If you opened the notebooks on my shelves, you'd find far more unfinished stories than finished ones.
Some exist as nothing more than a title scribbled in a notebook. Others have a chapter or two before they quietly lose their way. A few made it halfway through a manuscript before I realized they simply weren't ready, or perhaps I wasn't. And there they remain, tucked away on a shelf,
Every now and then I'll pull one down and read a few pages. Sometimes I'm surprised by a sentence I'd forgotten I'd written. Other times I quietly close the document and wonder what on earth I was thinking.
I used to believe an unfinished story was a failure. Now I think some stories simply ask us to wait. Perhaps they arrive before we've lived enough to understand them, missing one small piece that life hasn't handed us yet. Or perhaps they're teaching us something we'll only recognize years later, when we finally return with different eyes than the ones we had when we first began. Not every story is meant for today, and I've come to appreciate that.
There are ideas I've carried for years that remain exactly where I left them, patiently waiting without complaint. Every now and then one whispers just loudly enough to remind me it hasn't gone anywhere. I make a note, smile to myself, and place it back on the shelf. One day it might be time. Or maybe it won't.
I've made peace with the possibility that a few of those stories will never become novels. They may simply be stepping stones that led me somewhere else, and every page I wrote, even the ones no one will ever read, taught me something about the kind of writer I wanted to become. That doesn't make them wasted. It makes them part of the journey.
I think we put too much pressure on ourselves to finish everything we begin. Sometimes a story exists only to teach us how to write the next one a little more honestly, and once I stopped feeling guilty about the shelf, I started thinking of it instead as a quiet room full of possibilities. Some are still sleeping. Some have already served their purpose. And one or two are simply waiting for the right season to finally introduce themselves.
I'm in no hurry. The stories that belong to me have always found their way back.
Until next time, may you always find beauty in the quiet places where stories begin.
Warmly,
Sheridan Laine
