I write everyday. I sit down and I bang out notes and thoughts and essays on social and political philosophy. When it comes to writing for my career, I work every day, with very few exceptions (some Saturdays I'm hung over ;(, some Thursdays I'm tired). I am on the tenure hunt and loving every minute of it. I haven't stopped writing fiction, it gets written. It just doesn't get completed.I just started a new fiction project from some old notes. And the potential that was there four years ago, is still there. The characters talk to me and distract me when I'm writing my other work. And in the last few days, I've written more than I have in months. But I have a decision to make. It's always the same one.Am I writing this novel to finish it and publish it? Or am I writing this story because I love how I feel when I write?This may seem like a strange dilemma to some. Why write if not to publish? to share? When I write I feel -- well, it's hard to write about what I feel when I write. Sometimes my fiction feels like a diary. Not where I tell my one true story, no not a memoir, but a hope. For some writers, writing is like giving birth after pregnancy. A period filled with both joy and pain that pales in comparison to the remarkable finished product. But not for me. I always have postpartum depression when I finish a piece. And I hardly ever willingly share the whole thing.I have a novel that I finished nearly five years ago that I've let a few people see. I've even turned a few of the chapters into short stories that I've shared with friends through an old blog. Those that read parts of it, enjoyed it, encouraged me to pursue an agent. But I have no desire to have that novel published. Funny?Since then, I've only allowed myself to write unfinished stories. I start them, I bring them to crisis, and then.. I find a reason not to finish. I start another story and leave the other one 60 pages from done in a folder marked "old fict" on my hard drive.I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was 7. I wrote my first "book" that same year. When I was 14 my best friend and I passed a notebook in between periods of class, not to pass notes of gossip, but to co-author a weird fantasy tale that we both still remember nearly word for word. When I was 16, my mother forced me to enter a play I'd written into a city-wide contest- it won. And in college, I had a short story published under a pseudonym. And then, I stopped sharing my full works with people. Folks think I never finish them because I can't. I don't think that's it.Lately, however, as I grow more and more productive in my career writing, I remember what I told my friends when I was young..someday I'm going to be on the New York Times Bestseller list. It's inked under a picture of me from 10th grade -- "novelist of the future seeks spot on the Bestseller list." The desire to be a success (not the bestseller so much any more) to be read and known for my fiction has increased in the last few years. And I think this story I'm writing has real potential....To finish or not to finish... that is always the question.^esined.... it's backwards, but it still has meaning*do excuse the random wondering of my thoughts-- I figured this would be as good a place as any to post about it... I had initially planned to post my unfinished stories here.... I may still do that
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