If You Write It, They Will Read

I teach a couple of Adult Education writing classes in the area, and I am always hearing the same things. One statement jumps to mind as the one I hear the most often.

“I start writing, but never finish anything,” a student says with a sheepish shrug.

If I had a nickel for every time…well, you get the idea.

As I tell the students, you need to finish. You cannot keep starting and expect to have a completed novel to start marketing to agents and publishers, or an essay that never makes it to the editor’s mailbox. In my humble opinion, if you are sitting in any of my classes, you are already a writer. The question is will you ever be a published writer? The answer is a resounding no if you do not have anything to publish! Having something to publish depends upon what you write, and if you never finish what you have started to write, you will never be published. The end.

Does all of this sound obvious? Well, it is, but many writers must not have gotten the memo because they are still not completing their manuscripts. Each word leads to a sentence. Each sentence leads to a paragraph. Each paragraph leads to a page. ‘Get the idea?

Now, go write something and this time, finish it!