failure to complete

I was thinking this morning about my abysmal failure to finish anything recently, and how difficult it is in general to put the final period (or sometimes ellipses) at the end of any of my writing projects, or write the final note of a song (or put lyrics with songs), or even finish a run (even though that is thankfully more frequently accomplished than anything work related).

Then I was realizing that completion has always been hard. That was the biggest challenge of grad school for me, actually. We had to write at least one piece of fiction every week, and sometimes I'd cheat and bring in chapters of my novel that had already been written years before, because I could start stories like gangbusters, but found it impossible to tie them up at the end. Even my first novel took eight years to complete, even though technically I wrote 95% of it in about two weeks (in the first two weeks after I quit my preschool teaching job). The last chapter was definitely a doozy, and didn't happen until well after my divorce, because I was being quite autobiographical (in the cliched way that all newbie adult artists choose autobiography for their first works), writing about things in my life as they were happening, and there was a certain excitement to the idea that I didn't know where the story was going.I was living it. But I did finish eventually. Little did I know, of course, that all my work was going to be based on things that happen to be directly, because my life is usually better than anything I can make up in my head. Or maybe it's a very chicken or egg scenario, where I create imagination and near insanity in my environment because it is surging through me at all times. I certainly don't question the origin, as it has been a true gift and has guided me clearly towards my passions and what I want to do with the rest of my life. Still, it feels like when I'm ending a story -- especially when it's based on something or someone that truly hit me like a meteor -- I'm ending my relationship with that thing, experience or person. I guess I have abandonment issues.

This whole blog began flowing this morning because I was trying to think of how I motivated to do that much focused writing (because I can write little things all day about nothing with great ease) while watching television -- because most days I do that so I feel like I have company, even when I'm alone, without the pressure of having to be around other people and their distracting and sometimes invasive idiosyncrasies. And I realized that my first official day of writing after I decided I was going to give up the idea of going to grad school for cello performance (and get my creative writing MFA instead) was happening as the news was breaking about the tragedy in Columbine; I was watching talk shows whilst writing, and it interrupted my day.I was sitting on the ugly blue couch in my and my husband's one bedroom apartment in Woodbury, MN while trying to keep as quiet as possible to avoid waking the puppy, Griffin, who was happily in his kennel and already pretty much trained, despite just being not quite three months old. It was almost exactly twelve years ago.

The point is, I did finish, and I can focus when I want to focus. And I need to conjure up some of that strength and light a fire. I think also I often get overwhelmed by how much is in me and continues to strike me as writing worthy. It feels like I can't keep up. Sometimes my inspiration is like racing thoughts to which I am deeply emotionally connected. I can't grab onto them, and I mourn their loss as they whir past me on the track.

Luckily, they always return, and sometimes they hit even harder the second time around. I need to start seeing my writing and music more as a celebration of my on-going relationship with the world, and not as last rites or the final word.