It’s been another long, long journey full of highs and Loises, but over the course of a little more than six hallucinatory months, I’ve finished the first draft of book two. To give some perspective for anyone out there struggling to write, that’s an average of about 750 words per workday. On my best days, I got out about 1500 words and on my worst about 100.
I feel some relief having the most difficult portion completed, but even as I approached the end of this draft, multiple books in, I still felt anxiety sitting down to a blank page. It’s scary not knowing where you’re going next, but it’s also the place where a lot of the best ideas are found. There were many days that were agonizing, as I was unable to get into the right headspace. But almost without exception, after four hours trying to crack one paragraph, something would snap, and the words would start to flow. Part of what makes writing so hard is the incremental progress. It requires a certain degree of faith that your small daily effort will yield something worthy of all that accumulated time and struggle. One thing that helps is to remind myself that those six months are going to pass whether I put the work in or not, and the idea of not having taken full advantage of the time I have available to do the thing I really want to be doing scares the space hell out of me. I guess what I’m saying is, be afraid, be very afraid. But use that fear to propel rather than paralyze you. I’m going to work to update this page more regularly now that a little bit of the pressure is off. So, if you’re interested in the writing process, check back soon for more posts delving into the re-writing, editing, and self-publishing processes.
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