Should I finish the Book? If ya gotta ask, then, NO!

The real question is, why write? Why do YOU write? If you want to entertain yourself, then writing is like cooking. Cook until you like it, then lick the knife and eat. It is your kitchen, your creation, for you alone. However, if you seek recognition and acclaim, or, if you merely want to entertain a few, then you have to finish the book as a very least effort.

Let us get to specifics. When is the book or story you are writing the one you wish to finish? When it entertains you. If you can’t work up enthusiasm for a story, as the creator, then how do you expect anyone else to get excited? This doesn’t mean there aren’t times when the words refuse to come that you wish to use. Too bad for you. However, just because the sauce is a little stubborn about thickening doesn’t mean it is ready to toss out. Nope, there are a variety of methods an experienced cook learns to make that sauce thicken and vary the flavor. It doesn’t really matter if the flavor isn’t quite what the cook or writer intended when she started the meal or the book, because the readers or guests will never know what the cook’s tongue had in mind. What will matter is their own experiences of the work.

I had an (as in ONE) idea for a story since I was about fifteen years old and fascinated with science fiction, history, and abandonment adventure stories. An abandonment adventure story is like Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Contrary to what most people think, there were many books of Tarzan adventures. Edgar Rice Burroughs also wrote a Mars series, John Carter of Mars and Venus, I don’t remember the character isolated there. Robinson Crusoe and others fascinated me. Then I discovered Georgette Heyer and read all of her regencies. So, imagine what my ONE story idea must have included! Anyway, I thought if I ever met an author I would tell them about my idea and they would write it and then I’d know how the story ended. Then about ten years ago, I read a romance story about an author and found out that authors have so many ideas of their own, they wouldn’t ever need or want one of mine. I tossed that book down in disappointment, just when my beloved walked it. He said, “Bad book?” and I explained the problem. He gave me one of those dumb sh#t looks and said, “If you’d written a page a week since you were fifteen, you’d know how it ended by now.” I decided to start writing that book the next day. But during the day, as I thought about that story beginning, nothing came. I was blank. But, as I lay my head to the pillow that night, an idea jumped into my head of the main character’s younger sister who was so inspired by the older sister, that she took matters into her own hands. I got out of bed and wrote the first lines of the new story so that I wouldn’t forget them the next morning.

I wrote that story. As it commenced and finally finished, I knew how the older sister’s story went. Someday, I’ll write it. It took me eight months to finish the first novel. I had no idea how long a novel was. It came to a natural closing for me. During the time of writing it, I wondered at first if I had enough story in me to have it longer than a short story, then as it unfolded I worried there would never be an end. But it did, end, I mean. And at a natural point.

Since that first story, my imagination has gone wild and for a time I was extremely concerned about my mental health. A good friend found a taped interview of an author and made me listen to it. Thankfully, I’m not mentally ill, I’m just a writer who didn’t know it. Since writing that first story, my other abilities and talents have improved dramatically. That is a weirdness of its own. As my abilities expanded and the ideas gushed forth, I branched out into other writing and discovered some other little issues.

Genres. Which ones to write since I read them all? I began to write down beginnings to stories. I have contemporary ones, fantasy ones, historical ones, and even tiny vignettes, complete as they are.

One, a favorite of others, The Ship’s Bastard, about an infant raised by sailors, is a struggle to write. I will finish it because so many want to read it. But, that sixty-three pages has cost me four years. That is how hard that one is to write. If it were only me, I’d toss it in a corner and never finish. But I promised. I will never write the western, The Children of Easy Virtue Texas, where it is easier to live than explain where you came from. I am chafing at the bit to begin another Zone story. I have two Proving Zone novels written, both about the same length as well as time of writing, and ideas for more of them. I have over twenty-two ideas for Zone stories. The Proving Zone novels flow like water from my fingers. Those, somehow, I am meant to write. Other story ideas—maybe. So, should you finish the book? It depends on why you are writing it. Perhaps you should be working on a different one.

One last thought. Whenever you finally get a contract to publish, if that is your goal, make sure that the story you have is the type you wish to write for a very long time. Popular writers end up writing themselves into a corner because their fan base wants the kind, type, and flavor of book that they bought the first time they bought and read one.

One really last thought. Writing is never wasted. It is a precious skill and unique to our specie. Your family, your progeny, your neighbor, or some stranger will think your writing a very precious thing. Some stories aren’t published because their time hasn’t come yet. Many classics and bestsellers were found after the author was dead. I think Gone With The Wind is one. Some colleges are beginning to study the writing phenomena and how is accomplished. Your written words, phrases, finished, and unfinished stories as well as notes and scribbles are just as precious to someone, who may or may not be related to you, as Aunt Thelma’s chipped powder box that she inherited from her step-mother, June Ann is to the Smithsonian. Never think your writing has no value and no purpose.