Reflections on Process: Finishing Projects
What's your favorite stage of the creative process?
For me it's the beginning.
I love the early stages of a project: the brainstorming, the planning, the initial shooting, and the writing of a first draft. I love the process of active creation.
The more challenging parts for me are in the refining stage. The rehashing and going over it over and over again. Particularly when it comes to writing—revisions are brutal.
More often than not, I write from a steady stream of creativity and inspiration, and by the time the initial part is created, I've already moved past the piece and onto something else.
This isn't so bad when it comes to photo compositing. My pieces generally don't take that long to come together, and even when they do, as long as I'm in an active editing phase, I feel motivated to complete them. But if there are tweaks left after the fact that I need to fix days, weeks, or months later, it's probably not going to happen.
With visual art, the editing is part of my ongoing process. It's a nice and gentle flow from one part to the next, and completing a piece is just as satisfying as beginning it.
Writing is different.
There's rarely a day that I don't write something, even if it's simply writing a journal entry. Because of my resistance to the refining stage with larger projects, I have thousands of pages of words I've never revisited. Although I have completed four book first drafts (one non-fiction and three fiction novels), only one has a second revision—I've felt daunted by the task.
I'm working on this. When it’s challenging, showing up and taking it one small step at a time is exactly what's needed.
If you, like me, struggle with finishing larger projects, here are some things I find helpful:
Show up every day. Consistency is about showing up regularly, even if you don’t make the same amount of progress every day. I find this also helps me stay focused and engaged.
Take it one day at a time. It can be overwhelming when you think of a project in its entirety. Taking it one day at a time makes it less daunting, and more likely that you’ll show up.
Know what you're showing up for. Both in a literal sense: what project will you be working on? And in an abstract sense: why does this matter or what does it accomplish?
Break it down into smaller chunks. Baby steps count. It’s a lot easier to focus on editing one page at a time than it is to try to edit an entire book.
Have a set time to work on each project, or set amount of time you have to work on it.
Make a list of projects and keep it where you can see it… if you have several ongoing projects. But this can also help you stay organized if you know exactly what parts a project needs, or which steps come next.
After taking a break to pursue a psychology degree, I'm getting back into a writing routine.
Now it's about just showing up and doing the daily work.
Are some types of project more difficult for you to finish than others?
Happy creating!
🦋 Amarie