Are Abandoned Projects a Sign of Creative Weakness?

Are Abandoned Projects a Sign of Creative Weakness?

From Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach by Ann Kroeker

March 25, 2026 · 12 min

About this episode

This episode explores the implications of abandoning creative projects and reframes the self-talk associated with it.

Are Abandoned Projects a Sign of Creative Weakness?Release Date: March 25, 2026 Writers I work with—and if I’m honest, I myself—launch multiple projects, enthusiastic about every idea. We open a document, give it a working title, tap out a few paragraphs with loads of energy. Like the squirrel, we scamper around the Internet or library doing research, gathering quotes and anecdotes to incorporate into this shiny new work-in-progress. A few days or weeks later, we abandon it, our sentences as sparse as the squirrel’s twigs up in that tree. The raw materials of a project—research, paragraphs, quotations—sit on our hard drive. Will we return to it and continue building or abandon it for projects with more potential? Often we do abandon the project and scamper off to start another one. Weeks or months later, we might open our Finder window or Google Drive and scroll through our archives, astonished to see so much unfinished business: half-drafted projects, a concept of a book, or the start of a post. We can feel like we’ve wasted our time and resources. Are we quitters? Are we creatively weak? Are we people who love to start things but get bogged down in the messy middle, throwing in…

Topics covered

  • creativity
  • writing
  • self-improvement
  • project management
  • psychology

Keywords

  • abandoned projects
  • creative weakness
  • unfinished business
  • self-talk
  • reframing

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Finder, Google Drive

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