How do you FINISH a project?

[Dougie_D]

All my life I start these projects and NEVER finish them. Even when I was in school and there was a project to be done, I would finish it but BARELY. I seem to half-a$$ things as time went on. I always go dedicated to the project but eventually I lose interest and not care about it.

 

Do other people have this problem? Here is a list of things that I've started that I'd like to get done.

 

- finish writing/recording a FULL song. Not just verse/chorus.

- finalize my logo, website for my record label (I did put the effort in getting an LLC and finalizing a contract through a lawyer)

- finish my script for a T.V pilot

- finish making a board game

- make an App for my app Idea

[annie24]

that's a good question - i sometimes do the same thing. i guess you just have to be internally motivated to finish it. some people reward themselves (eg, if i finish this thing, i will buy myself this thing i want). some people just can't stop until they finish it. i think you have to figure out what it is you want, and why, and then follow through.

[annie24]

ps - try to split the project up into workable pieces. like let's say for the sitcom pilot, you try to write 2 pages a week.

[HeatherB]

You hire other people to finish them for you. I kid you not. Save your pennies and hire out. That's how the pros do it. People who are good at finishing things finish them. People who are not...are managers and entrepreneurs and outsourcers.

[itsallgrand]

Oh you are one of these folks; excited about the idea, but not the follow through.

 

I am the opposite; it's hard for me to get started, but once I do, I commit and love the follow through. I love the details of things.

 

People like you work great with people like me.

 

So maybe on the idea of Heather's - if you can't hire, you can collaborate with people who will help pick up where you start to stray, and you help them with getting the ball rolling.

[Lonewing]

All my life I start these projects and NEVER finish them. Even when I was in school and there was a project to be done, I would finish it but BARELY. I seem to half-a$$ things as time went on. I always go dedicated to the project but eventually I lose interest and not care about it.

 

Do other people have this problem? Here is a list of things that I've started that I'd like to get done.

 

- finish writing/recording a FULL song. Not just verse/chorus.

- finalize my logo, website for my record label (I did put the effort in getting an LLC and finalizing a contract through a lawyer)

- finish my script for a T.V pilot

- finish making a board game

- make an App for my app Idea

 

You just do it, force yourself to focus on the project until it's complete.

 

if you get to a point where you're getting nowhere, though, that's when you put it back on the shelf and go with what your mind is playing with, because that's what you want to do, and what you want to do will always be higher caliber work than what you force yourself to do. When the two converge, drive yourself to get as far as you can!

 

I'm about 350,000 words into a novel set, it's the most I have ever written. I wanted to write this book, but alas, the story did not fit between two covers!! And now, it's about 80% done, the writing at least, and then you might say I'm Done. But then there's about 1000 hours of editing that has to be done next!!!

 

Alas, I have three other books I want to write at this very moment, which means my mind is wandering from the path of this book. Hopefully I finish up here soon so I CAN indulge myself with that new subject!!

[Lonewing]

ps - try to split the project up into workable pieces. like let's say for the sitcom pilot, you try to write 2 pages a week.

 

Two pages A NIGHT! A better measure, though, is two Hours. Sometimes you get only a little bit, sometimes a lot, so pages is a bad measure. There's nights I'll get 5,000 words in the same amount of time other nights barely yield 100. Those 100, though, are the lynchpins for breaking into the 5,000 word watersheds that end up being four or five hours instead of the two that were initially planned.

[Lonewing]

The spur that got the last project back off a back burner was an ex girlfriend who said I should get moving on it, and then I discovered Createspace. Now that together has put a fire under me to do get it done, because when I get done, it will be "published," even if only self published. So now I know I'm not just writing a file that will sit on my computer forever, it will be "Done" once published.

 

Just holding the proof copies has been highly gratifying.

[HeatherB]

All my life I start these projects and NEVER finish them. Even when I was in school and there was a project to be done, I would finish it but BARELY. I seem to half-a$$ things as time went on. I always go dedicated to the project but eventually I lose interest and not care about it.

 

Do other people have this problem? Here is a list of things that I've started that I'd like to get done.

 

- finish writing/recording a FULL song. Not just verse/chorus.

- finalize my logo, website for my record label (I did put the effort in getting an LLC and finalizing a contract through a lawyer)

- finish my script for a T.V pilot

- finish making a board game

- make an App for my app Idea

One other thing. It occurs to me that all these different projects require different skills.

 

Songwriting

Song performing

Song recording

Logo graphic design

Website creation

Board game development

App development (ios AND android)

 

Do you have the technical skills to complete all of the above? Consider me impressed as heck if you do! If you don't, then start with the ones you already know or can learn easily. Your next step would be to brush up that particular skill. Later on, outsource or, as Itsallgrand suggested, collaborate on the tasks that require the harder skills.

[Dougie_D]

Oh you are one of these folks; excited about the idea, but not the follow through.

 

I am the opposite; it's hard for me to get started, but once I do, I commit and love the follow through. I love the details of things.

 

People like you work great with people like me.

 

So maybe on the idea of Heather's - if you can't hire, you can collaborate with people who will help pick up where you start to stray, and you help them with getting the ball rolling.

 

I'm fine with collaboration. I actually encourage it, but it has to be with someone that is beyond my skill level or has the strengths where I have my weaknesses. Finding those people to actually work with you is a lot harder than you think...especially where both parties agree on the percentages.

 

I'm not doing these projects for just the fun of it. I want to end up pitching/selling them.

 

For example:

 

For my song - I can write catchy tunes and come up with awesome chorus. Where I lack is lyrically and my vocal performance.

 

For my board game - I got a great idea. I'm a decent designer/drawer but what I really lack is time and money. I think the fact that I have to put in money into buying "art supplies" turns me off. One time I spent 80 dollars on random supplies just to be forgotten when I decided on changing my idea.

 

For my script - I'm good with building characters but I'm not good with stories. I keep changing the story.

 

At least with my record label, I have a clearer path on what I want to do. The biggest hurdle for that and what is making me stall is the whole Tax thing. I don't have a business account open. All my money I spend towards the label comes from my personal account. I'm not sure if that will end up being a problem or not. I think you have to have more than 2k to start an account...if anybody knows anything about this, please let me know!

 

I think my problem is more the fact that I keep CHANGING things up. I'm never satisified.

[Dougie_D]

One other thing. It occurs to me that all these different projects require different skills.

 

Songwriting

Song performing

Song recording

Logo graphic design

Website creation

Board game development

App development (ios AND android)

 

Do you have the technical skills to complete all of the above? Consider me impressed as heck if you do! If you don't, then start with the ones you already know or can learn easily. Your next step would be to brush up that particular skill. Later on, outsource or, as Itsallgrand suggested, collaborate on the tasks that require the harder skills.

 

Songwriting - I'm the BEST at this skill and probably want this happen the most.

Song performing - I don't want anything to do with this anymore. It's not my place.

Song recording - I can record something basic or ask one of my engineer friends.. but the song has to be finished first.So I'm not worried about this yet.

Logo design - I hired someone, but I may have to hire another one because the logo looked liked something I could have done way better.

Website - yup..got a friend who'll do it. But I have to wait for logo first.

Board game -- got the supplies? lets do it!

app development -- I've asked around for app. designers.. but none of my friends know of any. All these app. sites want you to pitch your idea. That's WAY TOO risky.

 

The song, the script, and actually the board game I can actually finish on my own where they could actually be decent. I just want to get in a HABIT of finishing things. Maybe they suck, maybe not..but at least I can say I was proud of it.

[Dougie_D]

The spur that got the last project back off a back burner was an ex girlfriend who said I should get moving on it, and then I discovered Createspace. Now that together has put a fire under me to do get it done, because when I get done, it will be "published," even if only self published. So now I know I'm not just writing a file that will sit on my computer forever, it will be "Done" once published.

 

Just holding the proof copies has been highly gratifying.

 

I think that's the key I'm lacking. You have to have some type of MOTIVATION to finish it. And finish it like it's your last chance in the world. I think I take my creative skills for granted. I'm now to the point to start to be more serious on my projects.

[HeatherB]

I can relate. I'm so used to meeting other people's deadlines that it feels like the ones I create, that I have to complete myself and that only affect me, are somehow less real. No one ever got successful that way though.

[annie24]

I can relate. I'm so used to meeting other people's deadlines that it feels like the ones I create, that I have to complete myself and that only affect me, are somehow less real. No one ever got successful that way though.

 

yes!!!!! i have so many deadlines at work, that i am so bad about my own!!!

 

sometimes it helps me to carve out parts of my day that i work on my own things (like, let's say, cleaning my apartment, lol). it might just be 30 minutes a day, but it helps. I'm a slow writer, unfortunately. i admire Lonewing's 2 pages a day!! if you can set aside some time consistently to work on your projects, that will be helpful. like a few evenings a week. or morning, whenever you work best. i work best at night. i'm a disaster in the morning. try to visualize how good you'll feel when the project is finished.

[journeynow]

Hiring outside help or collaborating are good suggestions.

 

Or try joining a group (or creating one) with people tackling the same task for themselves. Writers may be part of a committed writing group that meets regularly to share their writing and progress and offer feedback. It gives you a certain accountability and motivation. A Life-coaching group might work along the same lines for setting goals, breaking them into small steps, and being accountable for making those steps. Even making the steps ultra tiny can help, because each step is an accomplishment and a movement forward. If you're meeting and reporting to a group regularly you might stay more focused and be productive.

[Lonewing]

yes!!!!! i have so many deadlines at work, that i am so bad about my own!!!

 

sometimes it helps me to carve out parts of my day that I work on my own things (like, let's say, cleaning my apartment, lol). it might just be 30 minutes a day, but it helps. I'm a slow writer, unfortunately. i admire Lonewing's 2 pages a day!! If you can set aside some time consistently to work on your projects, that will be helpful. like a few evenings a week. or morning, whenever you work best. i work best at night. i'm a disaster in the morning. try to visualize how good you'll feel when the project is finished.

 

I did a lot of reading when I got started with my novel set, much of which were tips I dare say I already knew. This one, though, this was new. A professional writer suggested that if you want to be a writer, you have to make yourself write no less than two hours A DAY, no less than five days a week.

 

I kind of laugh most at the people who want to write books and then ask "where do you get your ideas?!" Why then, do they want to write books?! "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" explains me best, for my entire life, that has been my mind as I live and work in this world around me. The ideas I have written down are events I have already lived, dreams I've had, stories that have already been told in that other world I live. My drive to write them is to simply tell them, so that they are not lost forever as I leave them for the next world. I couldn't care less if anybody ever reads my work, it is written for and foremost for me, and any return hat I et form it will be a fringe benefit. I have a day job and it pays me rather well to live!

 

The most painful part of writing, at this point, is the threading, the point where the story becomes a logic problem of many little competing parts, snippets of the story, that all have to come together to make a cohesive unit. The puzzle is full of roadblocks, memory blocks, moments when you realize a section is missing, a section is unwritten, or a section is redundant. Or worse, you have two sections that conflict with each other...it ultimately becomes a big crossword puzzle. I have a lot of respect for the writer of Cloud Atlas, the movie was a true delight; I love layered stories!

 

This week has been fruitful, whereas I had a bit of time off, and I made it through those grueling hours of threading. I got my time in today, today was a 5,000 word afternoon that simply flowed from the wrist and I have another hour before bed time [Word shows the document started at 14000 this morning and is now 19,000]. I recognize I have the gift of time, though, before and after work, before and after sleep, because there's not much more I HAVE to do in my life between those two things. In a lot of ways, it's really nice!

 

All this being said, my other hobbies have all suffered horrendously since I've focused so intently on this novel set. I still pick them up, though, an afternoon here and there, because the time off really helps reinvigorate the primary work. All this being said, writing is so much cheaper than my other hobbies, whereas it just requires somewhere to record my words and little else. This alone is why I dissuade anyone from wanting to become a writer, if one is doing it for economic pursuit, unless you have a publisher in your sleeve.

 

If you are writing, you have to be willing to take your work all the way to the end product. I met a guy who has a song library of well over a thousand songs, it's simply mind boggling how many people are doing work. If you listen to a lot of the biggest hits by the greatest rock bands of all time, you realize a great many of them are just covers of someone else's pre-recorded work. Some of those previous artists made it big, some of them wouldn't be known had that later artist not come along.

 

So if you want your songs to be taken seriously, you have to sit down and record them. Musicians are not going to sit around and read your words when they have no doubt hundreds if not thousands of writers already sitting around writing stuff for them to sing - themselves, friends, family, agents, etc, that alone could put ten writers in each band. They WILL use your work if they hear it and it gets stuck in their head long enough for them to start piecing together something around it. This means you may have to hire performers to record your work, and then post it somewhere it will be heard. But then, there are hundreds if not thousands of similar songs on Youtube right now, just waiting to be discovered...what you need is a person with a great voice to record your music, and to continue feeding that person songs they love that get public recognition. Bieber, for instance, was created by Youtube. His writers, though, who knows...

 

This is where writing get's expensive. My novels, for example, would cost me anywhere between $250 and $3000 each to be professionally edited, that's the going rate for an editor. This being said, most novel titles only sell 300-500 copies at an average return of perhaps only $1-$3 a title for the author. So that means I will have to truck it out and do my own editing, which is difficult. Spell check gets only 1% of the errors, the rest are of the nature where a machine can't catch them.

[annie24]

The most painful part of writing, at this point, is the threading, the point where the story becomes a logic problem of many little competing parts, snippets of the story, that all have to come together to make a cohesive unit. The puzzle is full of roadblocks, memory blocks, moments when you realize a section is missing, a section is unwritten, or a section is redundant. Or worse, you have two sections that conflict with each other...it ultimately becomes a big crossword puzzle.

 

yes, i come accross this a lot in my own work. sigh. and i'm not even writing fiction!

 

i have a side job as an editor, and find editing way easier than writing. i can edit my own work, but it's a matter "getting over that hump" and putting all the ideas, even if they are jumbled and uncohesive, onto paper. i also capitalize while editing, lol. and i don't write lol.

[itsallgrand]

Can you choose one and make it number one priority? How are you at organizing?

 

Does it help when someone sits down with you and helps keep you focused and on track?

 

I recently helped someone with a paper they needed to write. I knew, and they somewhat knew, that they could write it on their own. They have the smarts for it, and the skills. But when it came to actually DOING it, they would get a certain spot (references) and get so frustrated they would give up. And in that frustration and boredom too (that things aren't moving fast enough, it's the plodding kind of work) tangeant out to some other topic or activity.

 

But with me to basically be a task master lol, they got it done.

 

It may sound silly, but if you aren't used to following up by yourself and have a history of this (as does the person above I was talking about in regards to papers especially), then having someone basically 'hold your hand' and guide you through can really work wonders. The idea isn't that it will be forever; but to get you used to and confident in your ability to do it.

 

I don't think it would be a bad idea to pick one and do this. A song would be a good one; you can get the accomplished fairly quickly.

 

Follow through, endurance, is a skill too. You can practice it, or you can decide to not develop it and outsource it entirely. But it's a good skill to learn - especially because no one wants to be the task master in each and every project. Everyone wants sometimes to run with the ideas and have someone else help them with the follow through. It's only my opinion; it's good to be versatile, and it's easier to find people willing to help you if you are.

[Dougie_D]

That's the skill I'm lacking.. The "follow through" skill. Without any "prize" or someone else to "drive me", how do you do it? I tried to make fake deadlines for myself one time, but that didn't work because I realized that there was no real consequences. I'm the type that if you say "I'll take away this if you don't do that", I'll just say "O.k. I didn't really want that anyways". I would just find something else to replace it with.

[journeynow]

That's the skill I'm lacking.. The "follow through" skill. Without any "prize" or someone else to "drive me", how do you do it? I tried to make fake deadlines for myself one time, but that didn't work because I realized that there was no real consequences. I'm the type that if you say "I'll take away this if you don't do that", I'll just say "O.k. I didn't really want that anyways". I would just find something else to replace it with.

 

The folks I know who are successful at this give themselves deadlines by linking the activity to entering a contest or show, or by being part of a writing group, or coaching group, or somehow involving others to make themselves accountable to something bigger than themselves.

[blueidealist24]

The folks I know who are successful at this give themselves deadlines by linking the activity to entering a contest or show, or by being part of a writing group, or coaching group, or somehow involving others to make themselves accountable to something bigger than themselves.

 

That's a good idea. I used to never be able to finish creative stories, but once I decided I'd submit one to an online magazine, it was easier to finish.