Erin Lodes

The title of this post comes from a thing John (my amazing writing coach) told me to do. When I failed at writing my final three chapters, the biggest thing John told me I hadn’t done was continue to confront my uncomfortable emotions.

Most of my novel (and maybe all novels?) sits in the space of uncomfortable emotions. Either it is uncomfortable for the character, for the reader, or — more likely — both. Which means it was either extremely uncomfortable or terribly delightful for me to write. There was never really much of an in-between for the really emotional moments.

And maybe I was tired and drained and I didn’t have any spoons left to give for this book at the time I was trying to write those three chapters. Or maybe I wasn’t ready to confront those exact uncomfortable emotions inside myself in order to get them onto the page. Or, more likely, it was some combination of all of the above.

But I had to finish this book. If I never write another book again in my entire life, I had to finish this book.

So I did what John said.

Well, first I took a day off.

Then I started back up bright and early with the #5amwritersclub except this time I went back to a notebook. I got my cup of tea and my notebook and I didn’t worry about scene structure or blocking or anything that I could put in later. I just worried about the heart of the chapters, the heart of the end to Kara’s story.

I confronted all of my uncomfortable emotions. I sat in them. I marinated in them. I went deep enough into them that it got hard to breathe but not quite so far that I couldn’t kick my way back to the surface. I teased out the different threads and followed them as far as they went. I tangled and untangled them. I turned them over to see their dark and dirty undersides. I forced them into the light.

And let me tell you, that part wasn’t easy. It took a lot of writing things that it hurt to write, a lot of writing things that it hurt to imagine people who love me reading. But I did it anyway.

And after I had gotten back into the writing groove, I went back to my computer and I typed them all out. I put all these little heart-pieces in with setting and timing and dialogue and I made them make sense together. I shifted them all around a million times until it felt like they were in the right order. I went through each chapter over and over and over again, adding some things, taking other things away. Until it was right. And let me tell you, that part wasn’t easy either. But I did it anyway.

My final three chapters turned into my final six chapters.

My mid-August deadline became mid-September.

But I finished.

It was hard. It was uncomfortable. It was so much more than uncomfortable.

But I finished.

And now I am facing one more revision, one more clean-up-tighten-up-pretty-up pass before I join the hoards of writers facing rejection at the hands of the traditional publishing industry. And I will tell you what, I cannot wait.

No matter what happens now, I have accomplished something. I have finished this story, this very important story I wanted to tell.

And it feels so good to have finished.

How I Finished My Novel is going to be an ongoing blog series detailing how I finish this freaking thing. I know, I know, you could probably tell that from the title… I’m being helped along on this journey by John Adamus, who is amazing and you’ll hear a lot about him in this blog series.

If you haven’t already, check out Part One and start from the beginning.