May 12, 2025

Failure to Resuscitate: Knowing When to Let a Project Die

The Cat Discusses #7

I am no stranger to not finishing projects. For most of my life, I’ve toiled everlong on an ever-rotating list, spending months before I get too bored with the idea or too tired or too depressed—or, inevitably, life just gets in the way. Most times, these projects languish in digital drawers until I catch their faint glimmer once again—upon which time I unearth them, read them over, and make an attempt to write them again in accordance to my updated standards. Sometimes, this works. Most of the time, I fall victim again to the Great Abandonment and the cycle begins anew.

All of this to again say, I am no stranger to not finishing projects. The list of works I’ve completed in the last twenty-some years is greatly outnumbered by the list of works I haven’t completed. Nowadays, I do try to complete projects more often, but this is not always possible.

Recently, I’ve had my latest brush with a WIP that will likely not be finished.

If you’ve read any of my newsletters in the last year (and you should, if you’re reading this! It’s free!), you may have seen me talk about a project called Across This Hollow Distance. It is a novella I’ve spent over two years trying to work on, and while that was also undercut by other things (such as publishing two whole books), I’ve never felt fully present whenever I’ve opened that word document. I’ve never been able to fathom why.

I still don’t, if I’m being honest.

Last year, I joined a couple of in-person writing groups near me. One is more for chatting the craft and reading our pieces aloud with minimal criticism, which can certainly have its uses, and I’ve forged deeper relationships with a couple of the members.

The other group, however, is one I shine in. We read pieces in advance, a couple of us at a time, and go through the sections with our feedback. There’s a fun mix of opinions and perspectives to be had. While I don’t always agree with everything everyone says (and in a good group, you won’t!), I’ve come to truly appreciate the members of this group and the writing and feedback they each bring to the table.

I started bringing Across This Hollow Distance to this group.

It wasn’t ready, truly. I knew it wasn’t. I was already unhappy with how the work was progressing, frustrated with the amount of things I needed to fix within it. I’ve worked hard over the years to be better about not constantly rewriting projects1, but I at least wanted to start compiling a list of what other people saw as errors in my work. A lot of the feedback was helpful. In turn, I received a fair amount of praise as well. But, as the weeks went on and we delved deeper into this novella of mine, it became clear to me just how flawed the work was. Not just on a personal level, but on a deeper, foundational one. Numerous times, I confessed to the group just how agonizing writing this book has been, how it felt like pulling teeth every time I tried. When I open the document, all I could feel was dread.

A feeling that, according to the members of this group, was normal.

I’ve been frustrated by my writing before, as I’m sure everyone has. A scene hasn’t worked, or I’ve realized that to have a character exist I need to go several chapters back and add them in, or I forgot to add a detail that became vital for the climax. It’s normal, I think, for writing to not be easy. But that’s why people do it! Without the struggle, the payoff of having created something doesn’t feel as rewarding.2 It’s a constant feedback loop: the struggle through the idea, the joy of finishing it, the desolation that you have nothing to work on, the delight that you have a new idea to occupy you, the struggle through the idea… and so on. The struggle is part of the process.

Was this what writing was supposed to feel like?

With Across This Hollow Distance, once the first couple of chapters were finished, the book began to fight me at every junction. Opening the document became a dangerous battle I had to armor myself up for. The struggle was a part of the process, I told myself! But… should the piece I’m working on feel so dreadful the whole way through?

The very same day that I published A Sharper, More Lasting Pain and it was off on its own, my spouse presented to me a new story idea.

“That’s great and all,” I told them, “but I don’t have time for new projects.”

“Just think about it,” they replied, so I vowed to tuck the idea away somewhere and return to it when ATHD was done.

Except, I did think about it. Quite a bit, actually. See, for years, I had burned to put my love of Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker somewhere, and have my own world of islands. On the same hand, I have been yearnful to write a fantasy book inspired by Malta. For the latter, at least, you can read this to find out why. And so the idea and the inspirations muddled in my mind for only a day or two or three before I finally broke the embargo I had placed on myself and started worldbuilding.

Three weeks later, I had finally emerged with a sliver of an idea and a whole wealth of research. And I had been having fun.

Was this what writing was supposed to feel like?

I was still deep in the throes of working on Across This Hollow Distance at this time, so I told myself to put the research and the worldbuilding and the slivers of an idea aside—for real, this time—and get back to the thing I was “supposed” to be working on.

But… I couldn’t. Every time I opened up the word document for ATHD, I just wanted to go back to my new idea. And I’m sure some of it was “shiny object syndrome”—the lure of a new thing to entertain myself. At this point, though, I had been suffering for over a year on a novella. It wasn’t supposed to take me this long. But the harder I willed myself to get my armor back on and fight the beast that was ATHD’s document, the less I found myself able to do so.

It was then I knew a decision needed to be made. January first this year, I took the compiled summary of everyone’s notes—mine and the group’s—and entered the lair of the beast. I told myself that if this bought ended the same, I would put the book down—potentially for good—and move on to something else.

I think we all know what the result of this battle was.

It is now near the middle of May, seven months after I first entered that research fugue. The zero draft of The Distance Between Stars and Salt is close to completion, and I think it’ll hit 40,000 words by the time this draft is done. That is the upper end of the word count I was supposed to have for ATHD. In the actual first draft of TDBSaS, I anticipate this word count doubling.

What remains of Across This Hollow Distance has long been put aside. I still have the draft. Maybe someday, I will be in a better headspace with that project. Maybe I’ll finish it and I won’t even know what inspired such dread in the first place. Or maybe, more likely, ATHD is an idea I had that was never supposed to touch the page. Maybe it needed to remain in the nebulous swirl of my brain, safe forever.

Maybe we will never know.

What I will say, though, is writing The Distance Between Stars and Salt has been some of the most fun as an author that I’ve ever had. And if this is what writing is supposed to feel like? Well, I’m glad I picked up a pen at six years old and never stopped.