Saturday, July 7, 2012

Confession of a Slacker

This week I wrote nothing despite being within two chapters of finishing my work in progress. Oh, I edited some chapters, and I critiqued other people’s writing for the fantasy and science fiction marathon. My work in progress has arrived at the big climax scene. It should have been a priority. Instead I made excuses.
It’s a holiday week. It’s too hot. (Three days of record high temperatures.) No exercise outside makes my head too foggy for good writing. The kids need my attention. All true, of course. Truth didn’t exactly make me feel any less guilty. So I decided I’ll start tomorrow. Unfortunately, that was Thursday and two more tomorrows have gone by. The guilt load increases.
I really want to get the manuscript finished. To be finished means editing and being able to send off to beta readers. It means getting closer to querying agents and getting those rejection letters. No matter how good you are the rejections will still outnumber the requests.
Perhaps I secretly don’t want to finish. Horrors!  Stalling out of fear?
Perhaps I don’t think the finished product will measure up to my vision. Crap. More fear stuff.
Perhaps I just gave myself permission to take a break, to slack a little. Maybe you can’t rush inspiration. Hmmm.  Let’s go with that.
 I’ll start tomorrow. 

2 comments:

  1. I always seem to slack off at the end, maybe for the same reasons you've listed. I think the ending shouldn't be rushed. You'll write it once you're mentally prepared to let the story go. I've found forcing it leads to subconscious sabotaging, like forgetting to save and losing the last chapter. Yup, it took months to recover from that blip.

    Tomorrow, tomorrow, it's only a day away......

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  2. No doubt it has something to do with letting go of the characters too. Your characters are part of yourself which makes the ending harder.

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