Now though, at a time where I have fewer professional and personal issues to distract me - plus a lot more 'idle' time on my hands too - I find that I can look again at what I once started. Fortunately, I find that I still have the interest, energy, and the passion to pick them up and work on them without any conflicts. I guess I am lucky that the period of reflection we are all supposed to go through as our life comes towards its ending gives me perfect opportunity to re-visit lost dreams. So, for me at least, I guess the message is - never give up on a good idea. It will always be good; despite the dust it has collected. Bottom line, I am sure that there are deeper, more psychological, reasons why we need the adrenaline of new projects to give value to our lives - and only we can tell if that's a good or a bad thing! But I do thank you for giving me one more reflection in my life to dwell upon. I just hope I don't now run out of steam on it, now I have talked about it! ;)
Sometimes the project you’re working on is just not going as you thought it would, feeling like it’s not being seen or heard and then the shiny new project raises its head. I fight it for months and then let a little more of the shiny in and then I reflect on that first project, really see what’s happening there with me internally. That happened to me last year. I can work on multiple projects at the same time but they’re in different fields: writing, collage, painting … The latest shiny project raised its head at the start of the year. I went so far as to purchase (for super cheap) a doll house and the idea is to remodel it 8th my heroine’s home. However, so far it’s collecting inspiration and I’ve firmly decided not to do anything with it until June. Months away. Why? Because I want to finish a draft of the current WIP and go on holidays. Then the next time I’m stuck on a scene, I can either go paint, or tinker with the dollhouse (and we both know it’s gonna be the dollhouse even though painting is the way I primarily process things). Don’t know if any of that helps anyone.
I think it can help to have things at different stages. So, you're working on the first draft of something new, and you've got something else that has been sent off somewhere (to agents or beta readers) where it's going to take months before you can move ahead, and something else that you're putting the finishing touches to/formatting/working on the cover/marketing, ready for publication. Well, that's the ideal...
The other thing is where you only have a small amount of time to dedicate to writing because of work. So maybe you have an hour in the morning or evening which you can dedicate to writing. Chipping slowly away at something in that way makes you keep your head down, and not get distracted by the big picture - which is too depressing (only 90k words to go...). I think it's that heads-up realisation of the slog involved which leads to boredom. But saying, "Right, just write 250 words today" (or whatever) I've found helps. It's the mentality of the marathon runner - who must also deal with boredom, I guess.
Anyway, that helps me.
I finally read Stephen King's ON WRITING recently. If you have too you'll remember that he talks about hitting a project super hard when you are in that initial first flush of enthusiasm to squeeze as much creative juice out of it as possible. This is why he writes 2000 words *a day*! But not all of us have time for that... Also, he must have a boredom threshold too because he talks about hitting the wall with some projects too, like when writing THE STAND, where he fell into a plot hole that took him months and months to get out of.
What if you called a creativity plumber to pump the enthusiasm back into the original project with added pressure?
Oh no, the pipes have just burst and I've got spontaneous jouissance all over the floor.
You'd never heard of boredom threshold, yet you have children? 🤔
Cal Newport talks about this in his new book Slow Productivity [I highly recommend by the way and I've written a couple posts about the concepts on my First Magnitude substack].
Anyway, his first principle of Slow Productivity is to Do Fewer Things, which he defines as "reduce obligations where you can and accomplish them with time to spare." He discusses Limiting the Big [in alignment with Wildly Important Goals - WIGs; just choose 2-3 big goals that direct your life]. Then limit the projects which align with the Big Goals.
All that to say - there is some "science-y" stuff to support your concept here. Great read; thank you for sharing your experiences and I love the illustrations!
“The end result is that our shiny new ideas prevent us from ever actually finishing anything, and that’s no good.”
Thanks Simon(and Susan). I have a drawerful, a crypt of mummified projects. I will think on this.
I write a science newsletter and I endorse this analogy.
- Mike Sowden, Professional Idiot & Boredom Cage-Fighter
I feel seen.
Ha! Ha! Yes, you've hit a nerve here with me too Simon! When I look back on my life, I see several very promising - yet unfinished - projects strewn in my wake. Indeed, I now wonder if my brand new Substack page is going the way of all of them! Perhaps not surprisingly, now I'm in my autumn years, I find myself going back over them - updating and even completing them wherever possible. In my animation life/career, I regularly had my feet held to the fire with everything I did. The bulk of my work was in advertising, where I have been responsible for over 200 TV commercials over the decades. But that was always contract work, with a budget and a deadline and the threat of my income ending if I let my clients, and myself, down by not finishing anything. Yet I always wanted more from life than this. I always wanted to use my creative and artistic skills for the 'greater' and 'more meaningful' things. Inwardly I had always had a huge fascination for things spiritual, metaphysical, and yes, for my sins, even astrological. The deeper satisfaction I got from such things - things that had been hard for me to talk about in my professional world - had always brought such contrasting wonder, inspiration, and light to my life. So, I wanted to express this to others in ways that was far more subtle that the obvious - and yet enabled me to push my creative skills to new levels. So, I developed many starter projects in the form of books, short films, movie scripts, animated and illustrated esoteric things - all of which bubbled up in my mind incessantly. I always made a great start with them too. However, unlike you I believe, I never spoke to people about them as I soon learned about myself that if I shared words about them to others, the momentum of them would leave me and they would never be finished. So, I would work away in secret, taking advantage of any precious free moments I had outside of my paid animation work. But that often meant that 'personal' issues conflicted in my life - such as family, friends and everyday chores were being neglected. This brought about a crisis of priority, so that something had to give. Ultimately it was the projects, one after another, after another. Now though, at a time where I have fewer professional and personal issues to distract me - plus a lot more 'idle' time on my hands too - I find that I can look again at what I once started. Fortunately, I find that I still have the interest, energy, and the passion to pick them up and work on them without any conflicts. I guess I am lucky that the period of reflection we are all supposed to go through as our life comes towards its ending gives me perfect opportunity to re-visit lost dreams. So, for me at least, I guess the message is - never give up on a good idea. It will always be good; despite the dust it has collected. Bottom line, I am sure that there are deeper, more psychological, reasons why we need the adrenaline of new projects to give value to our lives - and only we can tell if that's a good or a bad thing! But I do thank you for giving me one more reflection in my life to dwell upon. I just hope I don't now run out of steam on it, now I have talked about it! ;)
So strange to read someone else explaining exactly what goes on in my own head! Thanks for the pro tip Simon!
Sometimes the project you’re working on is just not going as you thought it would, feeling like it’s not being seen or heard and then the shiny new project raises its head. I fight it for months and then let a little more of the shiny in and then I reflect on that first project, really see what’s happening there with me internally. That happened to me last year. I can work on multiple projects at the same time but they’re in different fields: writing, collage, painting … The latest shiny project raised its head at the start of the year. I went so far as to purchase (for super cheap) a doll house and the idea is to remodel it 8th my heroine’s home. However, so far it’s collecting inspiration and I’ve firmly decided not to do anything with it until June. Months away. Why? Because I want to finish a draft of the current WIP and go on holidays. Then the next time I’m stuck on a scene, I can either go paint, or tinker with the dollhouse (and we both know it’s gonna be the dollhouse even though painting is the way I primarily process things). Don’t know if any of that helps anyone.
I have a friend who's in year ten of a novel. If you can't finish in 3 months, give it up
A lot to agree with here, but the rider - 'I should note at this point that all of this is based on rigorous, peer-reviewed science.' is codswallop!