"I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work."
It's been a year now since I first started writing a novel.
I don't know if it's this milestone, or if it's the quote above that caught my eye recently, or if it's the crisp fall air, or maybe it's just the excessive caffeine I consumed today at Starbucks (what the heck do they put in their Pike Place Roast? I feel like my eyes are bugging out of my head). Anyway, something has certainly lit a fire under me. It's time to wrap this thing up.
I have a goal. I have a plan. And if all goes well, I will be finishing my second draft by mid-February. That might seem like a long time, but if you've ever attempted to write a novel, you know that one sentence can easily take a week or more.
Right now my manuscript is full of brackets. Inside the brackets are things like this: [improve this convo]; [take out some of this dialogue]; [describe his actions]; [make this better]; [transition]
Now, it is easy enough to to write [describe his actions], but it is much, much more difficult to actually describe his actions. But I'm at that point now. I need to sit down, start punching keys, and not get up until I have described his actions, or taken out some of the dialogue, or made it better (whatever that means).
My story has 33 chapters, and I'm almost at the end of the third chapter now. If I can finish chapter 3 by tonight, then I'll have ten chapters to complete per month, November through January, with part of February left for final editing. Then it's off to some new readers for feedback.
This means I'm going to have to write every day, at least a little bit. I'll have to focus. I'll have to tell my mind that it has got to get down to work. Wish me luck. My mind prefers to play.
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