If you’re anything like me, you will have the beginning of hundreds of stories planned, written and scrapped. This is a habit I started in Year 6 of primary school and continue to this day. So how do you get to the end of your manuscript? Here’s how to get motivated and finish that novel!
The messy first draft
I’m a huge fan of the hideously messy first draft. I first encountered this when I did NaNoWriMo for the first time and at the end of the month had 50,000 very ropey words. But two years later and several rounds of editing and that novel is now out on submission. At the end of the day, you can’t edit a blank page, so keep writing, word after word – as you might keep running a marathon, one step at a time – and get to the finish line.
500 words a day
There’s something achievable about 500 words a day. I started a project last year called #noveloneaphone and aimed to write 500 words a day on my phone. I got to over 20,000 words before I was desperate to move it onto a computer and really attack the story. But the fact remains that my current work in progress started life as only 500 words a day. To make it work – and I should preface this by saying I’m a planner – I wrote an outline on my phone which I converted to story each time I sat down. The good thing about 500 words a day is that it’s really hard not to achieve this, even if you’re in a rut. And often, you will find you surpass that figure easily. Soon, you will find yourself with a finished work!
The Pomodoro Technique
The famous Pomodoro technique is an alternative to the 500 words a day. Instead of a word count target, you aim for 25 minutes with a 5 minute break in between if you are going to continue into a second session of 25 minutes. A short span of time like this feels manageable and so you are more likely to sit down and open your laptop. When I first started writing, I committed to an hour a day of furthering my writing and editing career. Sometimes that was writing, other times it was a plot walk, or tinkering with my website. However you use that time, ring-fencing it is important. And if you’re trying to complete a novel, you might be able to write anywhere between 500 and 1500 words in that time, which means 80,000 words will arrive in no time!
If you’re at a real standstill, I might be able to help. I offer manuscript assessments and editing services for all steps in the process. If you’d like to find out more, please feel free to browse my website or contact me for more information, a sample edit or a quote.
Happy writing!
