The fear that hangs over all of my writing is that I will never finish the big projects. Actually, it’s even worse than that: I fear not knowing how to finish. . . Longer projects paralyze me, and I get to a point where I literally wake up in the middle of the night, with an anxiety knot in my stomach, and wonder if I will ever be able to finish them.
For me, it’s starting that is hard. Once I start, I’ll push like crazy until it gets done. I always feel that I need to read more, think more, and I’m just not ready yet. This is irrational because I know that the best thinking happens while you actually write and not while you sit there thinking about writing.
What I need is for someone to give me a deadline. “You have until such and such date to finish the book. And. . .go.”
Like the linked writer, I have no problem with shorter pieces. It’s the book-length project that has me stalled. I changed the topic 3 times already. At this rate, it will end up being a book on medieval Scandinavian epos because that’s as far as one can get from the original idea.
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment