Writers: How to Finish Every Manuscript You Start
The most-important writing lesson I’ve ever learned.
The unfinished manuscript sat too long. I’d spent months writing it — feverishly. There was so much passion and care in those pages. I knew every angle of the story. I was invested. I had written thousands of words per day, writing at a breakneck pace to get the thing done and shipped… so I could start the next book. And improve my craft a little more. My desk was strewn with little bits of paper. Notebooks covered every bare surface.
But I made one cardinal mistake. I walked away from the story too long.
At first I took a day. Then two. Then six months passed and I had no idea I was away from the story so long. The manuscript called me from the shelf. The guilt was with me all the time. I thought about picking it up and finishing the thing every. single. day. But I couldn’t force myself to look at the manuscript anymore.
Once I lost the momentum to finish, the story felt insurmountable to pick up again. Something deep in my brain, probably my limbic system pumping the brakes, looking for an easy way out — the lazy way out.
To cope with the anxiety of the unfinished book, I’d start more manuscripts. I wrote five I’ll never finish. Five times I repeated the same, manic process of finishing paralysis.
