Unfinished Work

My writing comes in spurts or spells. It's hardly ever planned or disciplined. I have quick ideas for challenges and prompts, but never find the urgency to put them to paper. No, they aren't what I want to write. Though they aren't confining, my restless hands turn to other stories like shiny objects caught in a crow's beak. I'll play in the poems sometimes. They're quick and easy for me, like fiddling notes out on a guitar. Like sketching lazy shapes with no shadows or details.

My draft box overflows with starts and one pagers, with poems just shy of completion, with introductions and outlines. It's not writer's block that stops me. No, I've never experienced a dry spell or shortage of what to say. Not me. I crank words out quickly like a well oiled machine. Each story tells itself and unfolds with little work or pry from me. But that's the problem I suppose.

My writing is like a fountain overflowing. It bubbles and gurgles, screams and cascades in torrents. My mind is on to the next thing. To something new, something inspired by a flickering shadow in the afternoon. Perhaps I went hiking and now all I can imagine is dragons flitting across mountain skies, their talons dipping into river edges to pry free fish. I can't cap it long enough to stay focused on a story to completion. I have so many books half way written, there ought to be an award for that. Half book writers, too preoccupied with the next book. After all, if I do not jot down the first thirty pages, what if the idea leaves me? What if I forget? It's such a good story. So exciting and engaging.

My short stories live as butchered bloody paragraphs, like a pulse that started and then just stopped. If I can give thirty pages to a new book idea, why can I not give ten to complete something simple? I wrote five pages on a book last night, one I have struggled with focusing on. But, five effortless pages in one sitting, so why are my short stories all unfinished? And my poems are even sadder. After all, I could write you a whole poem right now. I have cranked out hundreds in my life. I have used poems to fill time and space waiting in lines, at the airport, at a desk. They are reflex. But there are no less than twelve incomplete poems in my draft box.

My writing gives me life and joy. It makes me happy and content. I feel restless without it. I am always ready to churn out words and ideas. Challenges and new things entice and excite me, but seldom do I actually partake in finished any. Yet, despite never lacking the words or desire for writing, I find I give it attention in horrid dashes of spells. It's like I'm married to writing but loathe giving it my time. I give my time and attention to everything else, save it. Is it from fear? Fear of failing. Fear of a complete story not being good enough. Do I stall reaching the next step because the next step is judgment? I toss and wrestle over this week after week. And my book, it sits at near completion, lacking only ten thousand words. With focus, I could finish it in a month. But, instead, it sits like the things in my draft box, waiting for me to decide its worth my time. Waiting for me to stop stalling. Waiting. Waiting. And, even these thoughts, like so many things I write, feel incomplete.