Progress? A Writer's Rant

Look at that mess...

I've been staring down the final chapters of my book for quite a while now. I've got it all outlined (for the most part) and I know exactly what I need to write. 

But I can't bring myself to write anything. 

I think I'm worrying about the fact that the denouement is somewhat long, which can be a complete turn-off for some readers. I love that word, by the way. Denouement. I took French for six years, so I tend to like saying the French loan words with my crappy French accent. It makes me laugh. 

All in all, I've taken way too long to edit this book. I wrote the first (horrible) draft over the span of six months, and that was with easily two months' worth of breaks thrown in the mix. Since then, I've been editing it for two years. TWO YEARS. Granted, during those two years I've completely rewritten the darn thing, so I guess that counts as much as writing a whole new book. 

This final rewrite has been difficult and miraculously easy all at the same time. About a month or two ago I had an eureka moment. By adding a new character and a certain background story, I had somehow managed to make all of those awkward edges smooth out and work perfectly. It was as if that little plot point had existed in the story all along, but I had just forgotten to write it in. Once I worked it into the existing manuscript, everything started flowing very nicely. It made me grin from ear to ear, it truly did. 

I've also done the very naughty thing of taking time out to outline the next book in the series. So there it is now, sitting on my hard drive and in my brain, trying to distract me from finishing the first book. I need to start thinking of it as the carrot on the end of the stick. "Now, now, half-witted author. You can start writing book two once you've finished book one."

I'm starting to feel myself drowning in doubt again, which does me no good. Every time I write a new draft, I start off thinking it's a billion times better than the last one, but then I slowly grow numb to its wonders and I begin to doubt the quality all over again. Will it catch the reader's interest? Is this scene thrilling? Are my characters likable? Blah blah blah. 

Oh, and another little seemingly insignificant thing that is bothering me? It's so short. Like, holy cow that might just be a novella short. This bothers me to no end because no one could ever accuse me of brevity when it comes to my writing. The reason why it is short is because I've made the decision to break the original novel up into three parts because the original was too long. Like, 200,000 words worth of too long. But here I have part one probably clocking in under 70k. What the heck...?

cover design © h.m.resch

I know I just need pick myself up by my bootstraps and soldier on and whatnot. If I plow through and just finish the darn thing, then I can make it pretty during the final editing stage. 

Either way, come hell or high water, this book will be published sometime in June. In the mean time I've pretty much figured out the cover. This is still a work in progress, but I don't expect it to change too much before the release. 

Sorry for the ranting. I don't have very many people I can talk to about my writing so sometimes it just spews out and I can't stop it. I hope to have a chapter or two up for perusal sometime soon. Keep checking back and thanks if you actually read this far! <3