The Five Stages of Ending a Project

Relief

It’s done! That big, terrifying, exhilarating thing you’ve been focusing on is finally complete!

Exhale. Let that knot in your shoulders work itself out. Maybe take a nap if you’ve been losing sleep.

This stage is all about finding physical and emotional equilibrium. You may not feel manic joy at reaching your goal, so don’t force it. There’s no need to start singing, “Is That All There Is?”. It may feel more like settling down, a choppy sea returning to a gentle low tide. If this is where you’re at, appreciate the feeling.

But it may also feel like slamming on the brakes. Your mind and body have been working hard, and when at a loss for where to direct that energy, it can feel like everything is shaking apart. On more than one occasion I’ve reached a deadline or gone through an event that tested my endurance to come out the other side and wind up with my immune system waving the white flag. The post-deadline cold or flu used to be a given.

I wish I could tell you there’s a secret to avoiding that crash. I wish I could impart some bit of sage, been-there-done-that wisdom that will save you grief. All I can say is that paying attention to yourself on your way to the finish line and being mindful of what your body tells you takes patience and practice. It’s worth the effort, because you’ll be better prepared for what follows.

Gratitude

Even if something you did was entirely manifest by your direct effort, you didn’t do it in isolation. This is not a time for some Randian, bootstrappy gloating about your success. People helped you in other ways, like offering mental support, reminding you to eat, or picking up the slack elsewhere while you were laser focused. They deserve your gratitude, and they’ll appreciate being included in however you choose to celebrate.

If others collaborated on what you were working on, they definitely deserve thanks. If their fingerprints are on it, you need to respect and honor that involvement.

Gratitude isn’t just polite, it helps you to acknowledge the scope of what you just did. To see the full picture of the effort it took to complete.

For example, say you made yourself a cup of coffee in the morning. Someone had to stock those beans for you to purchase. Someone had to roast the beans. Someone had to ship those beans from where they were grown. Someone had to pick those beans. If you want to get even more granular, there were some pollinating insects involved, too.
And we haven’t even touched on how your mug came to be.

If your coffee can warrant that much gratitude, whatever you just completed has its own web of responsible parties. Take the time to let them know you see the part they played.

Sloth

There’s a gap in your to-do list now. It’s a space that doesn’t yet have anything to fill it and you may not feel a sense of clarity or urgency to amend that.

Check Twitter every few minutes. Watch a bad movie. Take another nap. Spend far too long picking out your produce at the grocery store.

Rearrange the icons on your phone. Like, really do it right this time, you know?

The worst thing to do is berate yourself for this lull. That’s like telling someone who just finished a marathon that you can’t believe they want to get a ride home instead of running back.

Don’t do that. Embrace this lethargic fugue state like the hard-won boon that it is.

Clean Up

But sooner or later, you need to snap out of it. There are things to do. Small things. Things that fell through the cracks or weren’t considered important enough to focus on as you set your sights on the goal line.

That haircut you’ve needed for a month. That stack of dishes. Returning phone calls and emails. Sweet Jesus, the laundry.

How long have you been out of salt? Do you even remember? Time to fix that.

The time for tunnel vision is over. Being a person involves lots of little tasks. Maintenance tasks. Smaller parts of a whole. The things you can take care of easily when you’re not consumed by something, body, mind, and soul.

Make a list. Start working down it. Keep doing the small things. Keep putting them on the list. It’s an uphill climb, but you need to build up some momentum.

What’s Next?

There’s two variations on this stage, which I’ll be describing as Hamiltonian and Bartletarian.

In the Hamiltonian version, there’s a sense of confusion, trepidation, and uncertainty. What Comes Next isn’t clear, and requires some trial and error.

Bartletarian is all about forward momentum and a clear progression of goals. You may have had an inkling of what was next in line as soon as you achieved your goal, and now you’re ready to tackle it. Like a puma. Or Martin Sheen.

Either way, you know that something new is coming up. Best to get ready for it.

What we write about when we write think pieces about doing what we love

I’ve been in a running dialogue with a friend and fellow writer about articles on the topic of doing what you love. Articles talking about how to stoke your passion, about questioning whether you’re actually doing what you love, and so on. There are a lot of people writing a lot of words about doing what you love and knowing what that is.

And it gets me thinking back to a line from Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated.

“I am doing something I hate for you. This is what it means to be in love.”

Love is not synonymous with joy.

Doing what you love does not mean living in a state of bliss. Neither does it mean constant suffering for your craft. Fetishizing some ideal or imagined state of being gets in the way of The Work and getting The Work done.

You make compromises for love. You prioritize for love. You sacrifice for love. Love is messy and imperfect.

So if you ever doubt if what you’re doing is something you love, look at what you’ve set aside for it. Look at the list of things that you said no to in order to say yes to this.

Love is the repetition of yes.

Simple Fluid Portable Musical

If I had my druthers, I would have a writing shed. Some windows, a power outlet for my laptop and some speakers, and a desk wide enough to spread out some notebooks and a coffee mug. A wall for a cork board and dry erase board. Maybe even a second outlet for a space heater.

There have been lots of different ways I’ve defined the ideal writing space. There were a string of coffee shops I thought were ideal back when I was living in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area where I did a lot of work. Sometimes a library would be my ideal spot to sit and attack the keyboard. I’ve even made efforts to make whatever desk space I have where I live meet some kind of ideal conception of what it is that I want to make it feel like The Happiest, Most Productive Writing Space On The Planet.

But there’s only so much you can really control. For me, the days of having wide open hours for work are gone (at least for a while). It’s an any port in a storm mentality, where the dining table is as good as a desk, or the phone needs to be as good as a laptop. Five minutes by itself needs to be as useful as five minutes in a full hour of work.

While listening to a podcast on the Four Noble Truths, the speaker mentioned how there is a lot of discussion from the Buddha on the cause of suffering, but the speaker is often asked why Buddha didn’t also explain the cause of happiness. He responds:

When there is a cause, your happiness… is dependent on the cause being there. […] and to feel relaxed and at home, it’s best for there not to be a condition that’s required. Because then you’re able to bring your happiness, your peace into any situation. It’s portable.

-Gil Fronsdal

It reminded me of this quote which puts it another way:

Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.

-C.S. Lewis

It’s not always possible or helpful to remove all conditions when you’re undertaking a task like writing. For example, writing without a writing implement. However, the principle is the same: attach your writing space and your process to as few conditions as possible. Be fluid. If you need an anchor, find one that’s easily portable, like music.

I’ve always worked while listening to music. It’s a way to create a writing space anywhere you have access to headphones. And if you make music as portable as possible (no streams, so lack of internet doesn’t interfere), it’s something always available to you.

Maybe it’s a certain song or album that puts you in the headspace for a project. A well-curated playlist that, or a shuffled selection of familiar favorites. The music can be that small luxury that helps keep your focus off the larger, frequently unnecessary desires that may feel important to your workspace or Your Process.

What is truly essential to you getting the work done? What are the things that you tell yourself are necessary, and how many of them can you go without? There is value in ritual, and to actions that create a transition from non-work to work time, but ask yourself: What’s the most portable version?

Take Out The I

Why are you writing what you’re writing?

Is it to try and win a contest or a fellowship? Is it to get a good grade in a class? Is it to try and catch the eye of an agent or manager? Is it to impress the other people in your workshop?

These reasons all play into the idea of writing with an eye toward who your audience is, but they also can feed into your ego. This can lead down the dangerous path of tying your self worth to what you put on the page, but it can also act as a roadblock for the writing itself.

If you think about the potential results of the finished product ahead of the work of building the story, you won’t be satisfied by the actual results. Ego focuses on results. A mind that sets ego aside to do the work of digging in to the story can focus more intensely on that story.

What you write isn’t about you or what it can do for you. It’s about the lives of the characters. You serve them first, and if you do that job completely and competently, they’ll serve you well.

So how do you take yourself out of the equation?

Focus On What You Control

You don’t control how anyone reacts to what you write. If you feel yourself thinking about how others will read the pages, take a moment and consider how these thoughts are you writing fiction, but not the kind of fiction you can put on the page. Acknowledge and accept that this happens, then ask yourself where you should direct your thoughts and energy.

You control what words you form. You control your thoughts about your characters. You control the research you do and the thought you give to your characters and their lives. You control when you write and for how long.

Whatever happens after you click Send, Print, or Submit is out of your hands.

Don’t Connect The Dots

Does your story connect to others that you’ve written? Is this something that may help establish your brand as a writer? That’s great! Don’t think about it.

You have one story that you’re focused on at the moment you’re writing it. Your computer keyboard only types in one application at a time. If you’re using a pen, you can only write on one piece of paper at a time. Whatever you’re working on in that moment should be the place where you direct your attention, and the desire to connect this to your other work leads to thoughts that take you out of the story and away from the characters. It makes what you’re writing all about you instead of all about them.

Accept Your Desires

You want what you’re writing to be read by other people. You want them to like it. You want them to shower you with praise and maybe some money. You want awards and adulation.

That’s fine. Very few people cheerfully go to work on what they’re writing with the thought, “I can’t wait to put this in a drawer and never show it to anybody!” And yet, chances are there will be plenty of things you write that go on a shelf or in a drawer and don’t get many eyes on them. That’s fine, too.

It’s OK that you want great things to come of your work, but that can’t be what you’re thinking about when it’s time to do the work. If you need to take a moment, set a timer. Take two or three minutes to think about all the wonderful things that are sure to come your way once you finish this, and all the joy you’re going to feel.

Then stop.

Now think about the work. Think about the characters. Think about that page in front of you and the words that come next. Fill your mind with those things.

Tell Yourself Today Will Not Be The Day

Today will not be the day you write the line of dialogue that gets you an Academy Award. It will not be the day that you type Fade Out on the script that bowls over the Nicholl judges. Today will not be a day when you write a single brilliant, amazing thing. Say it out loud if you think it will do a better job of convincing yourself.

But none of those thoughts are going to stop you from writing.

Release yourself from the pressure held in by your ego. You don’t need to live up to its expectations today. Today you can just work. Today you don’t need to have it looking over your shoulder, judging your every keystroke. Today, you don’t need to listen. Nobody is expecting anything of you in this moment, which means that anything you do is a step in the right direction.

Is any of this easy? Of course not. It’s a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute battle.

But it can be fought and won.

Evaluating Your Perspective

Sometimes it’s easiest to explain things as a mathematical formula:

Perspective = (Experience * Consideration) + Time

A clear understanding of what’s important to a story is a function not just of personal experience, but time and considered thought. This is one of the reasons I warn college students not to write scripts about college students. They may have fresh, first-hand experience of what they’re writing about, but enough time hasn’t passed to give the story proper consideration.

But there’s more to this formula than the idea that you shouldn’t write about what happened just last weekend. Consider the number of people who sit down to write, but freeze up at the thought that they haven’t lived enough; that their personal experience is insufficient to have anything worth saying.

Look at that formula. A sense that you lack personal experience worth mining can be overcome through time and effort. That’s research. That’s writing and revising. Not every story needs to be about parachuting into occupied territory or barely surviving running with the bulls while hungover. A story about something small and relatable can have a refreshing perspective if the writer can take the time to discover a nuanced approach to the story’s telling.

And some things can’t be directly experienced. You aren’t going to have a chance to experience life on Earth in the year 3652. You weren’t a vampire in Victorian England. But the experiences you do have that can relate to those stories can be enhanced by consideration and time.

There are no set numbers attached to this formula suggesting that after x hours you’ll attain enlightenment, but it does pose a set of questions for a person looking to pursue a story idea:

What have I experienced that relates to this story?
What about those experiences have I examined, and how deeply?
How long have I been living with these experiences and thoughts?