So I sit here with three-quarters of a novel, and a piece of another one, with two short stories partially finished, and outlines of several more, and I can’t finish any of them. I’m not sure if I don’t know how, or if I am scared, or whether I’m a terrible person and a terrible writer which is of course how it feels. But so far at least, my writing has crashed and burned on the shores of everything I attempt to finish.

And so I remind myself, and all of you, of this bit by Chuck Wendig, which I’ve posted before.

…But worst of all, every time you fail to finish your work it wears another small hole in your soul. You can feel it there — that ragged tear in your cloth, wind whistling through the gap. Because you know what it means. You’re giving up. Giving in. Handing over the keys. Letting the terrorists that are your Doubt and Fear and Uncertainty win….

I haven’t given up yet, though I don’t know how to get myself to move ahead. So I’m scratching around trying to figure that out, trying to repair that hole in my heart, keeping the cold wind out. It’s spring now, but I’m not feeling it yet, and I can’t seem to force myself through. Maybe soon.