Don't Quit Now...You're Almost There!

It’s a 90,000 word mountain. You’ll probably die on it. It’s going to be a looong climb and probably by the

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time you get to the top, you’ll be convinced that you hate this book and why did you spend so much time working on it, when you could have been eating ice cream and rollerblading in the park? (because we all know that is what a writer dreams of while doing the fast draft)

Yes, that’s probably the most melodramatic overview of writing the fast draft that you’ll probably ever read. *wink* But don’t we all have that feeling when we’re in the middle of a fast draft?

10,000 words is so much fun to hit. 20,000 is pretty awesome. But 30-40,000 is getting tougher. The burn is being felt in the back of your legs as you’re climbing up that mountain, grabbing at all the scrub brush you can get your hands on.

This is not the time to quit! Trust me! You’re almost half way through the book and yes the peak of the mountain is coming, but so are the doubts. Don’t believe those lies for a minute that you can’t write. You don’t know if you can write until you’ve finished this book and think of that accomplishment you’re aiming for.

So what are some suggestions for keeping that word count flowing?

Jumping jacks.

#1k1Hr on Facebook or Twitter.

Ice cream and a brownie.

Tall glass of water.

Timer to writer as much as you can in 15 minutes without one break to check anything on the internet.

Change of scenery.

Talk with a friend—writer or otherwise.

Stand up. Move away from the computer. Think about something else.

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Make a quick list of one or two reasons why you like to write.

Celebrate the word count you HAVE reached instead of bemoaning the count that you still need to make.

Lessen the word count load for just one day. Write half of your goal to give yourself a mental break.

THEN think about how awesome it’s going to feel that you’ve written another thousand words. That you’ve got yourself closer to saying you’ve finished another book.

It’s so hard to keep that momentum working on your behalf. It’s easy to put the book aside at that point when you’re just ready to be done. But this is not the time to quit!

And remember: you’re going to have the chance to go back through the book and laugh at all the fun lines you wrote on the spur on the moment or discover something new about your character you didn’t know before. This is the part called discovery.  So go discover your story. You can fix it all later. But this a time to have FUN. Play with the words. No one cares. No one else is going to see it. Jump in. Make a mess. 

You’re putting words on the page. Words that aren’t going to be written unless you put fingers to keyboard.

Are in the process of writing a new book? How far are you? 

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Casey Herringshaw is a homeschool graduate and has been writing since high school. She lives in rural Eastern Oregon in a town more densely populated with cows than people.