Years ago, a writer friend shared a draft of a book she was writing on a topic she was passionately interested in. She asked for feedback, and I gave her some, but the book seemed in good shape. Time went by, and occasionally I'd ask her how it was going, and she would report back on some improvement she was trying to make. The upshot, though, was that she was struggling to let it go and send her book to an agent or publisher. As long as she didn't, her project couldn't get liftoff. And from what I had seen, the book was in great shape, and the only thing blocking it was the author herself. I didn't understand it.
Boy, do I understand it now.
For a few years, I've been toiling away on a children's book tentatively titled "Hope Notices," about what happens when a curious, attentive girl goes to the beach hoping to see a whale. Now, this is a picture book, so every page is illustrated. For the purposes of finding a publisher for this kind of a book, all sketches need to be completed, and a couple of them need to be made into fully finished drawings. I'm only few sketches away from completing that process. I've also written, revised, workshopped, and re-revised the text. In other words, this critical first phase is almost done. But then again, that has been true for a while.
This is a time-consuming prospect in any case, but it absolutely does not have to be the drawn-out psychodrama that I have made of it.
Like my friend who couldn't quite get comfortable sending her book out for proposal, I, too, have been dilly-dallying for mysterious reasons. I make a little progress, then follow an impulse to create something else — something that my brain places in the "for fun" category rather than the "for work" category that a book project inevitably becomes part of.
I could hash through the reasons for all this nonsensical procrastination. Fear of failure? Always. Shiny object syndrome? Sure. Every new idea that pops into my head looks like something good to chase. Or maybe it's the deadline orientation built into me by a career in newspapers. This project doesn't have a deadline. No one cares if I set it aside for a bit.
It really doesn't matter, though.
A few years ago, I interviewed the author and illustrator of a critically acclaimed graphic novel and asked what advice she had for young artists. "Be a person who finishes things," she said. Her own book had been a 10-year journey. She thought it had taken too long. Yet she was proud that, 10 years or otherwise, she had completed it. And the point in being in a finisher is that not only do you have a completed project, but you establish yourself in your own mind—the most important place—as a person of integrity.
I really love my book. I love the character, the concept, the dog (of course!), the language, and the story. So I am going to give Hope the focus she deserves. I am going to be a person who finishes this thing I love and then carries it out into the world and hopes that someone else loves it, too — enough to share it far and wide.