Needless to say, these past few years have been tough. There were times when I just didn’t have the heart to continue writing, or I made excuses about how tired I was, or busy, or there was something more important that required my attention, or I just needed to relax, or, or, or…
But here’s the thing I’ve realized about my writing. When I don’t write, I get antsy. When I don’t sit and hunker down and push through until I have something tangible to look back at—when I go longer and longer stretches without writing, the anxiety builds, and yet I fight it more.
Until I finally make the time. I commit to a session—good, bad or ugly, and hammer something out. (I read somewhere, “you can edit shitty writing, you can’t edit a blank page”). Once I do that, once I take that step, I feel better. Some of the anxiety lifts, and I’m one step closer to my goal—a finished novel.
And it can get daunting, when completing a novel requires thousands of such steps. At this point, I have a pretty good idea of the scope of work, and have parsed it out into digestible chunks into my mega schedule spreadsheet (which is why I know it takes, on average, about four years from draft to publish for each novel). When I start that schedule, and stay on task, it becomes its own slow video game. “How far ahead of schedule can I get?” and if I get behind, then it’s a bit of a mad scramble to make up the lost time.
It’s when the lost time accumulates into hundreds of days, that the mega schedule works against me, because I see that lost progress and lose heart that I’ll ever catch up.
And it’d be easy to just throw in the towel, leave the book unfinished, and just not think about it.
But…I have a story. I’m compelled to tell it. It’s the story of Dante, and his evolution. It’s about the universe he discovers along the way and the sacrifices he makes to hold true to his values. There’s a lot yet that I haven’t told you, and I want to see what you think when I do. So I’m compelled to keep coming back, keep plodding along, one step after another, even when it’s hard, even when life sucks, even when it takes thousands of steps to get there.
Because I want you to see the things that I see when I dream.
-Pete
Don’t forget! A Togahan’s Debt will be released on Sunday November 27, 2022 (ebook form only) but is currently available for preorder at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Order now to be sure you have it on day 1! Also, all Togahan books will remain at $4.99 until January 5, 2023, but then I gotta raise the price to help cover expenses.