Overwhelm

via Miss Aniela

I've read a quite few books and articles about writing, drafting, redrafting and finishing my manuscript. All inspiring, all packed with great advice and so on. And I was going great guns for about a year. I finished draft one and started work on draft two. Cutting back on all the rubbish (there was a lot of that), refining plot, developing characters...

Then I stopped.

I got busy. Life's varied and incessant demands for my attention have kept me away from my WIP. Oh yes and then I lost my laptop (who does that?). 

Now I'm in a place where I loath to even think about the novel. A year of my life is in it, but I can't bear to even look, because I'm afraid that laying eyes on it will unleash one of the two possibilities that I secretly fear... 

1. That it's a useless piece of trash. That there's no point in editing any further, that the story will never be what I want it to be.

2. (Perhaps a far worse fate) That it's not a useless piece of trash. That there is a point in editing it futher, that it can and will be what I want it to be if I give it disciplined focus and time.

Losing momentum is a difficult problem to come up against. You feel unstoppable when things are good, when you have good habits and your blazing a trail of righteous creativity. When you're not moving forward, the realisation that you are very very stoppable is incredibly painful.

So here I am working out how to restart the urgency to see this novel to the end (again). I have a feeling it will involve deep breathing and little steps and perhaps a little more writing...