Progress Flagging on Your Novel? Try This

Picture this: You have been working on a novel for, say, five years or so...

You find your progress flagging, say, because you've got a bone-crushing day job that is sucking every ounce of pep out of you...

This happens just as you are ready bring that first draft in for a rocky, perhaps dangerous, yet invigorating landing...

You find an opening in one of your frenetic days...you're ready to start again...but where? You're lost.

My advice: Print the damn thing out. Invest $24 bucks in a new InkJet cartridge, line the chapters up, and click the Print button. I did, and I ended up with this:

Untitled - First Draft - Five Years In

I knew I'd been writing for a while, but I had no idea I'd produced that much. Even if half of it is complete crap (the realistic assumption for a first draft), I'm like, dude, you've got something substantial here, something with some heft to it...

Something worth sticking with for a while.