Finish-it mode

A.K.A. when you're so close to the end of a draft, you don't have brain-space for much else...

As I write this post, I am about three chapters away from completing the first-draft of my adult rom-com. (Give or take an epilogue, which a lot of romance novels have, but which I’m not sure I can write…yet. There’s too much I need to fix about the rest of the book before I can settle on a final snapshot!)

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before that this is the first full-length novel I’ve written in almost a decade. And it’s not a short novel—I’m creeping up on 100,000 words! For comparison, my Class Critters chapter books are 10-11,000 words long. Mia Madison, CEO and its sequel are each around 40,000 words. The Thirteenth Circle is approximately 65,000 words in length—but I wrote it with a coauthor.

Suffice it to say, it’s been a long time since I attempted to tell a novel-length story, all on my own.

My motto for this first draft. (Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash)

In order to propel myself across the finish line without losing momentum, I have immersed myself in this manuscript over the past couple months. I am deep, deep inside this story.

When I’m deep inside a draft, I start to get very single-minded.

The closer I get to the end, the more single-minded I become.

Even when I’m not sitting at my desk, actively writing, I’m thinking about the manuscript. Daydreaming. Strategizing. Jotting down notes and ideas on my phone. Telling people about it, and absorbing their responses. Daydreaming some more.

No matter what else I’m doing, creative work is happening. I simply can’t help it.

And other stuff starts to fall by the wayside.

Recently, I’ve dropped a few balls in my personal life—and they were all balls I wouldn’t usually drop, were my brain fully engaged in anything other than finishing this manuscript. I mailed off some important documents…and forgot to include one thing, so the whole packet got sent back. I also accidentally had a package shipped to an old mailing address. And I left a key ingredient for one of this week’s dinner meals off of our grocery order.

None of those dropped balls turned out to be a huge deal. I fixed the documents issue and resent everything. I connected with a person currently living in our old apartment building and walked over to collect the errant package. I made the meal without that one ingredient, and it tasted fine.

But it’s a pattern. My brain is not excelling at “real life” right now. It’s too busy finishing my book.

Do you get like this—single-minded?

Where your brain can only hold so many ideas at once, and the more into your creative project you are, the less room you have for other considerations?

All of which to say, this week’s post is a short one…because I really, really, really want to get back to my book. My fingers are itching to pick up where I left off.

The sooner I get this draft done, the sooner I can revise it—and the sooner people can read it. Then it can go from my brain…to yours.

~Kathryn