It’s all fun and game until you reach the 2/3 point.
Don’t worry. Everyone feels this way. Seriously. The first 20,000 words, you feel like…I’ll just say it, you feel like a genius. No one has ever written a book like yours before. No one has ever had words come so easy. You wake up early because you can’t wait to start writing. You laugh at all your jokes. You cry at all the right places. You pass the halfway point. And then…is that a new series on Netflix? Weren’t you supposed to call your mom back? Or go shopping for groceries? Or file your fingernails?
It feels, all of a sudden, like your novel is going to be a novella. There’s not enough stuff there. And then it feels like it’s just…dumb. Like the characters are cliché and the plot is too plot-y or maybe even too dull. And you feel stupid for thinking it could turn into anything at all. It’s just that…even a logarithm could do a better job of screwing up the great American novel than you.
Is this where you get off? You can still be a writer even if you decide this story just isn’t your thing. Or maybe this is where you buckle down and finish and become an author. Here’s a secret: about three days after you commit yourself to finishing, you’re going to realize that there’s actually way more to write than you have words. You wanted to make 50,000? You’re going to need at least 70,000 to do justice to this thing. And on the fourth day, you’re back in it. It’s not like starting out, it’s not euphoria you’re feeling; it’s the determination of a workman. You’ve hit the wall, you dismantled it, you’re almost there. Honest.