Struggling: Redux

This sum­mer we are re-run­ning my most-read blogs from the past year, in case you did­n’t have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to read them the first time around. I’ve rewrit­ten each one of these, so even if you’ve read them before, you may wish to read them again! Here is the tenth of those articles:

I am work­ing on a new book—and I am strug­gling. Giv­en the fact that I’ve pub­lished some eighty books, it may sur­prise some that I am hav­ing a hard time. Let me sug­gest why.

1. Every book is a new book, and the suc­cess of one, though pre­sum­ably it gives con­fi­dence to write anoth­er, that is not nec­es­sar­i­ly so. A writer’s con­fi­dence is, at best, frag­ile. A nasty remark on Goodreads can kill a day’s work. Let past suc­cess give me patience for my cur­rent failure.
2. One of the pit­falls of a new book is my contract—if I have one. A con­tract will spec­i­fy the total word count—say six­ty thou­sand words. But there on my screen, the PC is always count­ing and it reads “2,465 words.” The psy­cho­log­i­cal ten­den­cy, then, is to write more words than I need. That clogs up my writ­ing, and makes it ver­bose. It feels as if I am writ­ing bad­ly. I am.
3. I agreed to write such and such a book, with such and such a plot, and I made a good pitch. But a pitch is not a book. There is many a slip between pitch and book.
4. Reminder: talk as lit­tle about my book as pos­si­ble. It box­es me in. Silence is free­dom. A talked book becomes an unwrit­ten book.
5. Some­times as I write, I see a pos­si­bil­i­ty for a shift in the sto­ry. But I promised some­thing else. Reminder to self: go with the shift, with what feels right. The one per­son I should talk to is my editor.
6. Reminder: Beware the book that is focused on place, rather than char­ac­ters. Trav­el books are about places. Fic­tion is about characters.
7. Reminder: Pro­fes­sion­al writ­ers get paid for their work, and I depend on that income to live. Get it done! rever­ber­ates in my head. The rent is due. That cre­ates anoth­er kind of pres­sure, one that may be real but that doesn’t help my writing.
8. Reminder: Good writ­ing is re-writ­ing, end­less re-writ­ing. Patience is a key com­po­nent of writing.
9. Reminder: Nev­er deny your deep­est instincts about your own work. But be open to those instincts.
10. Reminder: Read good writ­ing by oth­ers. Good writ­ing is gen­er­ous.  Oth­er writ­ers will show the way.
11. Reminder: Slow­ly (if not sure­ly) it will get done.