“My wife told me I should quit my job so I can finish my novel,” my friend confessed to me. “She's convinced it can sell a lot of books.”
“How much of your manuscript is finished?” I asked—surprised that my friend was a burgeoning writer.
“It’s all up here,” he said, pointing to his head.
“You have a lo-o-o-o-ng way to go,” I told him.
Finishing a manuscript is hard. Really hard. So how can you finish it before the end of the year?
What Is The Biggest Obstacle To Finishing Your Manuscript?
In my experience, the biggest deterrent to finishing a manuscript isn’t the lack of organization or know-how, it’s the lack of discipline.
(And don't tell me your biggest obstacle is busyness. We all live according to our priorities.)
A better word for this is “procrastination.”
Especially at the beginning, every book idea seems overwhelming. How on earth are you going to finish it?
In 2016, I found myself pulled into the U.S. presidential election, ghostwriting a book for one of the candidate’s fathers. The publisher hired me to write 70,000 words in seven weeks. Up to that point, I had never written even half the number of words in that amount of time. If I didn’t hit the deadline, however, the publisher would assess a $300 a day late penalty.
Ouch!
To be honest, I was initially so overwhelmed that I wanted to procrastinate on the book. Just put it off in hopes that the book would write itself.
How Did I Overcome the Biggest Obstacle?
Here’s what I did instead…
I developed a timeline.
I started with the deadline and worked my way backward, calculating the number of words a week I needed to write.
That was easy to figure out: 10,000 words a week.
Then I decided I wanted to hit the goal in five days a week and save Saturday mornings for editing and catching up.
That meant I needed to write 2,000 words a day. Still a hefty workload.
Then I outlined the book, chapter by chapter. Fortunately, the author had already done a fairly good job of putting that together. Thirteen chapters plus an Introduction.
After that, on an Excel spreadsheet, I plotted out the chapters, average chapter word count, cumulative word count, and target dates.
At the end of this article, I’ll give you the link to the Excel spreadsheet I used.
Then I went to work. From 8 am to 8 pm, five days a week, I glued myself to my office chair and researched, wrote, and emailed my copy to the author. On Saturday mornings, I tidied up all the loose ends and then spent Sundays in recovery.
Then rinse and repeat.
To my amazement, I beat the deadline by four or five days. One of my best writing performances, to be sure.
Here's How You Can Finish Your Manuscript By The End of 20019
How do you finish your book when no one cares whether or not you finish it? Here are some suggestions.
- Establish a reasonable timeline.
Without a deadline, the writers perish.
Read the previous sentence one more time.
Without a deadline, you will never finish your manuscript. That’s the reality.
Determine your target manuscript word count and then a reasonable amount of words you can write per week. Then extrapolate how much time it’s going to take to finish your manuscript.
- Schedule your writing times around your bodily rhythms
When I started out as a freelance writer, I noticed that I was most alert between 5 am and 7 am every morning. So that’s when I wrote. Then off to work I went. Karen Bouchard is most effective between midnight and 3 am. Everyone is wired differently.
If I feel a burst of creativity at some point in the day, I push everything aside so I can write. An hour of creative energy is worth four or five hours of writing on a normal day. If your creative burst hits while you’re at your day job, take notes. Oftentimes, those little reminders can fire up that creative engine later in the day or early the next morning.
Just make sure you free yourself from distractions during your scheduled writing time. When I was in grad school, I studied between 9 pm and midnight, after my 18 month old daughter was in bed.
- Follow your schedule—even if you don’t feel like it.
Countless times, the last thing I wanted to do was work on my manuscript. I was tired, didn’t feel creative, struggled focusing. Still, I decided to sit down behind my computer and start writing.
Then something strange happened. Almost every time. After sleepwalking into my manuscript, I suddenly woke up and off I went. Some of my best writing occurred when I didn’t feel like writing.
Just do it!
A few other nuggets…
- Talk about your deadlines to your friends. Putting your deadline out there will inevitably prompt your friends to ask you how your manuscript is progressing.
- Ask someone to hold you accountable. A writing buddy is always good for lighting a fire under your seat.
- Schedule an important deadline that requires your manuscript to be done. Scheduling a group presentation about the contents of your book or even how you finished it will help motivate you to finish it.
Many Illumify authors sign a publishing agreement with us before they finish their manuscripts because they know it will motivate them to finish it.
- Reward yourself for every deadline you hit. Everybody needs incentives along the way. Tell yourself that after you finish the next chapter, you can indulge in a fun-size Snickers or a sip from your favorite beverage. Or maybe you can go on a walk. Whatever motivates you to hit the next deadline.
- Hire a coach. You know why therapists charge an arm and a leg to spend an hour with them? Obviously, they want to make a living—but they also know that when you’re paying $100+ an hour, you’re more motivated to do your work. The same applies to book coaching.
Don’t leave that book idea unfinished or imprisoned in your head. You can break through the barriers of procrastination and finally finish it.
If you need a pep talk or have some questions about next steps in publishing, feel free to contact us.
Schedule an appointment with Mike Klassen by clicking here.
Schedule an appointment with Karen Bouchard by clicking here.
You can download the spreadsheet I use by clicking here. This link will be available for only a week.
Happy Writing!
Michael J. Klassen
