Photo by wallyg in Flickr
Then I introduced you to a plan to start cleansing that junk drawer. In my last blog I went a little further into the cleansing process.
I ended things by printing off every single writing project I had ever started. Although some were near completion, not one single idea had formulated into a finished piece.
The past several days I have spent time going through my projects. I knew it was time to resurrect some of these projects to life. But it was also time to bury a few.
Let me tell you, this wasn’t easy. But I knew it was the only way to make 2013 a year of actually accomplishing something. It’s as if these projects and ideas were off to the side taunting me. “See, you can’t finish anything!”
Finishing doesn’t necessarily mean picking up where I left off. It could mean letting things go. And that’s just what I did.
I had to bury (permanently get rid of) some projects that I knew would never go anywhere. And if I don’t say so myself, some of these were good ideas.
Yet they had been left unfinished for a year, five years and some as long as a decade. I had to get a grip on reality.
I tossed more than I kept. But I didn’t just throw out the hard copies I had printed. I deleted the document off my computer and then emptied my trash bin so I couldn’t change my mind.
I sat there for a moment. It was gone. The words would never come back. It felt painful. I suppose when you bury something, it’s supposed to.
Yet with death comes life. And that’s what I will be talking about in my next blog. What to do with the writing projects that weren’t buried.
© 2012, Stephanie Romero
January 26th, 2013 at 6:35 pm
An interesting idea, to “bury” our writing and go through the grieving process when an idea just isn’t going to come to fruition. I don’t think I’d be strong enough to do this, though. I would always think in the back of my mind, “What if one of the phrases or ideas I came up with somehow inextricably fit into a missing piece of a new idea?” Then I would have to resurrect the idea… At some point I may have the power to bury my words, but for now, I’ll keep them on hand, even if it’s just to dissect or use pieces of in the future
January 28th, 2013 at 12:21 am
You definitely have to be in that place in which you are ready to let go. For me, the many unfinished projects has been a hindrance more than a help. I’m sure for many people this whole burying thing wouldn’t work for them.