LISA!
Don't celebrate at 10k. Celebrating at 10k, for me, always guarantees I don't finish a novel.
Because 10k feels magnificent. 10k feels like you've finally gotten past the hard part. 10k feels like you're in this for the long run.
10k is a liar.
The first 10k, you're introducing your characters. You're setting up the conflict. You're excited by the novel, and though it's tough, you know where it's going.
Then you get to the next 10k. Which, you tell yourself, won't be as hard. You're past that lousy beginning part, right? Wrong. Now your characters are starting to think for themselves. They've reached the rebellious teens. You're no longer writing them, they're writing themselves, and just like with teenagers, you can't let them run amok or they'll self-destruct, but you can't keep them trapped on a narrow path. You're reaching the worst part of the book to read and to write: you're no longer at the beginning, when everything is brilliant and new, but you haven't gotten to the middle, when everything's starting to come together and you're racing to the climax. This is usually the part of the book requiring the most editing, and the only way to truly write it is to sit down, ask your characters what they want to do, and modify your plans for them. Write crazy, and write true, and hit 20k before you start feeling accomplished.
Don't quite get it? Here's an example: in my first outline of Mad As A Hatter, when Corwin couldn't find anything out about the murders the honorable way, he turned to... less honorable sources. When I reached that part, though, Corwin would not let me write it. At first, I was mad at him. I wanted him to have a dark side, to challenge what he should be. And then he told me why. He told me that he was just as determined, just as cunning, and just as angry as his enemies. The one thing that separated them was, he said, his unwillingness to go against his values. He would not be a hypocrite: he would rather die than lose himself in a search for justice, because justice without morals is no different than vengeance.
And so I let him do what he wanted to do, and I let the others characters do what they wanted to do, and every night I wrote 2k-3k words, no matter what, and in a week I reached 25k. That weekend, I wrote the next 25k in a mad frenzy.
The only other novel I've finished, The Rain Legacy, I wrote in a week of horrible strep throat using the same technique.
Almost every other novel has had me cheering at 10k. And none of those ever got much further than that.
Don't celebrate at 10k. Celebrating at 10k, for me, always guarantees I don't finish a novel.
Because 10k feels magnificent. 10k feels like you've finally gotten past the hard part. 10k feels like you're in this for the long run.
10k is a liar.
The first 10k, you're introducing your characters. You're setting up the conflict. You're excited by the novel, and though it's tough, you know where it's going.
Then you get to the next 10k. Which, you tell yourself, won't be as hard. You're past that lousy beginning part, right? Wrong. Now your characters are starting to think for themselves. They've reached the rebellious teens. You're no longer writing them, they're writing themselves, and just like with teenagers, you can't let them run amok or they'll self-destruct, but you can't keep them trapped on a narrow path. You're reaching the worst part of the book to read and to write: you're no longer at the beginning, when everything is brilliant and new, but you haven't gotten to the middle, when everything's starting to come together and you're racing to the climax. This is usually the part of the book requiring the most editing, and the only way to truly write it is to sit down, ask your characters what they want to do, and modify your plans for them. Write crazy, and write true, and hit 20k before you start feeling accomplished.
Don't quite get it? Here's an example: in my first outline of Mad As A Hatter, when Corwin couldn't find anything out about the murders the honorable way, he turned to... less honorable sources. When I reached that part, though, Corwin would not let me write it. At first, I was mad at him. I wanted him to have a dark side, to challenge what he should be. And then he told me why. He told me that he was just as determined, just as cunning, and just as angry as his enemies. The one thing that separated them was, he said, his unwillingness to go against his values. He would not be a hypocrite: he would rather die than lose himself in a search for justice, because justice without morals is no different than vengeance.
And so I let him do what he wanted to do, and I let the others characters do what they wanted to do, and every night I wrote 2k-3k words, no matter what, and in a week I reached 25k. That weekend, I wrote the next 25k in a mad frenzy.
The only other novel I've finished, The Rain Legacy, I wrote in a week of horrible strep throat using the same technique.
Almost every other novel has had me cheering at 10k. And none of those ever got much further than that.
