Last week I started headlong into an attempt to write my first novel. This is not my first time trying to write novel, but another attempt to finish one. I suspect this isn’t an uncommon problem. It seems to be an enormous leap of faith to write something ~80,000 words long. You have to set aside that time, in the first place. And then what if it isn’t good enough, what did you do with all that time? I think in every past attempt I reached about 25k words and said, where exactly am I? This isn’t going to get read and then I will have an 80k time sink in my hands.
I think such worries never leave. But in other areas of my life I have been able to push through worries of failure. It’s that old cliché that lack of trying guarantees failure. Each time I try, I try to do it a little different. This time I wrote it first as a short story. Then I outlined it at a rough level. As I go I outline the next part in more detail. So far it seems to be working for me. I got to figure out who my characters were in the short story. I’ve also been trying to set more realistic writing goals. I used to write as much as possible on a day that felt good. That would leave me tired and sick of writing the next few days. Then when I’d come back, the material would be unfamiliar, and I’d spend time trying to pull myself back into the mindset.
It’s still early, but this time feels better and different. I just reached 8,000 words. The idea that I have 90% or so still remaining is really daunting. Each day will help. And really, what better to do than work to improve?
Some other possibly helpful posts, since what do I know… I keep quitting each time (I thought there used to be a related articles function, but it isn’t showing itself… so I’ll link them myself):
Vironevaeh 