Tuesday Therapy: Just Keep Swimming

I’ve been slogging at two of the longest chapters in the novel in the past week, so today’s Tuesday Therapy is totally self-serving. Basically, I want to go back and edit the whole book thus far. I love rewriting, I love the editing stage, I love polishing, I love getting the phrases just so, and then, THEN, I like to move on.

But if I do that, the second half of the book will never get written. It will languish in rewrites until it dies. So, to make myself feel better about the draftiness of some of the draft, I am turning to the experts. And also to Dory from Finding Nemo.

“Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”
― Stephen King

Heinlein’s Rules for Writers

Rule One: You Must Write
Rule Two: Finish What Your Start
Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Don’t look back until you’ve written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in … the edit.”
― Will Self