Fear of Finishing

As you can see from my posts, I’ve been reading a few writing blogs lately. It has made me slightly philosophical.

I run into this problem over and over again while writing, I don’t seem to like ending things. I have written several novels, seven in fact. Five of the seven have the same thing in common, they don’t have endings. It’s not that I don’t know how they’re supposed to end; I have very clear visions of how they should come to a close. Yet I cannot seem to make myself actually write those endings out.

Why is this?

It is not as if the ending is not there, the words are there, but there is something, a giant brick wall, standing in my way. I call it my “fear of finishing”. When I finish something, I have a responsibility to take it to the next stage: editing. I really don’t like editing. Perhaps it would be better to call this my “fear of editing” instead because editing a short story, 5-10,000 words doesn’t bother me in a least. The very idea of trying to balance 50,000+ words and somehow make something coherent out of it just gives me the shakes. It makes me feel like I am completely incapable. Therefore, I do not finish the story. If I never finish, I am never responsible for editing anything. Beyond the editing, I am terrified of putting work out there for someone to critique. I critique other peoples’ work and one of the things I try very hard to do is realize I am taking something someone worked really hard on and telling them what I liked or didn’t like about it. I can imagine I’ve probably made at least one writer cry from the harsh reviews I’ve given out.

I don’t want to be on the receiving end of that because I honestly think that is what my work deserves. It should be beaten with a stick and then sent to bed without supper for being horrible. So it all culminates to keep me from finishing the story. I will never get better if I don’t, but I’m just never quite sure I’m ready to go there.

I wonder if anyone else feels this way?