3 Tips To Help When You Want To Give Up (The Messy Middle) When Writing A Book -

I’m sitting here in my PJs in my office. It’s a rainy, dark morning, great for sipping coffee in bed with blankets and a book. Did I mention I’m recovering from COVID-19? After a week, I’m still achy and have to rest more than I’d like. But instead of resting this morning, I’m plunking away at my computer. It’s the perfect time to write this.

Because some days we just want to give up on writing that book. On everything actually, crawl back into bed and just sleep for a few years. I get it. I’d like to do that today.

When we first begin our author journey, it’s exciting. We own our identity as a writer. We proclaim it to the world, or at least to our family and friends. Although some of them roll their eyes, we persist. We set up office spaces, and buy cute coffee mugs, new laptops, planners, and gel pens. The enthusiasm for our new projects propels us into the freshly painted offices where we plop down into the office chair we refinished with our own hands and we write.

We pour out our souls out onto paper at the crack of dawn for weeks, or months, and then we hit a dry spell or something happens in our household. The washer breaks, the kids get sick, and we lose the excitement of writing. It seems as if there are more important things like running out to grab some kid’s fever reducer, helping the neighbor, serving at church, and/or doing laundry.

Writing is a solitary task

Writing is a solitary task. It’s not “public like a frog” (Emily Dickinson). You may even get the feeling that because people can’t SEE what you’re doing, that you aren’t doing anything of value. Yikes. I sometimes get stuck in that mindset and then I try to go out and do all the things.

I’ve got one foot in one of those traps right now, it’s about to close around my ankle. You see I’ve been quietly building this writing business, writing a book, podcasting, and reaching out to serve and help other writers. Plus, I have another website – Trauma-Informed Parenting where I aspire to help parents find more peace in their parenting. Both of these endeavors are behind closed doors, at home, not in public where people can SEE what I’m doing. Yes, people listen to the podcast, read the articles, download the helpful pdfs I send out, and follow me on social media. But because I’m not out on a stage, or showing up in your local bookstore on a book tour, it can be difficult to measure the effectiveness of the message. It’s really not, but that’s what I tell myself sometimes.

Writing a book takes determination and grit

The truth is – writing a book is an endeavor that takes determination and grit, especially in the messy middle. Those times when a friend asks you for the umpteenth time, “How’s that book coming?”

Or you’re sitting at your desk, your shoulders hurt, you need more coffee, and you’d rather just watch HGTV.
Next thing you know, you’re scrolling through Instagram to see if anyone liked your latest post. An hour later, you’re still scrolling and you pack it in for the day.
You leave your office wondering if this writing gig is for you.
Maybe you should volunteer for that thing your friend texted you about.
Next thing you know, you’re filling up your schedule with “good” things and your book sits on a virtual bookshelf, half-finished.
You tell yourself, this just wasn’t the time. Or you have more important things to do right now.
Slowly you convince yourself you shouldn’t write a book.
Or worse you just fill up your schedule with so many “good” activities that you tell yourself the lie that there isn’t time.

3 practices you can put into place if you’re in the messy middle

Reward yourself for small victories. Your victories could be:

Setting aside time to write consistently for a week.
You picked a theme for your book.
Telling friends and family you are a writer.
Writing a complete chapter
Creating the timeline of your life
Created a mindmap to brainstorm your book

Reward yourself in the way that YOU need to be rewarded.

If you need words of affirmation, then say some to yourself.
Or seek out a friend or your spouse to encourage you.
Go out for coffee.
Go for a hike.
Listen to a podcast.
Whatever fills your tank so you can continue, do that!

Stay consistent. Even if this means one day you write 500 words instead of your intended 1500, you still stayed consistent. You wrote. Make sure you have a designated time and space to write. I know this is a tough one when you are raising little kiddos, but the power of habit trumps the draining issue of decision fatigue every time.

When you fill your schedule up with immediate needs such as making dinner, doing laundry, or telling yourself you need to check your email/social media first thing in the morning, you are letting your schedule direct you instead of you directing it.

Here’s a simple example, I naturally get up early between 5 and 6 am. As I’ve said before, I do bible study and then sit down to write. My husband has a weird work schedule so some mornings, he needs some extra sleep after working late (I’m in bed between 8:30 and 9). This morning he woke when I was heading to my desk to write. Of course, I needed to alter my plan a bit – I struggle with being flexible. So we talked about an upcoming work trip he had, some house projects, and budgets. All the things that couples talk about over coffee. The problem is, I chatted too long. I kept sensing I should get going. And I waited and sipped another cold half cup of coffee. Then he stood, and said, “I’m going to play golf.” Just like that.

I suddenly felt like I had sacrificed my writing time to chat longer and he was abandoning me. If I look at the situation through the lens of responsibility and ownership. He owned his plan. I didn’t. While I don’t think we should be blatantly rude to our spouses or family, we should own our time (as much as possible).

Set a schedule and stick to it

It’s our responsibility to set a schedule and stick to it. We owe to ourselves to live out our purpose. We will have obstacles such as wanting to chat too long over coffee or something more serious – our computer dying. We must be prepared for obstacles. Some people say Murphy’s law is true- anything that can go wrong will go wrong. I say it’s more complicated than that – any time you set out to do some powerful purposeful creative endeavor to put out into the world, you will have opposition.

Gay (name author of The Big Leap) calls this an upper-limit problem. The Bible says – you are not only wrestling with flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). We are in a wrestling match – with either humans, (ourselves included), or spiritual forces of wickedness who don’t want anything good birthed into the world. Be prepared to wrestle. Set your mind that you’re not going to quit no matter what.

Years ago, I decided to write my first tween novel, and my computer died. I had this great idea and I didn’t want to lose it. I bought a manual typewriter (which cost much less than a new computer) and typed the entire book. I hope that doesn’t happen to you. But, be assured something will happen. The obstacle is not a SIGN that you should quit. That sign is that you are on the right path and you shouldn’t quit.

Don’t commit to anything new during the season of writing your book. If friends comment that you aren’t showing up or you should do this/that, tell them the truth. Writing the book is your main commitment right now. As humans, sometimes we assume we can just keep adding commitments to our plates and it will be okay. Then we end up frazzled, burning the candle at both ends, stressed, and sick, then we give up.

Ruth Soukup says “balance is overrated” which I think is another way of saying – stay laser focused. You can’t do everything well, You can do one thing well. Another thought to add – don’t feel you have to do something because it sounds good.

Bonus Tip – Don’t waste your time trying to get other people to understand. Period. Your book. Your life. Your schedule. Just as a friend may say to you – I can’t do that today because I need to take my kids to soccer and visit my mom. It’s okay for you to say, I can’t go out to lunch because I’m busy. Maybe you need to write. Research. Or maybe you just need some time to chill and recover from the writing you’ve already done. It’s okay to say no for no good reason as well.

We sometimes get the attitude that we must suffer for our dreams and in some aspects we do. But what if we took responsibility for our lives and our schedules and owned our identity as a writer? We didn’t apologize for it. Instead, we rejoiced in it. We enjoyed writing. If you don’t enjoy writing, maybe writing a book isn’t for you. With that said, I don’t enjoy every moment or process of writing. I do get lost in it. I lose track of time. I think I’ve been writing for a few minutes and it’s an hour.

My EPIC revelation.

When I claimed my identity as a writer, left limiting beliefs behind, and made writing a priority – I wrote 9 books, two drafts, and two half drafts in five years. As I filled in my timeline, I said, HOLY CRAP, I write fast.

My writing journey has had pit stops, full stops, fear-driven full stops, and other people’s opinions have stopped me all together. You’ll have some pit stops on your journey as well, including some rest stops. None of these stops should be permanent. Fear keeps us paralyzed and says STOP! STOP! STOP! Faith says Go! Even if you don’t know the outcome. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the title, the deed, of things not seen, and the conviction of their reality. When You step out in faith to write a book, envision the writer you want to become. Envision the book in your hands and in the hands of your readers. How will you feel?

Or the opposite, imagine being five years down the road and you haven’t started yet. How will that feel?

To recap, here’s the problem we solved:

I shared three practices you can put into place if you are in the messy middle.

One. Reward yourself for small victories. Reward yourself in the way that YOU need to be rewarded. If you need words of affirmation, say them to yourself. Journal them out.

Two. Stay consistent. Even if this means one day you write 500 words instead of your intended 1500, you still stayed consistent. It’s our responsibility to set a schedule and stick to it. We owe to ourselves to live out our purpose.

Three. Don’t commit to anything new during the season of writing your book. Writing the book is your main commitment right now.

Bonus Tip. Don’t waste your time trying to get other people to understand. Period. Your book. Your life. Your schedule.

Conclusion

Everyone gets stuck in the messy middle while writing a book. I have a huge three-ring binder with my latest novel – The Dead Lake: A Kat Thriller/Mystery – in it collecting dust in my office. I need to do that final push to finish my revisions so I can move on to editing. Last weekend, I had a quarterly planning session with myself and put – the final revisions, editing, and pre-read team on the schedule. It’s time to move out of the messy middle and cross the finish line. Are you stuck in the messy middle? Try the suggestions in the article and move forward! Don’t stay stuck!

Other Helpful Resources:

3 Reasons You Should Write Your Nonfiction Book Today

3 Tips To Motivate You to Write

Three Truths About Discouragement in Your Author Journey