This week’s guest post comes to us from Australian writer, Ashlee Scheuerman.
Writer Ashlee Scheuerman
Ashlee Scheuerman writes from her home in Western Australia, surrounded by her troop of cats. A fantasy, horror and romance author, when she’s not busy capturing dreams and putting them to paper, she also dishes out a fair share of artistry in jewelry. Ashlee loves reading, watching anime, travelling, things of a spiritual nature, and playing video games with her husband, while still finding time to knit/crochet/sew! Come visit and hear her current ramblings over at Something to Say . If she’s not there, Ashlee’s probably working on her custom-made jewelry at http://theDragonsHoard.bigcartel.com
Momentum (the best kind)
by Ashlee Scheuerman
You’re finished! The final draft is complete! You can call your Work In Progress just Work now! And damn, you’re excited. Maybe not excited enough to get over the crippling terror of sending the manuscript off to agents and editors, but you’re still hyped and that’s all that matters.
What do you do with that energy?
If you’re anything like me, you’ve got other projects waiting. Old stories that need a rewrite, new stories brewing in your mind, crazy ideas that you (normally a 200,000 word epic fantasy writer) will go on to write the next best-selling military action novel like all your favourite authors do! Okay, so maybe not that far, but there are definitely places to turn.
One of the greatest reasons to finish a project is the high you get from being able to stop and realise, it doesn’t need more work right now. You’re done. That story can be put aside, with no feelings of guilt, no nagging conscience threatening to destroy your self-esteem (“you never finish anything, blah blah blah”). It’s a crazy feeling. You’ve dedicated however much time to this piece, slaved over it and questioned every single word. You’ve killed your darlings (now 25% less words than when we started!). And honestly, at the end, you kind of got sick of it. All of it.
Hallelujah, praise the almighty pen, you can put it out of your mind.
Of course, that’s not to say you shouldn’t ship it off immediately. Now is the time to do it, when you’re invigorated and passionate about completing it. Wait too long, and you will start to find errors in your work. You always do, months or years later. Pretty much any author will tell you they don’t care much for their earlier stories. So rock it while it’s fresh, but embrace your new-found freedom.
It’s time to start that eight book novella set you’ve been musing over. It’s time to branch out into a new genre. It’s time to blog all over the blogospace, because you’re not tied down to finishing that one piece. Take that excitement, turn it on to something you haven’t been able to write while you were diligent and responsible and finished your other work. Use your momentum! Get out there and write!
