Motivation

I need to get my act together and finish writing my novel instead of spending my time watching foreign films, doing laundry, and thinking about finishing my novel.  To be honest, whenever I sit down to work on it, instead of writing toward its end, I spend hours re-reading and editing the 189 pages I've completed.

Which is an exercise in futility.

I need to stop obsessing over sentence structure, grammar and mechanics and focus on getting the words on the page.  I know where it's going, I know where it's been so why do I keep starting at the Prologue? I shouldn't line edit until it's finished - as a writer and as an English teacher, I know that.  I preach that to my own creative writing students but I fail to follow my own advice.

Let's face it - when I finally finish it, it's probably going to need heavy editing regardless if I spend hours line editing it as I go.  When I pass it on to friends for their first beginning-to-end read, because most of my friends are English teachers, they will no doubt take editing notes.  Those notes will feel like brutal attacks the first time I read them but will make the work better in the end - I know this.  And if the work ever makes it past the slush pile, a professional editor will make even more brutal edits; this is a fact.

So why am I wasting my time editing now?  Am I procrastinating?  Is it part of my obsessive compulsiveness?  Is it the curse of an English teacher who has spent the past 16 years editing student work for grammar and mechanics?

Who am I kidding - it's all of the above and therefore it's clear that I need a new approach.  And a  simple one, at that: from now on, when I sit down to work, I'm not going to open any documents labeled with its title.  Instead, I'm going to pick up right where I left off in the story and continue moving forward until I reach the end.

Sounds pretty easy, right?

Ha! It's been so long since I've written any new material, I'm not even sure where I left off.

Which means that I need to break my newly created rule and go back into my files to figure out where to begin again... but I promise to stay away from the Prologue! I'll just re-read Chapter 11 and I won't change a word!

Well, maybe one or two...