by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I’m sure everybody has a closet that needs some attention.
I hope everybody does. I know I have at least one at all times that needs help.
The closet with the biggest issue was the one under the stairs. Large areas tend to attract the most junk. This one had various boxes in it. You know.
Since I just finished my two biggest deadlines for the year, I decided to tackle the closet.
In the closet, I found an unfinished project—not a book project. It was a box of video tapes that needed to be transferred to a modern, digital format of some kind.
I’d started this project a year ago, stalled out with it, and shoved it back into the closet along with a bunch of other stuff that I didn’t want to deal with.
I remember being very annoyed because I’d bought a VCR to DVD burning device and then found out that, after I burned the DVDs, they were in a proprietary format that meant they could only be played on a particular Panasonic device that was no longer being made. Of course.
I learned that there were services that could transfer for you if you ship them the tapes. But I didn’t get very far with my research on that because I was so frustrated and annoyed by the proprietary format and was busy with the complaint letter that I was writing.
A year passed and nothing had been accomplished on this project. So I pulled out the box of videos and made a list of all the steps I needed to do to finish this project in one sitting so that I could take on the rest of the closet.
Starting any project—a stalled one or a new one—can be the same way. We have all these great ambitions for our books, for instance, but getting the words on paper can be intimidating.
You’d think that by now I’d be done with project hesitation for my writing—but I still have it. It’s the hesitation of not really knowing what to do next. Usually I just look at the deadline on the calendar and jump right in. With a self-imposed deadline (I’m writing a book for self-pub before working on my next publisher-driven project), it feels a little different.
Starting a stalled project—listing the tasks.
So, for my video transfer project, I needed to decide if I wanted to send the online company camcorder tapes or VCR tapes. I needed to gather all the tapes together. I needed to decide which company I wanted to use. I needed to make sure if I sent all my tapes that I wouldn’t go over my budget. Then I needed to create an online account with the company, pay a deposit for the service, print out the shipping label, pack it, and then drop the box off with UPS.
For starting out my latest mystery, I needed to decide who my victim was going to be, how my sleuth was going to be involved, and who my suspects were. To really jump into it, I also wanted to know how the victim was killed. (Because this book is part of a series, I already know my main characters…a benefit of series writing.)
For your project, you might need to decide other things: what’s the inciting incident (which turns an ordinary day for your protagonist into something special)? Who is the main character? What about the incident changes them or their situation? How do they react to it?
Half the time when we don’t get started with a project, or put it aside for a while, it’s because we’re really not sure what direction we want to take or how to approach the task. Maybe we don’t feel like we have enough information to begin. Or it might be that we’re worried that the outcome might not end up as successful as it is in our imaginings.
Instead of packing the project back into the closet (or burying it in Word), we could just make a list to get ourselves going.
How do you jump back into projects….or jump into new ones quickly?
I’m just like you–I make a list. I plan out what needs to be accomplished and in what order. I find this makes really big projects less intimidating.
Hope you had a great weekend, Elizabeth!!
Angela
Lists are great. I use them for all sorts of projects. They help me collect my thoughts.
For fiction, though, I have an odd switch inside me that signals “game on.” It’s when I find the _mood_.
This is odd because I’m not an atmospheric writer. I suspect it has to do with what I call “Emotional Trajectory.” I need to know the direction the character is going before I know what will happen when I place the problem in his or her path.
Angela–Breaking it down into bits really helps, doesn’t it? And I think now I might be able to also tackle the outgrown/out of season clothes in my children’s rooms. :)
The Daring Novelist–I love the way you approach the project…through the characters. By knowing their emotions and what they’re running toward or away from. That’s definitely a helpful “switch” to have!
Elizabeth – I get back into projects much more quickly and easily if I have some sort of outline for what to do, especially for writing projects. Like you I always start with the victim and use a sort of mental concentric circle idea to figure who who was in that person’s life who had a motive to kill. When I have that idea mapped out I’m ready to start putting fingers to keyboard.
I’m staring at a very simple “project”. Take the papers in the “file these” pile and actually file them. Probably a 15 minute task, max, but there’s no motivation.
I do have to put everything back into the guestroom closet, which we emptied to do some repairs. That’s probably a 5 minute project, but I fear I’ll get sidetracked by looking at what’s inside the boxes we’ve moved.
For writing, I normally plunge in after a very minimal “what’s going to happen in this book?” session. My current one is a sequel, so my main characters are there, but I hit the 35K mark before I knew who my killer was, and why he did it. When I started, all I knew was it would be a ‘cold case’ because I didn’t want another violent homicide in my small town too soon after the last one.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Jump starting projects can be tough! And for me, it’s so true that when I’m stuck it’s because I don’t have a clue what to do next! It’s easy to get overwhelmed :)
That’s terrible about the video to DVD recorder! I would’ve been furious.
I’ll stall on a project if it looks overwhelming. That’s why listing the small tasks needed to complete it help. Like eating an elephant, one bite at a time.
My trilogy has spun off four more books and I have a couple solo books outlined. I just need to sit down and fill them out.
FYI, you can almost always crack those proprietary formats — you might be able to do it straight out with Handbrake.
What’s the model of the recorder? (Or the name of the format, if you know it.) I can try looking it up and see what solutions are out there.
You can email me at maudecat at gmail dot com if you like.
Margot–That poor victim! But it’s the easiest way to write a mystery, I think. It makes the most sense to start with the inciting incident–the death–and who might be affected or involved.
Diane–Oh, I was furious, all right! What a pain. And it took me hours to burn the DVDs. What good are they if my kids can’t watch them when they’re adults? Sigh.
That’s what makes me stall, too…feeling like it’s too big to take on without a huge chunk of time.
Stephen–You’ve got plenty of material and now you only need the time! I know how that goes. :)
Terry–Ugh. Filing is the worst. I’ve got some of that to do too. I made it easier on myself a year ago, though, and asked some of the places who send statements to make our account paper-free.
Getting sidetracked! Yes. That’s the problem with boxes. Particularly tough for me are boxes with old pictures and old letters.
Nice tip for avoiding the dreaded “Cabot Cove Syndrome.” :) The small towns I write are now fairly littered with bodies!
I find of late (last few years) I use my blog to think outloud and make committments. That really energizes me. Lists don’t work for me as they are too linear and unconnected. I might make a priorized list of next steps – like you did with your closet – so that I don’t put something universal down – CLEAN CLOSET – and scare myself! ;)
I tend to stall long before starting a project. (I’m a master procrastinator.) Once I start, I finish though.
That exact same thing happened to me with the transfer VHS to DVD thing. I bet we even bought the same thing. I was just so mad when I mailed my mom her copies of the DVDs and she told me she couldn’t play them. I wasted hours transferring those. I, too, gave up on the project and have them in a stack somewhere.
But you’re totally right about lists being a great way to get a stalled project going. Making lists (and schedules of when to accomplish the things on it) is my favorite way to start a big task. Nice post!
Jan–Good tip! Yes, I used to make ridiculous to-do lists like that: clean closet, do taxes, rearrange linen closet…ack! I’d look at the list and get a headache. So much better to break it all down. I like your idea of making public commitments and goals, too.
Alex–Yeah, I think my year-long stall was a pretty bad one! Ha!
Jemi–Especially when the project seems never-ending!
Annie–Can you believe it? It took forever to burn them, didn’t it? This is the same reason DRM makes people so mad!
I did see this online scanning firm recommended online and in print, so I’m giving them a go: Scancafe.com. We’ll see. So far it’s been fairly inexpensive and pretty easy to work with.
Camille, you are very nice to offer but you don’t want to go down that road! Believe me! I did look at some hacks, I’ll admit…but the deeper I got into it, the more complex it became. And now I’ve given up completely and the nice people at scancafe have it. But buyer beware, y’all–it’s Panasonic DMR-ES40V. If you keep the device…forever!…then you’re in good shape. Otherwise…
I really enjoyed this post! My lists are somewhat legendary… and often, I spend so much time working on creating my list, that I have a whole new one to make before I get anything done! LOL
The best way for me to tackle something is head-on, and try not to get myself lost in the details.
Tami
Great post! I follow outlines when I work on a project. I find I stay on track better than if I just randomly write.
Spun Glass–I’m a list fanatic, too. :) I’m so glad to hear I’m not the only one!
Sherry–I’m not a great outliner, although I will outline if an editor requests one. But I *always* know what I want to write the next day. Helps me jump into the project again. :)
Sometimes I just switch gears unexpectedly. I have been spending months being consumed by posting on my blog, doing historical research and coming up with story ideas. I was doing a bit of writing, and not much picture taking. Then we went on a 3 day trip and I took tons of photos and am working on getting those organized and posted. Now I’m tired of that, and have begun to add in sewing and knitting an afghan. Right now I just seem to move from station to station around the house, dabbling in what sounds fun at the time. I always have a book in my hands by the time afternoon gets here though.
I have so much more that I can do in order to organize my stories into a book for our family for Christmas, and will need to make myself settle down and get to work on that project someday soon.
Thanks for your post, it is quite motivating!
Kathy M.