Finished - Part One: Savannah of Green Gables

Finished. It is a magical word when writing: a state of being when perfection has been achieved and we are at peace and ready to move on. We celebrate often with the end of chapters, drafts, and edits. But why are we so concerned with completion? If we truly enjoy writing, why is being done good, and how meaningful is it to say we are “finished?”

Finished isn’t a particularly clear concept when writing. Does being finished mean that you have reached the narrative end of the story? Or is it the deeper, more self-determined conclusion at which one often arrives only after an edit, or two edits, or seven? In this way a “finish” is something of a hydra, with each endpoint that you reach replaced by another. 

    • You finish the first draft: Hooray, it’s time to edit. 

    • You finish the first edit: Hooray, second draft time. 

    • All done with that draft: woo hoo – second edit. 

    • Another edit down: huzzah, time to refine those Gilmore Girls references.

And so we continue with breaks for celebration being our waypoints toward the next finish and satisfaction. Yet, isn’t writing supposed to be about the journey? 

Of course not: that would be stupid. You don’t go to the beach for the car ride, you go there for the beach. Unless you write something truly fascinating, no one wants to hear about the journey. “Let me tell you how I got here.” “Let me change the channel.” The only reason we are interested in someone else’s journey is to glean shortcuts and most of those are already exploited making the journey depressing. 

Just like with completing a story, it is hard to enjoy your preferred seaside wonder after arriving. All the tourist traps and litter and parking restrictions and everything else reveals how many people have been there before you and made the same journey you have. Like the beach, the writing universe is so cluttered, so crowded with people who have finished drafts, books, entire series – who have made the same journey – that it leaves you wanting to simply stay home and watch TV. 

"Finished! Eat it, Kipling!"

That’s why announcing your finishes is so habitual. They keep your head up which is important because you are a special little snowflake. By celebrating your achievements you are merely showing all the naysayers your dedication: that you believed in your narrative; that you aren’t like all the people who reached Chapter 5 and then really got into Indie Folk music. 

You are different because your milestones are real and will nostalgically measure your journey for your future flocks, thousands of followers tracing your path to glory. These are important achievements, you know. We all remember how important it was for Lucy Montgomery’s success that she proclaim completion of her first draft and show up her contemporaries. 

If you feel a bit attacked, it’s okay. This is that uncomfortable kernel at my heart, too. Most of us aren’t saying “Finished!” because we want to rub it in other people’s faces. We make these declarations more as a reaction. You lift your head and take a moment to soak in that sense of accomplishment after pushing yourself to the next level. It’s natural to want to applaud yourself. You have arrived upon the pedestal with your manuscript clutched in your sore little fingers and it feels… good. Being finished feels more than good, in fact. You feel:

    1. Satisfied, like after good sex.

    2. Tired, like after good sex.

    3. A little dazed, like after good sex.

    4. Slightly ashamed you didn’t do better…

I’m sure Lucy Montgomery wrote extensively about this subject, but you probably get the point. So rather than defile a literary classic by instigating a new Reddit category, let’s just say when you write something good, it feels good. And when you edit well, you feel well. Thus it makes sense that we create finishing points all through our writing. These allow us to feel good and celebrate our accomplishments.  

But everything has a cost. What is the cost of celebrating too early and too often?