Make Masterpieces in Pieces (Tips to Finish Your Projects)

STASH: Creative cheat codes to help you bring your ideas to life 🔥

Author

nowayjermaine
April 07, 2025

Hey Past-me,

Do you have...piles of unfinished projects? 😭

Ya, me too...

My problem? I'd get started on a great idea, hate how it's turning out, then start over again...and again...and again.

I'd maybe run out of time one day. Lose steam another. Then the days go by, maybe even weeks, losing motivation altogether.

After over a decade of creating, I've found that the secret is in the "pieces".

In today's newsletter, I'll give you 3 ways to generate momentum and finish the damn thing!

[ ESTIMATED_READTIME: 3 minutes and 30 seconds ]

In the box 📦

  • 3 Process Tips: Legos, Drafts, + Signature Moves

  • 2 Perfect Examples: Hercules + Jurassic Park

  • 1 Public Gem: Little Things

3 Process Tips

🧱 1. Chop Epics into Lego Bricks

  • Deconstruct your idea into atomic steps: “Outline story” → “assemble mood board” → “design character.”

  • Chain each brick with a micro-skill.

  • Rebuild the bricks into a scaffolded workflow.

📝 2. Draft to Discover

  • Create the "ugly first pass" in 20 minutes. (Sketch with crayon, record a voice note)

  • Identify one gap between draft and vision (I need to sharpen my anatomy.)

  • Learn only that skill. Rebuild. Repeat.

🕺 3. Steal Your Signature Moves

  • Audit past work for recurring motifs: Always using cliffhangers? Good. Another!

  • Map those strengths to new projects

  • Amplify one signature move to compensate for skill gaps.

2 Perfect Examples

💪 Hercules

Animated movies are no small feat. Hercules took five years from concept to completion. So, how do you turn an Epic Greek Mythology into a Classic Disney Animated Musical?

Hercules stole from its own Disney playbook to complete its herculean task, but shook it up to inject some new DNA to create a new classic.

🦖 Jurassic Park

"It still holds up." = Most common quote about this film. Leveraging tools from his cinematic past allowed Spielberg to create a groundbreaking and timeless film.

Yup. Still holds up.

1 Public Gem

Don't beat yourself up. Great work takes time.

🧩 Remember this: A masterpiece is still made in pieces.

You'll get to a point when making feels like breathing. But you can only get there by finishing project after project. So don't be precious with every single one. Don't judge so much you can't move. Learn something with each one. Try just one new thing with the next, not a thousand (not yet.) Just keep moving forward. Bit by bit.

Take your time. Process will become intuition. For now, just worry about getting those reps in.

You'll be making masterpieces in no time. Just don't forget to enjoy the journey along the way. Don't forget why we do this.

It's supposed to be fun. 🙃 Ha.  Hahaha... (FUN?! IS THIS A JOKE TO YOU???)

Anyway, that’s it for the stash this week.

Hope you found something useful.

Talk to you soon,

—Future-you

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