One of the major setbacks I’ve encountered in completing a novel was not the time, nor the right story to tell, but making sure the story keeps up with how I think and how I see life and what’s going on around me. I have started numerous stories that people actually liked a lot and after reding bits and parts of them, they kept nagging me to write some more. At a certain point, I’d stop, as the words I had written were no longer connected to me. Something had changed, the story did not interest me anymore, so why should it interest others.

When it comes to fiction, it’s not as it is with non-fiction pieces, that I write regardless of a personal connection. I don’t have to be in sync with a software product (OK, my computer might need to ) to be able to write a description, a tag line or a story about the problem it solves. Yet fiction is somehow more demanding. You have to believe in the story you’re asking others to experience.

What’s the way out of this cycle of starting and abandoning stories when life seems to be going faster than my writing?

• stick to parts of the original story and use it in a different scenario. The lore behind the characters making the stories might very well be the same, it needs no changing and can definitely be recycled
• try writing short stories instead or write extremely fast???
• start writing in calm periods of my life, which lack entirely
• get over it, it’s just self-destructing and my inner critic should definitely take a break from time to time
• value more what others (the intended readers) think about the story over my momentary whims which leads to the prior point of getting over it

Have you ever outgrown one of your stories in the maken or felt like it was no longer worth being told? How did you get back to it or did you abandon it completely and started fresh?