Fresh Starts

If there’s ever a time to start something new, it’s the beginning of a new year.

Have you been writing something that’s driving you crazy? Does it never seem to come together? Has it become unwieldy and so impossible to work with that you feel like you’re going in circles? Have you devoted much of 2016 trying to get it right but it’s still not there? Did you make a New Year’s resolution to finish the *#&^* thing? If so, there are a couple of things you can do.

You can certainly keep at it—keep plowing ahead, keep working as hard and creatively as you can. Nothing wrong with that approach. And often there’s a part of us that forces us to finish what we start. As children we’re often chastised for not sticking with music lessons or a hobby we said we wanted to begin and then lost interest in… we’re always encouraged to finish what we start. So if that works for you, keep at your writing project.

But sometimes, when a project stalls and starts taking up all your time and not producing results, it’s time to put it aside and start something new. Thing is, you’ll still have the project you’ve been working on all year—it’s not going anywhere—so you can always come back to it. So why not free up your mind and imagine something else you could do? Go to your idea journal and see if something doesn’t leap out at you—something you’d really love to tackle.

Really give some thought to what you might like to write next—what project could keep you happily researching and writing and revising for the next year? Note that word happily. This might be a time to take the first thing that comes to mind and start playing around with it.

It’s really hard to let go of something you’ve spent so much time on—but the worst thing you could do is to consider that a failure. Because it’s not. Every minute of writing will lead you to become a better writer. Maybe you needed to work on the stalled project before you could get to the point of writing the project that will come to fruition. And next year? Well, after some time away from your stalled project, you might be able to return to it with fresh eyes—eyes that let you see solutions to all the problems that were bogging you down!

So putting a project aside doesn’t mean ditching it—it just means it needs a rest and you need to start something new. It’s hard, though, to give yourself permission for that fresh start. But do it—you can always return to the stalled project in a week or two, right?

Fresh starts can be great fun—because all the world is before you, you can go anywhere with the next project, do anything, and because of that freedom your energy and your creativity will soar. It will be fun to see where they land, won’t it?

Copyright © Diane Lake

01Jan17

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com