DNF

Last week I started talking about the major points that stood out from Rae Carson’s keynote at Sirens Conference in October. This post, I want to talk about the second one.

Rae mentioned how she loved to start things. She would start stories and never finish them. She would start numerous craft projects–and not finish them. Something new and shiny would always come around and grab her attention. While on one hand, this is a sign that she is a really creative person, it told of something else: she had practiced giving up throughout her whole life.

The DNF (did not finish) pattern made her give up time and time again.

So when she was writing, the first lesson she learned was one of the hardest: she had to practice commitment. Just because she had stopped before finishing time and time again, she had to learn to push through to the end, even if she didn’t think it was perfect. After all, perfect is the enemy of good. And good is the enemy of done.

To paraphrase, what she said after hit me the hardest after overcoming this DNF obstacle that had ruled her life: “Obstacles are not walls. They are not impassable. You will still learn. You will still throw words out by the bucket. But you will still be moving forward.”

A timely post for the end push of NaNoWriMo. Do the thing! Finish the story.

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