Confessions of a Serial Story Starter

It started innocently enough, like all bad habits. A blank page, an idea swirling in my head, and the thrill of possibility. I’d stare at the cursor blinking, my mind racing with all the potential. I was a creator, a storyteller. And yet, despite all my enthusiasm, I had a dark secret that no one knew.

I couldn’t finish anything.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have great ideas. I had more ideas than I could possibly count. I’d start a story with energy and excitement, weaving a narrative that felt rich with promise. The words would pour out, each sentence more brilliant than the last. But then, somewhere along the way—usually after a few thousand words—the story would stall. The characters would lose their spark, the plot would go off course, and I’d be left staring at the screen, wondering where it all went wrong.

I’ve been a serial story starter for as long as I can remember. My friends joked about it. “Another one?” they’d ask when I’d share yet another new idea. “What happened to the last one?” I’d shrug it off, laughing nervously, but deep down I knew the truth. I was terrified of finishing. And terrified of failing.

But it wasn’t always like this. When I was younger, I finished everything I started. Short stories, novels, even those tedious school assignments—nothing was left incomplete. There was something thrilling about the finish line, about the sense of accomplishment that came with tying up loose ends. But then, as I got older, it became harder and harder to see those endings.

It wasn’t that I didn’t care anymore—it was the opposite. I cared too much. I wanted my stories to be perfect, and when they weren’t, when they started to falter or fall short of my high expectations, I would abandon them, convinced they weren’t worth finishing. It was easier to start something new, to chase the rush of a fresh idea than to face the messy, imperfect reality of a work-in-progress.

At first, the excuses were easy. “I just need to think about it for a while.” Or, “I’ll come back to it when I’m inspired.” But months would pass, and the file would gather digital dust in the forgotten corners of my hard drive. Each abandoned project felt like a little piece of failure, like a weight I could never escape.

The truth, though, was simpler than I cared to admit: I was afraid of failure. It was easier to pretend my stories were unfinished because they were “works in progress” than to admit they were incomplete because I couldn’t finish them. And it wasn’t just the stories that suffered. I began to apply the same mindset to other parts of my life—never truly completing tasks, half-heartedly starting projects, always with the intention of going back to them, but never following through.

But then something shifted.

It wasn’t a grand revelation or a breakthrough moment. It was a simple realization: I couldn’t keep doing this. I had to finish what I started. Because the real failure wasn’t in imperfect work—it was in never finishing at all.

One day, as I sat at my desk staring at yet another unfinished story, I realized that I was tired of the cycle. I was tired of feeling like a quitter. And so, I made a promise to myself: I would finish a story. Not the perfect story I had envisioned, not the one with flawless prose or an epic plot twist, but just one. One story. Completed. No matter how messy, no matter how imperfect.

That was when I discovered the power of commitment.

I took a deep breath and opened an old story that I’d left on the back burner for months. It wasn’t the most exciting idea. It wasn’t the grandest concept. But it had heart. And that was all I needed.

The first few days were hard. The doubts crept in. “This isn’t good enough.” “What if this story isn’t as good as I thought?” But instead of abandoning it, I pushed through. I wrote a paragraph, then another, then another. Slowly but surely, the story began to take shape. The characters that once seemed flat became alive. The plot, which had felt aimless, began to move forward with purpose.

And then, one day, I reached the end. It wasn’t a perfect ending, and it didn’t solve all the story’s problems. But it was finished. I had done it. I had written a complete story. And in that moment, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years: pride.

It wasn’t the pride of creating a masterpiece. It was the pride of simply finishing. Of committing to something, seeing it through, and realizing that the journey—imperfections and all—was worth it.

From that point forward, something changed in me. I no longer saw the act of finishing as a burden, but as a form of freedom. The fear of failure didn’t hold me back anymore. I embraced the messy middle, the struggles, the doubts, and allowed myself to work through them. I learned that a story, like life, doesn’t need to be perfect to be valuable.

Since then, I’ve completed more stories than I ever thought possible. Some of them are good. Some of them are still rough around the edges. But they’re finished. And that’s what matters. I stopped being a serial story starter and became a writer who finishes what she starts.

Now, when I look back at my old drafts, the abandoned stories, I don’t see failure. I see lessons learned, growth, and a reminder of why I fell in love with storytelling in the first place. Writing isn’t about perfection—it’s about the journey, the process, and the satisfaction of seeing a story through to the end.

And the best part? I’m finally enjoying the ride.