Finish Your Book with 3 Mindset Shifts
Photo by Unsplash
There’s a fantasy writers have.
You go away to a cabin in the woods or some beach house to write, have a life-changing experience (I’m looking at you Misery and As Good as It Gets) and come out on the other side, an instant hit. No prodding, delays or frustrating feedback.
Just pure gold.
Except it’s a lie.
When you attempt that weekend getaway or pay for a writer’s retreat, you leave with more cloudiness than you arrived with, and worse, you may have written a few pages the entire time.
At this rate, you’ll never finish your book.
But you don’t need to learn how to write. You just need some subtle mindset shifts to take your manuscript from half-down to complete, and it starts with the most vital step of all.
Treat It Like It’s Your Job
How many times have you said that you don’t have enough time to write? Or have you convinced yourself that you need to be hit by your muse to create quality pages?
Deep down, you know they’re lame excuses because you make time for Netflix binges or working out, so you don’t really have a reason why you’re not showing up.
And hey, there’s no judgement. We’ve all been there.
But want to finish your book? Well, you begin by showing up. Every day.
As my kindred-California spirit, Anne Lamott said in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions for Writing and Life:
“But how?" my students ask. "How do you actually do it?"
You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. So you sit down at, say, nine every morning, or ten every night. You put a piece of paper in the typewriter, or you turn on the computer and bring up the right file, and then you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child. You look at the ceiling, and over at the clock, yawn, and stare at the paper again. Then, with your fingers poised on the keyboard, you squint at an image that is forming in your mind — a scene, a locale, a character, whatever — and you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say above the other voices in your mind.”
Sure, it may not look like “work” every day, but you’ll write so much more than if you only waited until the weekends or those rare inspired days to write.
You’re a writer, so show up every day like it’s your job.
Don’t Judge Yourself
I used to believe that the first draft should be the only draft, so I would edit as I went — obsessing about every sentence and seeking perfection only made the writing process excruciatingly long.
That’s the telltale sign of a good writer, right?
But what I learned over the years is that while I thought I was just a diligent writer, I was super judgemental of my own work and terrified of anyone else’s opinion about it. What I was missing in my pursuit of “the best” was the writing process itself.
Being a writer is messy. And while there are frameworks you can use, there is no straight-line in your creativity.
Some days are better than others. Clarity comes at the tail-end of months of confusion. You don’t always see the full picture until you’ve stepped away from your work for a while.
So give yourself some grace. Allow yourself to write some really bad shit. You can improve on what’s on the page, but you can’t fix what’s not there.
Ask for Help
Writing is largely a solo act. One that’s incredibly personal and protected at all costs.
Until you want to write and finish a book. Writing poetry or blog posts is one thing, but a whole book? That’s an entirely different beast.
So, there’s no sense in wasting time — you need to hire a book coach.
Accountability and writing partners can only give you so much, but what you need is a partner who’s committed to seeing your project through to the end. This is the time when you need a champion of your work, but also someone who’s going to shoot you straight for the sake of your story.
