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God so totally me, and I genuinely had no idea this was even a thing beyond my own head. So many beginnings it’s embarrassing. The cringe is one and the same as ‘what genre do you write?’ because the answer is anything and nothing in equal parts.

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Hattie, I am with you. I hate being asked that question (and also feel like a dolt when it comes out of my mouth to other writers). Something I've been thinking about recently is whether my writing projects would benefit from a better answer to that question.

In my professional life I have to write pitches for journalistic stories so always have a succinct question to "what are you writing?". I'm going to try writing a short pitch for some of my short stories to help me a) answer the question, b) but also to keep me true to my intention for a story.

Where this system will fall down of course is when the story goes in a very different direction, as it so often does.

Really like Rob's idea of self-imposed deadlines where external ones aren't available as I definitely suffer from liking the beginnings/the writing of the the thing. The "not finishing" bit for me comes when it's at the editing and redrafting stage.

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My wife calls me half-a-job Bob because I never finish anything. My life is full of half-finished projects, mainly design related, being a designer by day. So when starting to write at the tender age of forty-something, I wasn't expecting to actually complete anything. But four years later, I'm two books into my sci-fi trilogy and starting the third. No one's more surprised by this than me. I'm not 100% sure how I've managed to break a habit of a lifetime and complete a thing, but I think it probably comes down to the accountability thing you mentioned.

I chose the indie route to publishing, so never had an agent waiting eagerly for my manuscript. But I did pay for a professional editor before my manuscript was ready, and I put the book up for pre-order online to give myself a hard deadline. As a perfectionist, I know I would have polished and tweaked endlessly without that deadline, and it would never have been released. So for me, accountability did the trick in the end.

I've not finished the trilogy yet, but I'm over halfway, so my wife needs to find a new name for me now :)

(Edit - I should add... my wife is my biggest supporter)

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