Mid-Manuscript Crisis
The middle of a manuscript is a whole lot like the middle of life. Things start to sag. My mother-in-law told me once that her 40s were the most difficult decade and then things got better again after fifty. I joke that it's because making it up and over the peak of the hill is a lot more difficult than rolling down the other side.
Writing is the same way. At the moment, I am at the halfway point of two manuscripts. They were both going so well as I pushed them up the mountain, and I even think I know where they're going to land at the other side. Making it over that summit, though, had been a discouraging endeavor.
It's sagging big time. If these manuscript were boobs, they'd be knocking on my knees right about now. Still, it isn't quite time for enhancement surgery yet. That all comes later, when you can look back on the whole of it and see where the nips and tucks should be performed.
In midlife, we look back over our lives and think "wow, that was stupid" or "yeah, that worked" , etc. And the middle of a manuscript is much like that, too. I'm at this point where I'm thinking "This is pretty darn stupid. I need to go back and redo it." The thing is, it probably isn't as stupid as it looks in the fortieth time I've read it. This is not the time to wallow in your regrets, just keep pushing it along, over that hill, until you reach the end. Then, unlike in life, revisions can be made.
Mid-manuscript crisis, like mid-life crisis can be misleading or educating. My philosophy for pushing through my crisis without much enhancement surgery is to ask myself this question: Is it really better for your boobs to hit you in the eyes instead of the knees?
At the end of my life and the end of my manuscript, I will have the right answer. For now, I've got a snowball to push up a hill.
Writing is the same way. At the moment, I am at the halfway point of two manuscripts. They were both going so well as I pushed them up the mountain, and I even think I know where they're going to land at the other side. Making it over that summit, though, had been a discouraging endeavor.
It's sagging big time. If these manuscript were boobs, they'd be knocking on my knees right about now. Still, it isn't quite time for enhancement surgery yet. That all comes later, when you can look back on the whole of it and see where the nips and tucks should be performed.
In midlife, we look back over our lives and think "wow, that was stupid" or "yeah, that worked" , etc. And the middle of a manuscript is much like that, too. I'm at this point where I'm thinking "This is pretty darn stupid. I need to go back and redo it." The thing is, it probably isn't as stupid as it looks in the fortieth time I've read it. This is not the time to wallow in your regrets, just keep pushing it along, over that hill, until you reach the end. Then, unlike in life, revisions can be made.
Mid-manuscript crisis, like mid-life crisis can be misleading or educating. My philosophy for pushing through my crisis without much enhancement surgery is to ask myself this question: Is it really better for your boobs to hit you in the eyes instead of the knees?
At the end of my life and the end of my manuscript, I will have the right answer. For now, I've got a snowball to push up a hill.
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