(5 min read.) Unfinished draft? Half-finished draft? Abandoned draft of a writing project that has been untouched for so long that it’s covered in moss and lichen? “Work in progress” where there hasn’t been any f*ckin’ progress in… a while? Writer, it happens. Unfinished writing projects can create guilt or shame or frustration, but they’re nothing unusual. Here are my five best tips for getting back into the groove.
If you feel uncomfortable facing an unfinished draft, it doesn’t actually mean anything. It doesn’t mean the writing you’ve done is good, or bad, or that you’re good or bad. It just means you don’t know where to start. Here’s where to f*ckin’ start.
1) FORGIVE. The pressure of facing failure (or unmet expectations) can knock creativity right out the window. I’m not talking about woo-woo vibes or even quite about feelings. I’m talking about the neuroscience of how your stress response to “high social-evaluative threats” like shame or guilt measurably reduces creative performance (science fact.) So, this is really practical advice.
Let’s be real. If your draft is half-finished, something didn’t go according to plan. But whatever it was that threw you off (the plot started to feel too difficult, you got hopeless, you got scared of what people would think, you got distracted by something shiny, you fell asleep for six months because of a cruel wizard’s hex, you got distracted by a different fun writing project that was more exciting, you got cancer, you fell out of the writing habit because you inherited a haunted country estate and had to go deal with the ghosts and antiques) doesn’t actually matter. All that matters is that you forgive yourself for the fact that something got in the way of your writing.
If you can forgive yourself for having stopped you will have a much, much, much, much easier time moving forward with this project. HOW TO FORGIVE YOURSELF? I’m not a therapist, but the person who wrote this article on how to forgive yourself is. Personally, I like to get a haircut and then say “It’s okay, we’re just gonna f*ckin’ try again,” and then I have a hot chocolate or an ice cream.
Even if you don’t want to try that, feel like you don’t need to do it, or know you need to but simply can’t forgive yourself, please keep reading. We have four more tactics to attempt, so you’re gonna take a next step on your unfinished project no matter what.
2) HEAR IT. Listen to what you have. Hearing audio engages the brain differently than seeing words on a page. Listening to your draft can create some fresh objectivity, hope, or excitement.
If it’s too long to read aloud as a voice recording, I suggest you put your currently unfinished draft (or your notes, or whatever you have) into a text-to-speech program. (You don’t need to pay for an app to do this; almost every computer has a “screen reader” or “TTS (text to speech)” option in the built-in Accessibility settings. Or if you’re writing in a cloud-based program like Google Docs, you can get the Chrome browser to read text aloud to you quite easily (here’s how.)
When you hear something you want to change or get an idea about wanting to add something to the draft, hit pause and get writing. If you get stuck writing, start listening again. To activate your brain’s “Default Mode Network” for even more creative power (science fact), I suggest you put the audio on while you fold your laundry or go for a neighborhood walk. Get your body busy and fill your ears with your words. Then, simply stay open to the experience and let new ideas roll in.
If you’re still stuck after listening to your unfinished draft once all the way through, or you just don’t want to try this, keep reading.
3) START OVER. Instead of doing an autopsy on your unfinished draft or your process and trying to figure out what went wrong, simply start over. Ignore any notes you’ve made, pages you’ve penned, or docs you’ve started. Ditch everything except the most basic premise of your idea. Begin a new draft FROM SCRATCH and see what comes out. What was important, you’ll likely remember. What wasn’t important, you can let go. This is a new beginning. Don’t re-open your existing draft unless you get homesick for it. (Stay confident. GOOD IDEAS CAN’T BE LOST. I’ll be blogging about this later this week.)
If you’re still stuck or just don’t want to try this because it sounds like a lot of work, keep reading.
4) SWAP TEN. Remove exactly ten words from your manuscript. No more, no less. Now add ten words. No more, no less.
Did you suddenly get the feeling you want to cut more or add more? GOOD. Congrats. Tricked yourself into writing. Do it.
But if you didn’t feel any desire catch fire, cut ten more words. Then add ten more.
Keep transforming your existing draft ten words at a time until you feel inspired to make a bigger change. Something dramatic. Cutting the whole first third of your essay, setting it in outer space, adding a single paragraph; any impulse you get, follow it.
If you don’t get an impulse, what happens if you simply change another ten words?
If you’re still stuck or just don’t want to try this because it feels strange or silly, keep reading.
5) DON’T. You DON’T OWE THIS BOOK or screenplay or this short story or essay or blog post or semi-autobiographical graphic novel or whatever it is TO ANYONE. You simply don’t have to do it.
The joy of being a writer (and part of the lifelong challenge) is that it’s up to you to decide what to write. If you don’t want to finish this project, DON’T!
I’m a professional, so I’m allowed to give you this permission very officially. No matter how good you thought this project would be, or how excited you were about it when you started, you can stop anytime. You’re free to write something else that’s more important to who you are right now. Being a passionate and engaged artist matters more than any single project ever could. Plus, if you let this project go, your other writing projects will immediately become easier. Even if you haven’t been spending time on this project, it’s likely been occupying some of your brain because of the Zeigarnik effect (neuroscience fact.) So if you’d rather finish another project, really drop this. Permanently. For real. And free up that mental capacity for something else you’d love to work on.
Not sure? Maybe you’re ready to let go, but you aren’t sure how to tell? Or you do want to keep loving this project until it’s done, but it feels big and daunting to re-start after all this time or trouble?
Set a timer for 3 minutes. That’s your chance to prove you still love this work. It’s NOW or NEVER. If you can’t find a way to make any progress in 3 minutes, you gotta let it go. If you don’t want to write some of the rest of this unfinished draft right now, you won’t want to write any of it ever. But if you can change even a word, or you can see a way to attack a large or small problem, you’re allowed to keep this project on your docket. Something in you still loves it.
It might feel dramatic, but it’s real. Every time you write, you’re choosing not to quit. If you can make even a tiny bit of progress towards a version of your idea that you can someday share, you’ve broken the block and restarted your project.
Remember: Every Draft is an Unfinished Draft
Until it’s finished, everything you write is an unfinished draft. It doesn’t matter if it’s been untouched for five minutes or for ten years. You restart every time you write. Nobody makes you, and you do it because you want to. You might have to restart this unfinished draft a thousand times, but if you keep trying you will finish it.
If you love this project: let progress be as slow as it needs to be and DON’T GIVE UP.
xo, megan
These (hopefully) really quite helpful creative writing tips offer what I’ve learned as an award-winning author who writes a million words a year, and what I’ve learned about supporting others as a private writing coach.
There’s no one way to write. There’s only your way. I hope some of my tactics and ideas can help you find it.
Yup, I’m a writing coach.
I work with folks at all levels of experience and all levels of income. My writers range from unhoused teens living on the streets to C-suite executives who want to up-level their communication. If you want a private coaching session but can’t afford it, email megan@howtowritesomething.com and ask for scholarship info.
curious/confused?: what does a writing coach do (and not do)
THANK YOU to this month’s generously supportive patrons who are helping me build a digital library of free writing resources to support writers with different access needs! Three cheers for A.J., Dan, Jason, Jennifer, Jessica, Josh, Katherine, Kathleen, Marianna, Nell, Sarah, and some anonymous folks who’ve asked not to be named. Come on in, the Patreon’s fine.