Have you ever had one of those weeks where you sit down for 1-2 hours everyday as you work through an edit ... but at the end of the day, you've hardly moved any further in the manuscript?
(The picture of the woman in the mud is NOT really me.)
I always email copies of my ms to myself, so I've got another copy out there (well, multiple copies actually). And in the subject line I note the page number, so I know where to begin in my next session. It was very discouraging this week as that number seemed to spend a lot of time lingering around page 71 (that 's out of 191 pages, single spaced with 1/2" margines). I wasn't wasting my time. I wasn't letting myself be distracted with the Internet. But getting past that dang page 71 felt like trying to walk through mud.
Yesterday the breakthrough finally came, and I've been flying ever since. I'm on page 108 now. Do you ever have situations like this come up? What do you do to help pull yourself past the mudhole?
Yes! Chapter 7 took two weeks to edit (granted, one of those weeks I was at LTUE)! Then the rest of the book fell together (more or less) in one week. So frustrating! I thought I'd never get done!
ReplyDeleteYou may think you've been stuck in the mud, but that story will be working its way through your mind.
ReplyDeleteYou are a writer. You are a woman. You are invincible!
Good for you! Sounds like you've made it through!I know what you mean about being stuck in the mud. That's where I am now and at approximately the same page, 71 or so. I'm slowly making my way through this chapter and looking forward to my breakthrough moment.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
I get like that and it usually goes two ways.
ReplyDelete1. I take notes/brainstorm and just muscle my way through.
2. (Like now) I don't write at all and just take a break.
I have no idea what determines the course, I just usually find myself in the middle of one or the other.
Yikes! It's happened to me too. My favorite trick is to get away from the computer for a while and do something creative that's not writing--like shooting photos. Sometimes it works.
ReplyDelete