Oh the middle…  That’s where I am right now.  I should be writing Eryn’s Tale but I am writing this blog post as a bit of self therapy.  I am currently 72,090 words out of a novel that I expect to be about 90k.  I’m almost there as I tend to write about 1200 words per day but I am currently at the point of pain, self-doubt, and fear that this story is just terrible.  This is normal for me but this middle seems to be a bit harder to work through than normal.  And magically always aligns with a bad review or a drop in sales of my previous books.

There are a ton of quotes out there like the one I have posted here about how hard writing is by famous people and I think like many others, I look to these quotes for inspiration.  But I don’t believe I ever truly understood them.

I often hear from others that they struggle with beginnings or endings.  I do not suffer from this.  I think about the beginning and the ending of the book before I even start.  Those are the two inciting incidents that cause me to write in the first place.  But dealing with the middle is just pure torture for me.

If anyone is reading this who writes I’m sure you deal with a similar part of your writing.  I feel for you and you are not alone.  The only solution is to write through the pain.  And I think the realization of that is how I truly began to understand those quotes.  How they became more than just memes to laugh at and became a theme to live by.  Just like a sports injury or a bad day at work.  Play through it, it’ll get better.

So, I guess that means I have to get back to the writing!

-c