Finishing Things

First drafts count, right? They should. That’s finishing something. We’re all first drafts in a way, pieces of flawed art under constant revision over and over again until it doesn’t matter at all anymore, so it makes sense that those of the written word will still count. I think they do. It makes my life easier to believe such things, so let’s operate under that assumption for the rest of this blog post. I think it’s fair. I make the rules here, so I don’t think I can ever really be too far off base.

Anyway, I finished a new book the other day. It’s a short one, a nice little story about impossible things and the sadder things that travel in their wake. It moves like clouds when there are no clouds in the sky and I’m okay with that. It won’t be for everyone, nothing I write ever is, but I’m proud of it. I was crippled by insecurity at first, because new things are always terrifying, but I’m a little more firmly anchored at the moment. It’s a good story. 80,000 words of family and loss and eternal things. I like it and the first drafts are being printed for my test readers as we speak, so we’ll soon see what my finely curated group thinks of the effort. Will they like it? I hope so. Will they hate it and find it boring? Possibly. I don’t think it matters. The story will always exist nonetheless.

Finishing things is important. That was the first thing I ever told myself when I decided that I wanted to do something I’d probably fail at. It didn’t matter if anyone gave a shit what I was doing, it didn’t matter if anyone cared, all that mattered was whether or not I had it in me to finish the things I started. Not everything, mind you. I was a stupid kid with a lot of stupid ideas, but sometimes I’d have glimmers of intelligence and they’d shine a light on the things I knew would have to have their end. Stories have always been like that. I’ve never not finished one. No matter what, no matter how it changes or if it becomes something I didn’t want it to be, I finish the work. The story always matters, every time, because no matter if I can’t recognize it…the story is me.

I think of my life like that. My stories are filled with people who find themselves in sad and trying times. It’s not personal. I have no grudge and hold no ill will against them. It’s just the way these things go. In many ways, I’m that same person. I have put myself, time and again, through things that are emotionally, physically, and mentally trying, because while I’m not a confident man, I’m possessed of a singular belief that I can put myself through unfathomable things and get to the other side every single time. It doesn’t matter what it is, it doesn’t matter why I’m doing it, there’s not a single part of me that has ever thought I couldn’t finish what I’d started.

That’s valuable and I think it might one day be untrue. One day, I’ll voyage into a darkness too dark or poke a bear too large. It’s just a matter of time, I’d imagine. No one lives forever, nor do my dreams, my stories, my challenges, or myself. There will come a time when the story ends before it’s supposed to. I will blink and there will be no more words, only the blank scroll of a timeless parchment that has somehow managed to run out. That is something I signed up for. When I first sat down behind a keyboard and told myself I could write, I knew I’d send myself to places where it was often unpleasant to go. My darkest fears are there, you see. My greatest pains are there as well. They hide and wait and sometimes I don’t even know they’re there until I’m writing them down in ink that bleeds the deepest reds.

It’s only then, once they’re being written, that I realize they never left. They’ve been there all along. And I have two choices: 1. I can stop writing the story. I can close the document and walk away. Or 2. I can write the damn thing anyway, because I came this far and there’s no way in hell I’m turning back now.

I always pick the second option. I pick it in my writing and I pick it in my life. I put characters through every emotion I’ve already felt or thought about feeling and I put myself through greater pains than is probably warranted, expected, or recommended. And I do it for one reason and one reason only: Because I can.

It doesn’t matter that one day I’ll fail. It doesn’t matter that one day there will be an unfinished thing discarded and forgotten on the living room floor. None of that does. The only thing that matters, the only thing that I’ve ever been sure of, is that I can put myself through terrible things for the sake of faint glimmers on the other side. And until I fail, until I fall, and until I drift slowly and inevitably away, I will do exactly that.

Because I can.