Give Yourself Permission to Cross the Finish Line

Some weeks, it just seems like people are telling you to stop. Don’t bother working on that particular manuscript. No, really. No one ever sells in that genre until they have a track record someplace else. 

Don’t finish that query letter. Agents and editors are super slow to respond right now. It’s the pandemic. No one is sure what is going to sell or what to bring to print. That agent may not even be accepting queries by the time you finish. 

Just. 

Stop. 

My advice to you? Don’t stop working on your manuscript. Don’t stop working on your query. Stop discouraging yourself.  It is time to cross the finish line. 

Earlier this week, I was trying to get back into a fiction project. My plot hinges on a pandemic. It actually isn’t vital that there be a pandemic but my characters have to be forced to abandon their planet and journey into space. What if agents and editors don’t want anything more to do with a pandemic? Maybe it should be about food shortages, energy or water? Maybe a corrupt government is poisoning. . . 

“Mom!” I wasn’t discussing my plot with a fellow publishing professional but the Boy. The Boy is 22 and an engineering student. He’s my sounding board for all things technical like logistics and space travel and physics. (Un)fortunately, he comes with a full stack of opinions. 

“Mom, you already know how to plot it out with a pandemic, right? So write the book with a pandemic. You can always swap it out for a new disaster later on. But you can’t rewrite it until you write it.” Like I said, he is a person of many opinions. Irritatingly enough, in this case, he was also right. 

Far too often, we talk ourselves out of finishing whatever it is that we’re writing. The reasons that we come to a halt are many, but may include: 

• Hearing about a manuscript that sounds all too like the one you are writing. 
• Being told that this market particular market you are writing in is oversaturated.
• Reading that unpublished writers cannot break into the genre or format that encompasses your manuscript. 
• Learning that your top publisher has closed to all but agented manuscripts. 

And all of these things may be true. But you can’t sell your work if you don’t finish your pitch, your query, or your manuscript. 

That’s right. First you have to finish. So give yourself permission to write until you reach The End. There may be people telling you to stop, but who are you going to listen to? The nay-sayers or the people telling you to write? 

If you’re a writer, I think we both know which one it needs to be. See you at the finish line. 

--SueBE

Sue Bradford Edwards' is the author of over 27 books for young readers.  To find out more about her writing, visit her site and blog, One Writer's Journey.

The next session of her new course, Pitching, Querying and Submitting Your Work will begin on August 2, 2021).  Coping with rejection is one of the topics she will cover in this course.
Sue is also the instructor for  Research: Prepping to Write Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults (next session begins August 2, 2021) and Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults (next session begins  August 2, 2021). 

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7 comments drafting your work, finish, motivation, the end, writing goals

When Is a Piece of Writing Finished?

Photo Creative Commons via Pixabay

I've been contemplating a question for two weeks now. You see, it feels like the second we type "the end" (either literally or symbolically) to a story, essay, poem, or some piece of writing that it's actually finished and no more needs to be done with it. Of course, that isn't the case. Rewriting needs to be done as well as editing and assessing feedback you receive from other people. And reworking the story based on that feedback. And more revising. And so on and so on.

But when you've done all the rewriting you can, and all the editing you can, how do you know when the story is done? When does feedback become simply a matter of opinion? Sure, that one person thought your names were cliche and your plot line needed tightening, but several other people raved about that piece of writing you sent around. While we're all more inclined to believe the bad news about our writing rather than the good, at some point, we must put our pencils down a declare our work done.

But how do you know when that's the case? How do you know if you're done?

After Google searching this question myself I've realized the answer isn't clear. However, I did learn about a couple of methods you can try when assessing whether you've reached "the end" or not:

1) Give that piece of writing some space.

Whether you need a week or a month or longer, put space between you and that piece of writing. Giving yourself space helps you gain a fresh perspective and see flaws you missed before. Proof of this is when we go back to works from our youth and try to re-read them (don't forget - those stories you cringe at now were prized possessions in the days of your youth).

2) Show it to someone else.

Feedback is important and is also a pretty good gauge as to whether something is done or not. I find that when feedback leans more towards the positive and people have less and less negative to say that it may be a sign the story is ready to send out. Remember, you don't have to change everything people don't like about a story. Someone may not like something about what you wrote and you know what? They may just have to live with it.

3) Send it out.

I found this piece of advice on a blog post I found online and plan on taking it to heart - send out that piece of writing. No matter what your doubts are, your best gauge at figuring out if a piece of writing is finished is to start submitting it.

It's tempting to keep our works of writing in the "in progress" stage because we'll never have to face rejection if something isn't ever done. However, unless you only want to work on that one piece of writing for the rest of your life, you eventually need to let it go and call it done. Think of the bestsellers list. If you read every book on the bestsellers list right now, would you like all of those books? Would you have nothing bad to say? Likely there would be a few you wouldn't finish or ones you didn't like or some you weren't interested in. Does that mean these authors weren't done with their book? Nope. It's simply a matter of opinion at this point. Whether we like it or not, those books are done. And maybe your piece of writing is too (even if you can't accept it).

So, how do you determine if a piece of writing is done? 

Nicole Pyles is a writer and blogger. You can follow her on her writing journey on Twitter @BeingTheWriter or visit her blog TheWorldofMyImagination.blogspot.com. 

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5 comments finish, Nicole Pyles, writing advice

Queen of Multitasking

I'm writing this article, watching TV, talking on the phone and drinking my coffee. I've always done more than one thing at a time. I believe myself to be the Queen of Multitasking. In fact, it's hard for me to only do individual tasks. Just the other day I was scanning the aisles of Walmart, reading my shopping list and talking on the phone. To my friend I said, "Lettuce." She asked, "Let us what?"
People can't multitask very well, and when people say they can, they're deluding themselves," said neuroscientist Earl Miller. He said, "The brain is very good at deluding itself.
You're not paying attention to one or two things simultaneously, but switching between them very rapidly."
At a lab at the University of Michigan, researchers are using an MRI scanner to photograph test subjects' brains as they perform different tasks. Two red items were shown to the man, so his brain searched for which one was larger. Then the subject was shown a green item; the brain had to decide which item was more important. The MRI showed the brain pausing before responding. It had to store information about the red item and search for what information it had stored about green items before deciding to focus on the green. 

           Miller says, "Part of the brain that does this is called the "executive system." It's a bit like one of those cartoon conductors telling the orchestra: louder, softer, faster, slower. You come in here. You be quiet for a few measures."  
   


  Peter Bregman tells about a study which showed that people distracted by incoming email and phone calls saw a 10-point fall in their IQs. What's the impact of a 10-point drop? The same as losing a night of sleep. More than twice the effect of smoking marijuana.
Doing several things at once is a trick we play on ourselves, thinking we're getting more done. In reality, multitasking slows our productivity down by as much as 40%. We don't actually multitask. We switch-task, rapidly shifting from one thing to another, interrupting ourselves unproductively, and losing time in the process.
We need to learn to do one thing at a time. Otherwise, we are putting too much stress on our brains, and this keeps us from concentrating on what we are doing. If we devote more energy to doing the single task at hand, we will have more energy to finish that task. 
How not to multitask is a difficult task. Realization that you need to channel your focus is your beginning. It is better to set aside small chunks of time to work on a task then  to do several things at one time and not finishing any of them in a timely or efficient fashion.


Some multitasking is inevitable:

• Bouncing baby on your hip as you fix dinner.
• Yelling at kids while driving.
• Playing fetch with Fido while reading a novel.
• Tending to Farmville while talking (texting) on the phone. 

Multitasking is not thinking of one thing and doing another. My mind works out many plot problems while I'm sweeping the living room. Multitasking is doing one thing and then switching, to another task and then coming back to the first. 
To finish this blog, I turned off the TV and hung up the phone. I finished it in half the time it normally takes me to write a blog. I am less stressed—okay, I am still somewhat stressed—over the tasks that I need to accomplish before the day ends, but I feel good about my accomplishments so far today.
What multitasking chores do you do at the same time? How does this effect your writing? Would you have less stress if you concentrated on only one at a time?


Resources:
Photo Queen:  http://www.librarising.com
Photo Conductor: http://www.thestarpress.com

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11 comments blog, Cher'ley Grogg, chores, concentrate, finish, multitasking, queen, stress, switch, tasks, time, writing