In Praise of Small Projects

I recently enjoyed a small project way more than I’d expected to. The kick of energy and enjoyment it brought has left me reflecting on the relative sizes of my efforts.

I believe I already do value small things. I’ve also long understood the importance of pausing frequently to celebrate accomplishments of all sizes. I’ve known that big projects brought with them, at least for my personality, the danger of malaise. I’ve needed to be intentional about creating smaller segments in those bigger projects, mid-way breaking points whose completion I could acknowledge and, yes, celebrate.

I’ve had a lot of help on this front. There’s a person in my life (who will remain nameless so the people I care about won’t dread me writing about them) who knows my favorite kinds of coffee and puts this knowledge to frequent use. If I mention reaching some mile marker, I’m given a celebratory gift of coffee. If I reference completing a really rough version of something that’s totally inadequate and in urgent need of revision, I’m given more good coffee. If I share that an industry professional has expressed interest in seeing some of my work, then you guessed it: celebratory coffee! 

That encouragement to pause and celebrate along the way has meant a lot. Those wondrous moments of looking at pieces of something – however small – and seeing them as done (or done enough for now) are definitely needful experiences for me. They can give perspective. They can bring a renewed resolve to continue. I’m sure they’re even causing an increase in endorphins.

And yet, for all the good of celebrating small accomplishments along the way, I still don’t think that recognizing those mid-way markers can compete with the thrill of full completion or the rush of relief that a wholly finished project brings. At least, for me. I’m tempted to call that wholly finished experience a form of euphoria. When I finished my first three novels (the Sacred Grounds series), that feeling of coming to the honest-to-goodness end of a story, of reaching a point of sharing that story with others, felt almost euphoric. 

I honestly wasn’t going for euphoria when I began writing my first novelette last year. I had much more practical reasons for coming up with that small project, wanting a shorter, more bite-sized introduction to my Sacred Grounds series’ world that I could offer as a gift to my newsletter subscribers. I was calling it Coincidentally Yours: A Sacred Grounds Novelette. I didn’t have much experience writing fiction of novelette length, so I considered it an experiment. I completely surprised myself with how much I loved writing a story that short. I could simply keep it in my head. I had no need of glancing at the outlines that usually organize my thinking during bigger fiction projects. The scope felt refreshing!

Having some of these thoughts along the way, I ended up working with the theme of big versus small things in the novelette, itself. I wrote a protagonist who starts out craving more for her life than the small-feeling tasks she’s been doing day in and day out. What can I say? It wasn’t only my own writing life that I was thinking about. With the horrible things coming out of Washington D.C. these days, I had front and center in my mind the vastness of how much work people of good conscience have to do and the uncertainty about how much difference any one person’s small efforts can make.

So, as I wrote, I was wanting small efforts to make a difference. Maybe that desire blossoming from my reflections on national and global dynamics bled over into my fiction writing life and focused my attention on the virtues of all the little things I saw crossing my desk.

In the modest case of my novelette, I finished it and noticed how it had taken a mere fraction of the time that a novel takes. Almost before I knew it, there was that bodily thrill at beholding something Done with a capital “D.” And whatever else it was, it was a story about someone pushing back against an abuse of power in her community. The finish felt especially energizing. The momentum even propelled my imagination into questions of what came next. I decided that in times of overwhelm especially, there’s something to be said for projects that create energy and momentum.

Again, in the modest case of my own writing, I had meant to focus my year’s fiction writing on the big project of drafting a fantasy novel. I have no intention of abandoning that project. Novel-length stories and the chance to work with characters who are growing and changing over that length of story fascinate me. This story, in particular, is also giving me a chance to explore power dynamics when religion and politics join together in destructive ways. I don’t see letting go of such larger efforts, but I am wondering what a little more balance might look like.

What if I bring in more smaller projects while I still have that big one on my desk? What if the smaller projects along the way prove to be energizing, motivating interludes rather than distracting interruptions?

We’ll see what I decide, but my bigger point is: I hadn’t known I needed to reevaluate my relationship with small things. I’m realizing now that I might.

What about you? What kind of relationship do you have with small projects? What role do big versus small things take in your own version balance?

No matter what you’re working on these days, I’m wishing you some enjoyably and meaningfully finished projects, too.