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When the end's in sight

Cheryl's Musings: When the end's in sight

Cheryl's Musings

How to Thrive on the Writer's Road

Monday

When the end's in sight

I have an abominable time estimating how long a rewrite will take me. I think it's because the "real" writing seems like creating the story idea, plot structure, characters, setting, and so on inside my head. It always seems such a simple hop from there to a fully written manuscript.

And then, too, there's the problem that I always assume there are more hours in the day than actually exist. And the problem that I rarely have enough time that I have to stop writing from sheer exhaustion. It happens--but it's always a surprise to me.

But despite my troubles with time estimation, I'm nearing the end of rewriting Juggling the Keystone, a book upon which I'm resting quite a few hopes. As a writer, you can often tell when your writing takes a leap forward. This book is, I believe, a leap and a bound better than my previous manuscript, both in terms of plot structure and writing style. I've had several nibbles of interest from conferences. Now all that remains is to finish polishing and send it out. Sounds simple, right?

Simple and exciting and terrifying. I find it's hard to get started each day, because I'm a little afraid of finishing and sending this baby out into the real world. After all, I'm high on hope right now. If I send it out, I'll probably start hearing a few "no's", no matter how good it is.

This is an unexpected hurdle to cross, but I guess I'll get past it the same way as all the others: one step at a time. Happy writing, wherever your writing road take you today!

:) Cheryl

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4 Comments:

At December 1, 2008 at 11:41 AM , Blogger Unknown said...

Hey you,

Good luck with it. I had another rejection last week from someone who had expressed a lot of interest, which was disappointing. BTW, you really MUST read "The Hunger Games" by Susan Collins. You will like it.

Cheers,
Caryn
http://www.carynswark.wordpress.com

 
At December 1, 2008 at 1:00 PM , Blogger jenn said...

Cheryl,

What you wrote here completely resonates with me. I think we are at similar places, although I'm still doing some heavy duty revising and am not quite to the polishing stage like you are. But I feel the same way with having a lot of hopes for my current project based on both positive feedback and my own instincts about my writing. But with those hopes definitely come a bit of fear. For me, I often have to make a conscious effort to push passed that fear and focus on the story I want to tell, and not how it might be received by others. It's often a mental struggle.

Thank you for your words!
Jenn

 
At December 1, 2008 at 1:47 PM , Blogger Cheryl Reif said...

Hi Caryn! Hunger Games is definitely on my to-read list...I think it's on hold for me at the library. Thanks for the good luck wishes :).

 
At December 1, 2008 at 1:48 PM , Blogger Cheryl Reif said...

Hi Jenn, I'm so glad I'm not the only one! Writing brings all kinds of unexpected hurdles, doesn't it? ~C

 

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