How many unfinished works do you have in your treasure box?

Hmmm, what an interesting topic. I love reading about other people's writerly ways and experiences with this stuff. I also love calling it a "treasure box." So much nicer than "trunk novel (/story)," hah.

I am actually kind of proud to say that I've finished at least the first draft of every novel I've ever attempted (some I realized were unsalveagable crap by the time I finished that first draft, so they didn't get revisions and painstaking editing). I do have many unfinished short stories that just didn't pan out. I don't even know how many, since I've kept everything I've written since I first got my own computer at age fifteen. Why I'm okay with unfinished shorts but not with novels, I don't know, especially since novels are so much more time-consuming and headache-inducing.

I did figure out at a young age that forcing myself to finish a novel would teach me tons, and that's held true. I'm sitting on a pile of seven "treasure box" manuscripts that will never be published, if I can help it. But they were like stepping stones, bringing me closer to that one-million-word goal that is said to mark the end of the "writer's apprenticeship period." And I learned how to actually plot through writing them, which... well, I'm much better off than when I started, let's put it that way.

Several.

I'm normally dedicated to a project for a year minimum. By then, if the characters haven't developed or the story hasn't fleshed out, i get bored and shelve it. At this moment, i have six stories i haven't finished. My seventh is going strong, so we'll see what happens.

Great thread - -

I have one in the "treasure chest." I made a print out of it awhile back, and there it sits on the table. Its nonfiction, and WAY too boring, but from it sprang the idea for my current project. I'd like to go back and finish the nonfiction piece. Its boring writing and full of boring facts, but I think my kids would like it if for no other reason than to know more about their father's strange life.

Laer Carroll said:

Every few weeks I get a new inspiration that I just MUST work on. Most often they are the first few pages or scenes for a novel. (I don't care to write shorter works.)

Often I quit there. The work no longer interests me.

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This sounds like me, lol.

For some reason I took a screenshot of some "deleted" ones.

Right now I'm working several different projects like an RPG with 4 friends (5+ years), a webcomic (not posted, and just to practice my art), a book with a friend x2, a solo game, and maybe a book.

Apparently being unable to finish projects - or jumping around is a good trait of Bipolar II. O_O

Two novels paused at around 10k words each; they're both sequels but I've been caught in another project for the last couple of years. Another novel that's based on a couple of short stories.

I eventually plan to get back to all three. I have a couple of others in very rough note stages, but I'll probably never get back to them. At least I'm drafting faster. My first novel took a decade to draft and the next two took five years each.

Laer Carroll said:

Every few weeks I get a new inspiration that I just MUST work on. Most often they are the first few pages or scenes for a novel. (I don't care to write shorter works.)

Often I quit there. The work no longer interests me. But I don't delete them from my archives (which is duplicated both online and offline in several media). Because I sometimes find weeks or months or even years later that one of them urges me to return to them, to work on them more. Several of my completed novels came from these set-aside works. Sometimes I use them as is, as the beginning or middle or even end of some book. Sometimes I use them much rewritten.

So I've come to think of my "trunked" works as treasure, the "trunk" as a treasure chest.

What about you? Do you have a similar system?

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Well . . . I think your treasure trunk House of Memory conceit is prettier than mine: I think of my initial stabs at starting a story or novel as collections of body parts that I suture together during a thunderstorm. But then I've always had a gothic sensibility, despite being the very model of a modern geek.

How many of them do I have at present?

Including feverishly dashed off first-three-sentences to fix an idea in amber for later revival as legitimate entries in the lists, I have-let me count them-oh MY-fourteen in various stages. These include one finished novel I'm revising, one finished novelette, a half-written novelette or novella (won't know 'til I'm done), and preliminary notes for at least two more novels. Most of the rest are short story drafts or sometimes just self-prompts. Finally, there is a collection of short stories and poems written-evidently a century ago-by my grandmother, discovered by my cousin, which I'm editing into publishable form when I find the time.

Denevius said:

My writing habit is a little different. I *almost* never start any piece of writing that I don't finish. I would say 93% of the time I hold true to this. For me, at least, this routine develops a mindset of completing what I started.

That small percentage I don't finish, I'm not sure what becomes of them. It's been a long time since I've done it.

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I'm envious of your disciplined mental habits! Mine are vastly more chaotic, which leads to lots of frantically-written notes to myself for projects I should return to when I'm able, and (so far) many fewer completed works. The funny thing is, in my day job I published a fair amount of original scientific research, and over the course of my career I've approached, if not 93%, better than 80% in completed research projects. A matter of judging in advance the odds that what I want to do actually lies within my powers, and the resources available to me.

I've been writing with some seriousness for vastly less time, and it shows.

I have too many roasts in the oven, as it were. (Yes, this is my alter ego speaking, and he is a carnivore). I have about a dozen unfinished novels, stories, sitting there, doing nothing. Right now I'm working on a first... or maybe it is second draft of a novel, and I'm also editing one for the umpteenth time. I had that one up on Amazon but I took it down (at least I hope it's down) and I don't know why I put it up there.

I actually have three novels I wrote back in the 80's that I couldn't get published. They're old enough that I think the wordstar files are on 3.5 inch floppies...

The thing is, that I'm not the same person I was when I wrote that stuff. They were all horror novels, and I don't have much interest in that genre anymore. But besides that, life has changed my perspective on so many things, that I would likely rewrite everything differently now.

So far I've managed to hold myself back from working on multiple novels at once. I've found that when I do that with my short stories I become super involved/inspired by the shiny new story and then - oh! Another shiny new idea! And then I abandon the old idea. I've managed to restrain myself enough to complete my first novel, but now I'm chomping at the bit to start my next novel idea.

I'm so glad you posted this! I love the idea of thinking of them as treasure's. I have many unfinished works, sadly I've never finished a work, but I'm hoping to change that. I've discovered a new author (new to me) and love her works so right now I'm reading more and not getting hung up on finishing. I just need to get scenes, chapters, idea's out of my head and on paper. I have a word document dedicated to sentences I like or thoughts in general. Thanks for sharing this

Maybe one story but I might tie it into my current WIP, because serial fiction tends to run long and have the space to do long arcs. I'm bad at coming up with ideas...

pbandj said:

So far I've managed to hold myself back from working on multiple novels at once. I've found that when I do that with my short stories I become super involved/inspired by the shiny new story and then - oh! Another shiny new idea! And then I abandon the old idea. I've managed to restrain myself enough to complete my first novel, but now I'm chomping at the bit to start my next novel idea.

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For me - I get so involved in the work that I get tunnel vision. I think about my MC, and the story, and the auxiliary characters.. I get to know them and they become people to me. Heck, I sometimes dream about my characters, and some of that ends up in the final work.

In DSOJ, the girlfriend of my MC gets murdered, and he goes after her killer. In their confrontation, the kills the murderer with a knife. The scene of that murder came from a dream, where he was repeatedly stabbing the killer, and was laughing at the same time.

Anyway...
I get so locked into my WIP that it's nearly impossible to get overly involved in something else; the most I can manage are short stories for my website.

Only about four half-finished works, but about fifty story ideas and a dozen books I planned out every chapter for. I keep telling myself I'll get round to them one day.

Just my current project which is a series. I've completed the first book in the series. It's received numerous rejections since I began the query process in late May. Took a year and a half to write, mostly because of travel and my social life. I'm retired; I'm supposed to be having fun. I've already spent most of my adult life working and accomplishing stuff. The current project is intended to be 3 to 4 books (if the thing shows any promise and the jury's still out on that), but could be more. At my age that ought to just about do it for treasure chest projects.

I don't have any unfinished projects in terms of abandoned ones, but that's because I've only been writing for one year. Give it time and I'm sure they'll accrue.

So far I've finished what I've started but again that doesn't mean much since I've only really had one project across that year, discounting short stories. Have started two more WIPs though.

I have four novels I'd consider officially in the trunk, though one may or may not be trying to get out. I have two novels I've finished in the last year, both of which I should be trying to find a publisher for (I don't know why I'm not) and I've got three (!) others on various burners.

I've undertaken two novel projects, and completed both. The first was a 70k YA genre book that I put up on Amazon. The second is a 120k adult genre novel that I intend to start throwing at prospective agents soon. I've started taking copious notes for a third genre novel more ambitious than the first two.

I wouldn't like leaving a project unfinished.

Oh boy, so many things are in the box... I tend to chase every new story idea that waves at me, and then keep on writing until the inspiration fizzles out. Then it sorta hangs out awkwardly on my desktop for forever. I am very bad at finishing things, although I finally sat my rear down and finished my first novella draft.

While I was learning, I finished three novels, all of which are secured locked in the trunk. By #3 I believe I was writing fairly well, but none of those books had a genre to speak of (maybe slice-of-life?) so I can't imagine recycling anything more than a character or theme here and there.

Since then, I've finished two thrillers and fully outlined/written sample chapters of maybe a half-dozen others. For each of the unfinished works, I've either gotten feedback from an agent/editor that some different idea of mine might be more desirable to traditional publishers, or reached that conclusion on my own, and so switched gears. Now that I've decided to go the self-pub route with one of my books (the more "go-go" thriller; the other, more upmarket, I still hope to put out traditionally), I've been revisiting the unfinished projects and feeling like a number of them are worthwhile.

So for me, the decision to go at least partially indie has been liberating. Hopefully less time hemming and hawing over the best way to snag and agent, and more time driving through to completion.

I've been writing since I was in third grade, and am partial to book-length ideas, so the amount of unfinished novels I have....*shudders* I went through a few years where I plotted out the entire story before I ever wrote a word down, so I have probably 15ish unfinished novels and another 10ish mostly finished but not written plots.

As for finished novels, I have four (well, five, if you count the fact that I wrote my first novel twice in a different POV and with a slightly different plot). Three are trunked (two with no hopes of return), and one is currently out to agents. I'd like to think I'll revisit some of my unfinished works and ideas, but you never know.

None actually. Five novels total. Three were never published, but they were finished. One on amazon, another will be there in November or December this year.

My process is to heavily outline Long works before committing to them. Lots of outlines discarded because they didn't have legs enough for a novel, or the plot went nowhere.

Short stories are less of a problem because, well, they're short.

Since we are talking treasure boxes and not locked in a trunk, I have one. It isn't intentionally stuck in the treasure box, but there due to life events. It is an epic fantasy and a friend who was a published author asked to read what I had so far and told me after he was finished to complete it and submit it, that it was so good I don't have to bother with lots of revisions. (Insane comment, that. But he was adamant he wasn't just saying it to make me feel good.)

But attached to it is the ending of my first marriage, the deaths of several friends and family including one by suicide, homelessness, illness--the list goes on. Every time I pick it back up and get going again, some tragedy hits and emotionally I can't write for a while and it gets set aside for later. When finished it will likely be the longest length of "in process" time for a book anyone has ever written. It is also the reason I am here at AW. I had a question I needed answered before I could complete a portion of it, found this website and never left. So, I know it isn't cursed.

And it will be finished. I suffered a computer crash and lost some of it. I have it printed out now, and hopefully will be able to reconstruct what was lost. It was 66k words and lost a bit over 10k or 33k--depending which recovery file I look at. (Is there any wonder I kept setting it aside?)

I will pick it back up after this current series I am working on is finished and published. If I live that long.

I have loads of story and poem ideas I also have in the treasure box. And one short story I started and set aside. That one I may never get back to as short stories really aren't my "thing".

I have four unfinished novels - all of them at 60K or more. Some, I lost the love for the story and abandoned. At least one (going from memory) is what I'd consider first-draft-done but I didn't like the story enough to do the very necessary revisions to get it to a "finished" state.

I have another novel that I'd considered finished and I got excited and sent it to agents after only very cursory edits. I got several requests, including a couple full requests, on it, but was ultimately rejected by all, most with comments about "voice." When I set it aside and then picked it up again a few months later, I realized I'd sent it around too soon. It desperately needs at least one round of deep revision, per the process that I know but somehow forgot for this one story. (I wrote the entire 80K first draft in 10 days. I've never been taken up with inspiration like that, and I got carried away thinking that there was something magical and special about this story. So I bypassed all of my usual critical thinking in assessing it.) After I finish my current WIP, I my go back to this one.

Two unfinished works about half way plot-wise. I stopped because the stories both stopped making sense and to fix them, it'd need a rewrite -- something I'm looking forward to doing. I plan to organize things before I write, but things also just come to me during the writing process that I can't ignore.