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| DepositPhoto |
Do I ever abandon projects? Crafts projects, yes. I used to
have an entire sewing room full of bins of fabric and patterns. I was always
way more ambitious than my skills actually allowed for. I only just got rid of
two fabric turkeys that had been sitting half done for maybe twenty years. In
fairness to myself, I did finish two of said turkeys at the time in the 1990’s and
OMG were they a LOT of work. I had a needlepoint kit my late husband bought me
right after we were married (because I wanted to try it) that sat for even
longer than the turkeys, with a few stitches and the threaded needle jabbed
into the canvas, until I eventually sold it on eBay because it was a vintage
pattern by that time.
I completed a ton of projects in the same time frame – doll clothes,
doll quilts, elaborate Halloween costumes, frilly nightgowns for my daughters
and their dolls, ornamental pillows, appliqued Christmas tree skirts, all my
own clothes in college, pinch pleat fully lined drapes for the bedroom, etc. But for many other projects, the thought of the
task and buying the necessary supplies were as far as I got. Either I wasn’t
patient enough, my skills weren’t up to the task and the item wasn’t going to
look remotely like the photo on the pattern cover, there wasn’t time, I lost
interest, newer and shinier stuff came along…
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| Yeah, our project was MUCH teenier in scope than this! DepositPhoto |
In the day job, we abandoned projects on occasion, usually
because the government failed to continue funding them. One I still remember
fondly was for a miniature airplane to explore Mars. It would have been an
early precursor of a drone, although controlled by its own computer, since the
lag time between Earth and Mars wouldn’t have allowed for human control. The
group I supervised at the time had been assigned to handle all the contracts in
the developmental phase and we loved ‘owning’ it and working so closely with
the scientists. But alas.
In the writing world? No, I don’t abandon projects. If an
idea gets far enough with me that I’m putting words on the page, I’ll finish
the book. The fact I’m working on it means I was excited enough about the
characters and the plot to need to
tell the story and my Muse is fully engaged. I may set a book aside if another
book comes to me overnight full-fledged and demanding to be written, like Star Cruise: Marooned did, or Jadrian, but then I return to whatever I
had been working on previously and finish it.
Shrug. Everyone works differently and fortunately there’s no
one ‘right way’ to be an author or to pursue a writing career!
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