Nearing the End

Well, I'm within grasping distance of finishing the WIP, or at least the latest draft. I've had to drastically rework so much of it it's really a first draft in places. But as the End gets closer so my metaphorical pen seems to get heavier and I find myself struggling to put words down. I don't know why this is. Part of me thinks, it's just weariness from working on it relentlessly for the best part of a year. Another part of me throws up the old paranoid doubts: the plot doesn't work, the characters are too thin and nobody's going to buy this pile of cack so why are you wasting your time when the sun is shining?

I won't know if any or all of that is true until I return to it later, but I want to finish it just so I can put it to one side and write something else. Funny how the grass is always greener when you're up against it. Usually by now I have another idea bubbling away but not this time; I want to choose a really special project so I'm taking my time over it. Rereading bits of John Truby's Anatomy of Story, he emphasises the importance of finding a project that has resonance on a personal level - a story you have to tell. The choice of what to write about is far more important than any other choice, and I think that's true. My stories all seem to have a common thread of isolation and self-delusion. Perhaps I'm trying to tell myself something?

The Grass Is Always Greener

Why is it, when you're toiling away on a project just about anything else seems more attractive to you? It's one of life's cruel ironies that the thing you are closest to, be it your beloved spouse or your Work In Progress, is the thing whose flaws leap out at you in glorious technicolor. Or at least, that's what I tell myself when I've rewritten the same paragraph for the seventeenth time and still don't feel satisfied with it. Wouldn't it be nicer to ditch this steaming pile of ordure and start a clean fresh project which will not taunt me with its imperfections?

I'm in the middle of Revision Hell. It's a thankless job. Bits of it are quite exciting, but the line by line reworking is often very dull. My writer's brain is looking for kicks and ain't finding any so I start to long for Something Different, something shiny and sparkly, like the kid with his nose against the toy shop window. I get this every time. In the past I've tried writing a New Thing concurrently, but this time I'd quite like to get this revision finished so I don't want to divide my attention.

I know it'll get better if I keep going, but that doesn't stop those little distracting voices. This is rubbish. Here's a better idea. Wonder what's on the telly..?

The End: So near but so far...

I'm now about 77k words into my major revision and the End Is In Sight. It's looking like it'll end up about 85-90k. But here's the weird thing. I've got a lot of distractions at the moment; all of the family have been home for the past fortnight so never a minute's peace. But in spite of that I've managed to rattle through between 1000 and 2000 words a day. I've never been more motivated because I really want to get this puppy finished if only so I can lay down in a dark room and never type another word. But the more I really want it finished, the harder it seems to be to get down to it. I've noticed this before. The End becomes one magnet and I become the other, mutually repelling each other.

I don't understand this. But over the last two days I've cleaned and reorganised my kitchen - for the first time in six years - so something drastic is obviously going on. I suppose finishing it means I have to send it out and perhaps I'm happier in limbo, wondering what Might Have Been?

Ah well. I'm not about to succumb to this tendency, you'll be relieved to hear. It just makes the process that bit harder.