I am someone who suffers from anxiety thinking about the possibility of leaving much of what is floating in my head unwritten and what I want to accomplish with it unattained, whether because I am not good enough, life gets in the way or especially if tragedy strikes younger than usual. I imagine this same feeling of “what if I let myself down permanently?” follows others out there too or has at least occurred to some of you. How have you handled this concern if you’ve at all had to?
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Being unable to finish something is a natural occurence in life.
Losing focus on what is important though is extremely dangerous. There is a keen difference between being unable to finish a hobby project in ChoiceScript, and being unable to finish college.
The first one is inoffensive, a rite of passage…
The latter may affect your life and the life of the ones who depend on you.
The good news is that for both cases you can always look for support in your peers. This is a community after all, so. Let’s talk! 
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Yes and I agree with @Nahim_Kerman that it is natural. Most people struggle with the events of their life and how to address and roll with those events.
School work aside, I have never finished a project I have started. Probably against what anyone reading my WIP wants to read, I have failed to finish every major project I have started. Sometimes you just need the right push and support to get you through things. Writing has become therapeutic to me after suffering multiple life setbacks. This my push that has helped be get to being only a few months away from finishing and am about to hit another delay.
I still feel uneasy that I am not going to finish, but I have learned to turn that into focus. When you need help, turn towards support. We are a social species after all. 
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Afraid of never finishing?
Sad laugh Yes, I am… Constantly
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I didn’t finish any major writing project until I was 30 years old. But the unfinished ones were all good practice for the ones I eventually did finish.
I’m very mindful that I could die at any time, having lost a number of close friends from their 20s onward… so I do my best to hold achievements lightly, and consciously try to enjoy the journey as much as the endpoints.
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I struggle to even start writing anything because all that’s in my head is isolated ideas. Whether they’re characters, or scenes, or themes… they just exist with nothing connected. There’s no plotline. I can’t write anything coherent without a plot.
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I didn’t finish any major writing project until I was 30 years old. But the unfinished ones were all good practice for the ones I eventually did finish.
I think this is a very healthy mindset to take, similar to my own even if my anxiety is still ever present. I dropped a few projects before coming to this one. Finding my love for IF actually destroyed my inspiration to play DnD (DnD began to feel like an unpredictable form of IF where I constantly was put on the spot and the ‘readers’ actively absconded taking any interest in the many hours I spent building up the world or side characters in favour of trolling, that is how it began to feel to me anyway).
I think the intimidating part for me is knowing a bunch of scenes in my head but finding the sinews to connect them is the part I always feel little interest in doing. That always feels like the most work, and I worry I might run out of steam. At the end of the day, all we can do is care for ourselves and continue to write, though. Constantly fretting about the possibility of burnout or the like will service no one, if it comes then it comes. Surely, in time, we can find our love again or learn to love something new more than ever.
Even if I never finish my current WIP, I have found a very powerful passion, and I don’t think that will ever really be ‘turned back off’ now that it yet lives. In the process of releasing my first WIP I also learned and incredible amount about my own writing and weaknesses, and about the program itself, taking notes means I will be able to retain a lot of this even if I go on a break and return at some point in the future.
I don’t know if this was helpful, but it is my thoughts at any rate.
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Yes.
This is the mindset I try to keep as well. Every day I work on my writing, and that is how I fight the fears, insecurities and imposter syndrome.
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The craziest thing about life is indeed the uncertainty of it all. The more you think about it, the weaker your will to carry on, because anything really could happen at any moment and things do get in the way and serve as hazards and distractions.
I couldn’t say I’ve seen many things through, no, especially over the long term. I mean, I’m in the University (College) right now, but it certainly wasn’t my idea. Literally everything else I’ve done, I’ve quit. It’s kind of alarming, and it’s left me with a lot of underdeveloped skills, but it’s not happening randomly.
I’ve been a very anxious person myself even up to this point, realistic (pessimistic) thoughts have always been set to automatic in my mind, and one of the ones that recurs the most is the idea of safety and how very qustionable it is. This makes it hard to stay committed to anything.
I deal with it all, by just trying to focus on the not-so-negative, like what I’m good at (‘Planning’), what l like being around (Animals and Nature) and what I enjoy doing (Writing). It’s these things that add the all important light shade to life for me nowadays and with that I can push unsteadily forward.
I have a WIP I’m working on and I very much care about it so I intend to finish it. Thoughts of quiting come to me everyday, and I can’t stop seeing the things that I’m doing wrong and I don’t even have all the answers to them yet. When it’s eventually finished (hoping that day does come), there really is no telling if any one will genuinely enjoy it, there’s no certainty at all, that is except for my own sense of accomplishment, which I believe is good enough, at least for a start.
You’ve certainly been blessed with some clever thoughts that should be developed and put out there and you owe it to yourself to at least try to do just that. Begin however you want to, you decide the right way to do it because it’s your uniqueness at play here. Try your utmost best to get some gears rolling and don’t let your fears completely hold you down. That’s good enough in my book.
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I always struggle with motivation and inspiration, so yeah, I always worry about that when I start something. In my case, I need to be genuinely invested in something, otherwise I just won’t be able to force myself to do it - and that applies to writing and reading as well unfortunately D:
The important thing for me is not to burn out too quickly when I fixate on something.
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I try to write a couple hours a day. Theoretically, at that pace, I should be able to release one game a year and how can I be an impostor if I’m so prolific huh, huh?
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I have the same issue as you do regarding motivation and inspiration. If I don’t have that, I feel like I just lose my spark, and it’s extremely difficult for me to just push through the writer’s block until the spark is back. Definitely something I need to work on, but it’s difficult for certain.
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Definitely in one of these moments myself, been a while since I picked up the pen since I wrote up the first half of Chapter 2, I’m thinking of starting a secondary project to help get the ideas flowing. Might be a curse, but I figure that being in the act of writing anything is better than a state of stagnancy. Plus, I have a template to work from due to all the work I put into my primary project! 
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Terrified! I can’t imagine actually finishing one of my projects, and every day new story ideas come to mind and try to bully all my current projects out of the way. I wanted to finish TW by it’s one years anniversary but that’s never going to happen.
The worst part is that when I slip into a negative space I can’t even work on them and imagining not finishing them can push me into the negative, soooo. Yeah its an endless cycle with tiny bouts of productivity slipping in here and there.
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I recently finished pretty much the biggest thing I’ve ever written(not choicescript). It felt insurmountable so many times, but - and maybe this is just me - it kind of feels like it’s permanently changed me. After so many months doing nothing but chipping away at it, I have to be working at something or else I just feel so empty. Part of the reason I started writing an IF in the first place.
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Dominatrix Muse: Good, Good! or as someone said once: excellent!
Story idea 1: me! Write me! I’m SO much better than that story you are writing!
Story idea 2: No! Do me! Do me!
Story idea 3: Perv! Don’t listen to them! I’m the one! Pick me! Pick me!
Story idea 4: Urgh! Move it all of you losers! I’m the CHOSEN Story! Move move move!
Story idea 100: No! I have been coming here every day! Pick me! I’m tired of this lineup! I got mini-stories to pick from School!
Dominatrix Muse: Good! Good! Everything going according to plans!
Gentle Muse: Shush, how could you! Child, listen to me! Don’t pressure yourself by setting a date! It will be finished when it is finished. This Succubus-Muse thrive on-…
Dominatrix Muse: Hiss How dare you interfere! And who are you calling a Succubus?!
Gentle Muse: If the claws are sharps…you are it! 
Depression: Sigh Everything suck…my life, the world, me…did I mention I suck? Tired sigh yup…everything suck.
Unfinished Work: Yeah, what about us huh? We are still waiting!!! You promised!!
Depression: 
I know…I’m sorry, I just can’t…
Unfinished Work: Hey hey! Stop raining! Go to Dr.Phil if you wanna whine!
Gentle Muse: That’s heartless! Bitch-Slap Unfinished Work Meany! the lot of you!
Unfinished Work: Ow…hey! Stop that…we have rights!
Gentle Muse: No you don’t! Now be quiet! Dear Child, remember that you can only deal with one thing at a time. If you try to do everything, all you are doing is spreading yourself too thin. And when you are depressed, you are burning faster. Tell all these Smack Unfinished Work meany that you need a break and stick to it. This guilt is self Imposed! Nobody will hate you, the world will not end if you decide that taking care of yourself come first!
Unfinished Work: Boo… Boo…we come first-…Ow!
Gentle Muse: No! Now shoo.
okay, now that I’m done having fun lol
Listen: Your mind is yours. Do not let those thoughts take residence when they aren’t paying rent. Your brain is yours. I know it sounds dumb to say it, but you can tell them to take a hike. It takes practice, but one can silence those voices. Just be more stubborn than they are mean. Love your work like they are your children’s. Love them enough, that even those crappy thoughts that try to tear you down, won’t succeed.
And don’t put such limitations on yourself. It only add to your stress and writers are FRAGILE. Why add a ‘Due Date’ for? To push you to keep going? Thats just PRESSURE. Its a big gamble, because if you don’t meet the date or goal you set? guess what? You crash and burn. Leave it wide open. Free yourself from such things.
I know some peoples need those numbers lol but if you insist on needing the ‘I’m gonna finish my story by April!’, then convince yourself, make it a mantra 'It’s fine…if we don’t make it. At least, it was productive! Look how much I wrote! so what if we are in April? Hey…it was an April Joke! Got ya all thinking it be ready in April huh? Wait…we are in December? So what…? As long as I’m alive…I still can finish.
You can’t control things, even less how life roll. You can either roll with the punch, or get squashed. Roll with it. Less stress is the one thing writers and artist at large really need to learn to shed from themselves. Life is stressful plenty…we don’t need more STRESS from within ourselves.
Yeah I know, it isn’t easy to make the Dominatrix Succubus Muse shuttup. But sure like hell doesn’t like to be told to Shut up…half a win is better than none 
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Why the BDSM allegory? 
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because when my muse came to me when I was ready for a break after finishing a novel, she came back with 2 new ideas and made me write them. She earned the fucking Dominatrix Title 
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i’m almost constantly anxious about being unable to finish my work. you can see from my history of shelved and discontinued WIPs that i struggle terribly with seeing long-term projects to their conclusion, and it’s frustrating to have so little to show for months and months of labor.
but i love writing, so there’s nothing to it for me but to keep trying. but i have to remember to be nice to myself. making art will always be difficult, but it shouldn’t always be a protracted, internal battle.
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I can relate to it 
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