I reached the midway point (40,000 words) of my dragon book’s first draft. When reaching that point, I was ecstatic and extremely proud of myself. And then nothing happened.
The draft is a mess, of course. It always is. My draft and I are staring at each other, daring someone to move. The book won’t write itself, so it must be me. I did take a break to outline the remaining 40,000 and add some more tension and structure, but now I’m struggling to get back into the flow.
It could be the same issue I encountered in the beginning of the draft: fear.
I’m doing far too much thinking and not enough writing. I know that, yet I have no way over, under, or around the mountain of frightening self doubt.
The amount of emotional labor a first draft requires is not spoken of enough. When writers first document the experiences of their characters, the goal is to make it realistic. To do so, we must go on these adventures with our characters, and it’s less enjoying a sword battle and more creating the reasons the sword is picked up in the first place.
I have no answers, no strategies, only a seed of motivation I’m trying to grow.
Arthropology 