Once upon a time, I found a clawfoot tub in a barn. Yes, really. One of those cast iron babies that makes you wonder how one thing could be so impossibly heavy. I'm not exactly a butterfly, and even I could only raise one end off the floor about two inches, then the curled edge felt like it was going to take my finger down to the bone.
So I had a debacle. Leave this possibly awesome, yet horribly disfigured and grotesquely heavy thing in the barn? Or, make it what it's supposed to be. I chose the hard route (I'm funny like that), and coughed up the money to have it refinished, then a coalition of kindly farmers came over and moved it into the house and up the Staircase of Fate for me. It was a struggle (on their part - not mine, I had firm instructions to just stand there), and three very big men said very bad words by the time it was said and done.
But now it's upstairs, in the newly redecorated bathroom (and I mean down to the studs) that is right around the corner from the Superfluous Banister. I don't have the money for the plumbing parts yet, but I know that once this baby is finished it'll be worth the investment of time and money, and other people's physical strength.
As writers, there are ideas in our heads like that. We've got ideas that we keep re-shelving, telling ourselves we're not good enough writers to tackle that one yet, or it's too sprawling we don't know where to begin. For me, it's a piece of historical fiction that I'm not sure I've got the research cajones to do right, or the time to invest to do that research in the first place.
But I think we need to face those big projects head on, tell ourselves it's worth the time, the effort, and the heavy lifting. We might get something beautiful out of it in the end.
What's your big project? Have you got something you don't trust yourself to write just yet?