Why do I keep falling in love with big ideas I never finish?

💌 Maxiemize Advice Column #2: On the identity we protect by not creating and how to break free

Dear MM:

I’m a go-getter. I do what I say I’m going to do. I run a restaurant group. And I've told everyone I'm writing a novel for six years. I have the perfect writing desk, expensive notebooks, and a bookshelf full of craft books. I've taken three creative writing courses. I have character sketches, a plot outline, and even a mock-up cover I designed during a particularly ambitious weekend.

What I don't have is a novel. Why can’t I get this done when I’m normally so good at getting sh*t done?

– Perpetually Pending

Dear Perpetually Pending,

I was "working on a novel" for three years, and just about every single damn person in the world (and beyond!?) knew about it. I got HIGH on telling everyone about the project, about the characters, about how the big new idea came to me while visiting Savannah. No one was safe. Everyone was getting chirped at about my big idea. And want to know when I loved talking about it the most? When I was doing the absolute least. Those were the times I really kicked my book-chirping into high gear.

Why? Because it filled the gaping void between my reality and my potential.

The honest truth is, when I'm working on my creative work the most, I'm the most quiet…because I’m working! I can say that with full confidence because right now, in this very moment, I've spent four weeks telling people about two different books I'm currently working on. Want to know how many pages I've written in those same four weeks?

You got it, baby…zero.

So you, Dear Pending, are a pending good time. You're honest. You're seeing it. You're calling it out and calling us forward right with you. You have an entirely full, ambitious restaurant group. You’re already juggling a real-world operation—with a creative dream riding shotgun. AND you have character sketches and a plot outline mostly sorted out. This is some of the hardest work. That is progress. And what I hear between the lines of your words is a desperate desire to go from progress to finished product, from potential to past tense, from someday to yesterday.

What you're doing is so majorly universal. It's as common as breathing. I've done it. We've all done it. It’s why this column exists, even though we’re ambitious and even though we’re creative. Sometimes, potential can feel safer than reality. Reality is real. And it can often really suck. Reality welcomes a parade of unknown fears that lurk beyond the finished piece—(a book, a gallery show, a SaaS launch), maybe people hate it. Maybe you never get it sold. Maybe you're judged. Maybe you discover you're not who you thought you were. Whereas "writing a novel" is a perfect little cocoon that can't be touched. No one is in pages that don’t exist. They're not reading and reacting to your words and telling you your main character speaks like a robot and has the personality of a wood chip. They're just casually cheering you on with "good for you" vibes. And good vibes feel good - until the longing to create is bigger than those momentary atta girls.

When I was working on Daisy, my first novel, on the other side of finishing that book I imagined every dream you can possibly imagine: a bestseller, a film adaptation with Margaret Qualley starring as my main character, a multi-city book tour with rooms of excited fans chatting me up, big fun and fancy partnerships with the Girl Scouts, press about an exciting new debut author (hi me! I’m a debut! I'm exciting!), intimate conversations with my dream queen novelist Kristin Hannah announcing my book as the hot new read in historical fiction. I mean, the list of potential plans was LONG. Swap out the nouns, and the fantasy is the same for any ambitious creative: packed galleries, viral coverage, seven-figure sales, whatever gets you going.

And the reality? I worked on that book for 3+ brutal years, sunk about $30k in coaching into doing it, and more hours than I can possibly explain without sounding completely unhinged. I backed out of a weekend ski trip with my very best girlfriends to finish one final edit (note: they ski, I apres). I spent more money printing copies to edit before sending them back to my coach. I used up precious, precious time of editors and friends and family who supported and encouraged me, and... the book didn't sell. About 20 publishers passed on my manuscript. That summer was super duper tough. Not getting that deal meant not hitting all those potential outcomes I dreamed about. It broke my ambitious and creative heart. In pieces. I wasn't sure I'd ever be insane enough to think I could finish a novel again. I couldn't talk about Daisy without my chest tightening, my face getting hot, and tears welling up in my eyes. Mainly because so much creative grief was in that potential not realized (yet).

I know, Perpetually Pending, that this story of mine doesn’t sound like a convincing reason to finish your novel. But stick with me, I’m about to land this plane.

You aren't finishing your book because…being a woman who is writing a novel IS more fun than being the rejected woman from last year I just described. The one who just got the very bad news that the first round of publishers passed. Who was only steady after that news because she was holding hands with her best friend on a beach in Ipanema, snot crying on the verge of hyperventilating, and choosing to get wine drunk (ok, actually that was fun but in a depressing kind of way. Also: thank god for best friends). Being the woman writing a novel IS more fun than the call with your agents saying the next round of publishers passed, too, but we don't have any feedback that's worth revising to. Being the woman "writing a novel" IS more fun than answering people's questions about "When is the book coming out?" and having to tell them...never? No clue?

Finishing something threatens that safe identity. Finishing something pushes you over the threshold of "one day," to that one day arriving to right now with some dark ass clouds. Imagined perfection is often very different than inevitable reality.

The tears of grieving a failure eventually dry; the quiet desperation of playing it safe will poison you slowly.

But let me tell you about what can happen if you push to finish and you push past even the worst creative heartbreak...some gosh darn beautiful moments that will crack your heart wide open. I decided that I couldn't live in the potential of "writing a book," I had to have that actual book in my hands, even if traditional publishers weren't willing to put their name on it.

So, I spent another big ole’ chunk of money to print two palettes of beautiful copies to sell to my family, friends, and readers. I designed the inside pages. I hired my dream print designer to create the cover worth drooling over. I found a bespoke publisher to create astonishingly gorgeous linen hardcover copies with foil stamping. And I put them out in the world!!!!! Ambitious creatives have their own parallel: maybe mixing the EP, hanging canvases in a pop-up, or soft-launching the design studio to pilot customers…

For me, putting the book out in the world was a new reality, beyond my creative heartbreak reality, and it has been more beautiful and sentimental than the "perfect outcome" I had dreamed of when I first started as a woman “working on a novel." Sweet phone calls with my parents, who supported me in getting the book out. Friends’ texts squealing when their book arrived. Independent book stores like E. Shaver and Bedford Book by Fran Hauser taking a chance on me and ordering copies for their shelves. A pet sitter texting me to say she cracked open a copy while at my house and couldn't put it down. People who said I'd made them fall in love with fiction again. Readers who finished and said they were weeping at the end and wished it wasn't over.

That's the real potential, Dear Pending. But it's only there for you when you're willing to face the truth that the infinite potential is no longer infinite when you finish something. It's a loss. But it's also something wild and wondrous and raw that you gain. Taking action on a dream means mourning all of the possibilities that may never come to fruition. That may never happen for you. The tears of grieving a failure will eventually dry, but the quiet desperation of playing it safe will poison you slowly.

I'll take a failed book deal and 20 rejection letters any day over a blank page. Why? Because it means I showed up for it, rejection and deeply sad days and questioning my talent and questioning what the fuck I'm doing with my life and why I spent so long and so much money doing this and all. Because once I metabolized the grief of what didn't work out, I felt the warmth and pride. Proud of my own courage to risk that.

AFTER the novel doesn't have an outcome that's guaranteed. I can't tell you what happens once you finish, Dear Pending. But I can tell you that letting your creative force move through you time and time again until those pages are an entire manuscript will make you feel alive. A finished novel will feel alive. Conversations with agents will make you feel alive, the first time you print the whole thing will make you feel alive. Even the rejection will!! And all those bumps and turns and warts will be an aliveness that ‘theoretically working on a novel’ is too blunted to ever compare to.

I promise…your messy ‘after’ will be more alive than your perpetual before.

90-Second Maxiemize Moment

Every time you tell someone about your creative idea, do one small thing towards that goal in the following 24 hours.

You're the kind of brave woman who wrote this type of honesty, I know you're the same brave woman who can handle the grief of becoming someone who may not reach her perfect potential, but who is willing to show up for the aliveness of whatever reality awaits when you write THE END. (Or hit EXPORT. Or press PUBLISH. Or sign “Sold.”)

Because after all, the end is merely the start of another cycle, of beginning a new version of you again. There will always be more to dream about, and we'll all be here dreaming for you. I know I will be.

The best is yet to be made,

Maxie

Trying to make your creative work work—for you?
I answer real questions from people building ambitious, creative careers. Submit yours here: hello@maxiemccoy.com