Why We Have A Hard Time Moving On To Our Next Writing Project And Why It Is Important To Do So?

Becoming A Writer

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Why We Have A Hard Time Moving On To Our Next Writing Project And Why It Is Important To Do So?

Episode 23 of Becoming A Writer podcast.

Aug 09, 2024

Transcript

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Hello, my writer friends! Rubina here. For our twenty-third conversation, we are going to talk about why we have a hard time moving on to our next writing project and why it is important to do so.

A strange feeling came over me as I was inching closer to the end of my first book – Soul Writer vs. Social Writer.

I was feeling content.

I was happy with what I had written. I knew it was the best draft I could write in this phase of my life. There was potential for more to be added to this book, but I knew it would come later as I and the thought behind it evolved.

I found this feeling of contentment strange because I expected to feel this after publishing the book. I was assuming that once I hit 'Publish,' I would let out a sigh of relief and then treat myself to a party. (And when I say party, I mean going to the bookstore and buying myself more books to add to my never-ending TBR pile.)

Even when I did publish the book, I didn't feel the excitement I hoped for. I was proud of my effort and of finally fulfilling my dream of being a published author. But after healing myself and finding my life as a writer, I had unconsciously healed my need for validation from the outside world. Now, the act of writing itself was validating me as a writer.

I had learnt all the lessons I had to learn while writing the book. I had gained all the experience I needed while writing the book. I had received all the love I needed while writing the book.

Publishing the book was the inevitable next step. I was done with the book the moment I signed off. And more surprisingly, I was pumped and geared to move on to my next book.

I remember one day, I was watching an interview of thriller author Lee Child. He said that when he sent off his first novel to the editor, he immediately worked on the next one.

Isn't that something all of us writers should be doing? Start a project, finish it and move on? And it doesn't need to be a book project. We usually take more time than required, even with smaller projects like chapters, articles, blog posts, and captions.

For some reason, we simply can't be done with our projects. We feel this need to be constantly tinkering and tweaking a sentence here and a sentence there. What we don't realise is that there's no end to this kind of polishing your work. And as we keep polishing and over-polishing, we don't see that we are destroying the good work we have done.

There will come a time when you need to tie the bow and send your work into the world. But why can't we leave our projects when they are good enough? It's because of perfectionism.

Perfectionism is not about getting things right or about fixing things. It also has nothing to do with the standards you set for yourself.

Here's how Julia Cameron defines perfectionism in her book The Artist's Way -

"Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It is a loop - an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing and to lose sight of the whole."

When we think of ourselves as writers, we imagine having multiple books under our belt. And yet, when the time comes to act like a writer, we believe the book we are currently working on will make or break our career. In trying to write the perfect book, we lose our reason for writing, and we lose our reasoning with the book at hand.

Instead of enjoying the process of being a writer, we constantly judge our work-in-progress against the results we hope to achieve from the audience. By doing so, we end up with a book that sounds similar to every book in your genre.

But why do we want a perfect book? Because that's the ego talking.

When we write a book, we want it to become the best-selling. We want everyone to love our book. We want celebrities to recommend our books. We want our readers to say our book changed their lives. If we write a fiction book, we want it turned into a movie. If we write a non-fiction book, we want to be invited to speaking events and share our thoughts. And we want to make money.

In short, we want the recognition and appreciation we think we deserve.

Having such wants is a natural effect of working hard on something, like writing a book. The problems come when our desires take a higher priority than our needs.

As writers, our need is to have a fulfilling and impactful career. Our need is to share our thoughts and see what others think about them. Our need is to use our words to find resonance with others. Our need, as writers, is to know that none of us is alone on this life journey.

And our needs are only fulfilled when we keep writing and sharing.

So, if you genuinely want to be a writer, always move on to your next writing project. While a reader's joy is in the reading, ours should be in the writing.

Well, that's it for today. Next time we meet, we'll talk about realising that we are actually doing our best - for ourselves and our writing.

Until then, keep writing, my friend.