On Finishing

I’ve had the good fortune to edit some amazing books. And I can definitely recommend some helpful books on I’ve worked on that address creativity—but for me, creativity, coming up with ideas, finding inspiration have never been the issue. I could watch a fuzzy worm slink across my driveway and walk away with a dozen children’s book ideas. One of my favorite writers, Carmen Maria Machado, talks about having the same issue in a recent podcast interview with Granta. For Machado and many other creative folk, imagination has never been the problem. Like her, my problem is reining in my imagination so that I can actually make something from it and give it form. My problem is focusing on one of my many ideas and taking it from start to finish.

 A few years ago, I found myself with pages and pages of lists, journals of list—lists of story ideas, essay ideas, book ideas. Ideas for quilting projects. Recipes to try with my sourdough starter. And on and on. I carried those ideas with me in a notebook that went everywhere I went. I started on many of those ideas, didn’t finish any of them (my reasons: parenting, full-time job, tending to a marriage, too many interests, etc. etc.). And then one day when I was hiking on a trail, meandering along and dreaming up more ideas, my notebook of ideas was stolen from my car.

Flash to a few weeks later that same summer when I attended a conference in Portland, Oregon, in order to scout out new authors for Sounds True. I ended up in a session with a brilliant fellow named Charlie Gilkey who promised that he was not going to offer yet another workshop on how to find good ideas, how to find inspiration, or how to be creative—but on how to go from “idea to done.” I wrote down everything he said, chased his agent down for the book, and eventually acquired it. Editing his book, Start Finishing, was a complete “how to finish” immersion. It is a book I feel almost missionary about. (And I’ve never felt drawn to productivity books. Just the word “plan” makes me want to run.) Charlie’s “plan” is a central reason I’ve been able to carve out time to write children’s books. The book busted me on almost every excuse I carried for not finishing my creative projects. And I learned something mission critical from this book: everything (everything) that you spend your time on needs to be considered a project and respected as a project when you plan your time. For example, I wasn’t considering reading to my son every day a project. Or the time I take to walk the dogs a project. If you decide it is important to you to spend an hour a day doomscrolling, then doomscrolling is one of your projects that you’ve chosen to spend your life on. By naming all your projects, and mapping them onto your days and weeks and months, you can make sure you are carving out the necessary time for the creative things that make your heart sing. And by not naming and allocating time to our projects, it is far more likely that all the things that really don’t matter to you will edge into the things that do matter. (Heads up: after reading this book, you’ll feel called to let some things go. May my sourdough starter RIP)