I am better at starting projects than I am at finishing projects. This is a fact of life. I really learned this lesson when I took shop in high school. I had a whole semester to finish my project. My project was going to be a book shelf. Nothing fancy. A basic bookshelf made out of cherry wood. It had three shelves and a top shelf and was about four feet tall and two feet wide. (Approximate guess.)
I was excited when I started the project. It was going to be great. The worst part about shop was having to share the equipment. If I needed to use the saw to cut the shelves, I had to wait. Or if I needed to use the plainer, again, I had to wait. This waiting was really no the problem, it was more of an inconvenience. It slowed me down but it was not the real problem.
The real problem was, I hate sanding. Sanding is manual labor and it is slow and tedious. Slow and tedious are words that I would use to describe learning how to be patient. Patience and fifteen year old boys are not compatible.. I am still learning how to be patient. it is a life long process and I still struggle with it.
How did my book shelf turn out? Terrible. I had to rush to get it finished before the semester was over. I was adding the finish to it just before school was out for the summer. I don't know what I did wrong, but the finish never dried. It was always sticky. Books and papers would stick to the shelf. Needless to say, my book shelf was not on display in the living room. It was hidden upstairs in a hallway where no one would notice it. Mom asked me if I wanted it? I told her I would pass. I think it got sold when they sold the farm at the auction. I bet it is still sticky.
I have lots of songs that I have started. Some of them might be a title, or a couple lines of a verse to go along with the title. Others might be a chorus that I really like but no verse. Or maybe lyrics that I co-wrote with a friend that I never added a melody or music to it. Last month I finished a song that Captain Dave and I wrote the lyrics to. It was called Samantha's pillow cries.
This month, I worked on adding music and melody to another song we wrote together. It is called Four more years. I sent both songs to NSAI to get them evaluated. Both of them need tweaking to make them more commercial. So I am still not finished with them but at least, they are now finished songs that need tweaking instead of lyrics on a page without a melody.
Maybe you are like me also. The hardest part is getting started the second time. The enthusiasm has faded and it is time to go to work. As you work on it, you get excited about where it is going. Hopefully, this excitement will carry you through till the end of the project, if not finish it anyway. My new motto is Finish what you start. I hope this helps you to finish some of your projects too.