The Plot Bunny Farm

Otherwise known as, why quit when you’re behind?

No, really. If you haven’t reached your goal yet, and you quit, you’ll never reach it.

Perseverance is the art of creating a goal and focusing on it — either on the long-term goal or on each step you need to take along the way — until you’ve reached it.

Sometimes, the goal is something like making it through another week. Sometimes, it’s writing a novel. Sometimes, it’s running a race, learning a new language, or raising a child.

Perseverance gets us through. Take it one day at a time, one step at a time — in my case, literally. Perseverance helped me relearn to walk, more than once. Perseverance is helping me relearn to run. Perseverance keeps me going.

What have you persevered at recently?

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

Some of you might remember that, in November, I really struggled to make my word count for NaNoWriMo. Although I did manage -- barely -- it was by shameless padding. I wrote authorial notes, I wrote other notes having nothing to do with the story, and I stuck a short story in the middle of the book. I took all that stuff out afterward and was left shy of 37k, and even that includes some outline notes about what's supposed to go where.

I wrote a bit more on it during January -- 2,250 words, but got caught up on other projects in February, like getting my mystery ready to submit, working on crits, and planning Sundered Sword. Meanwhile, I notice more zombie books being sold, and I start to worry that I'm going to finish up Jim Bob and his zombie coonhound too late, that everyone will be tired of them by the time my manuscript is ready.

I did what anyone who knows me would expect me to do: I set a ridiculous goal to try to finish Jim Bob up during March. I wrote 28k on him during the last week of November -- a couple of 20k weeks (or even 4 10k weeks) ought to be doable. I joined Book-in-a-Week and set my goal for March 1-8 as 70 pages (that's 17,500 words). I managed 2,500 words on the first, 50 on the second, and nothing since.

Love the characters, still like the idea, but I can't get excited about the writing. On the one hand, I know that doesn't make any difference. Words I have to drag out read just as well as those that just flow. On the other hand, when I'm not excited, and I keep putting off doing the writing but telling myself I ought to do it, I wind up procrastinating everything in my life. This is not a good thing.

I do want to get it written. I have way too many unfinished manuscripts on my to-do list, and as I said, the appeal for this particular one may have a limited lifespan. But trying to force myself isn't working. Thus, I'm trying a different tack, I think. I'm going to go for 100 words a day on the story. Maybe at some point, it'll take off. Maybe some days, I'll write 200, 500, or even 1,000 words. But the goal is to just plug away at it for now. I'll revisit the goal at the end of April/beginning of May to check on how I'm doing and decide whether I need to change my approach. At that point, I expect to be over 47k. We'll see how this goes.

(Yes, I am aware that if I keep the goal at 100 words per day indefinitely, it will take me over a year to complete the book -- 14 months, give or take. At this point, that's still faster than the rate at which I have been working.)

I know I didn't invent the problem of not being motivated to work on a specific story; I'd be surprised if every writer doesn't face it from time to time. How do you deal with it? Work on something else? Push through the block? Stop writing for a while? Go for a walk? Something I haven't thought of?