Getting Your Novel to the Finish Line: Resisting the Shiny New Idea (Part Three)

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

So far in this series we've talked about getting past getting stuck and staying focused enough to write. Today, we'll look at a very common distraction when your WIP gets tough. The Shiny New Idea.

The Shiny New Idea is a tempting creature, frequently appearing when we’re stuck on or bored with our current work in progress. For whatever reason, something new becomes extremely appealing. Since we’re still working on a story, it feels like we’re being productive, until we step back and realized we’ve written the beginnings to seven novels and haven’t finished a darn thing.

This type of distraction is typically due to either a discipline issue or a plotting issue. Either we don’t have enough discipline to stay at our keyboards and work, or we don’t know enough about the story to actually finish it (for new writers, sometimes we just don’t know enough about writing a novel yet to know what we need to do or what we need to ask to move forward).

Getting Your Novel to the Finish Line: Staying Focused Enough to Write (Part Two)

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Last week we talked about ways to get unstuck and finally finish a novel. Today, we’ll shift to maintaining our focus and some common reasons why that novel just isn’t getting written. On Wednesday, we’ll look at dealing with the oh-so-distracting Shiny New Idea (and that will wrap up this three-part series on getting your novel to the finishing line).

Staying focused is harder than being stuck, because there’s little anyone can do to make us write if we don’t feel like it. We have to find the discipline to stick with a project and keep writing, and no one else can do that for us. They can offer advice and suggest things to try, but in the end, it’s up to the individual writer to make it work.

Getting Your Novel to the Finish Line (Part One: Getting Past Getting Stuck)

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

I’ve spoken with a lot of writers over the years, and “actually finishing a novel” is high on the list of problems they run into. Although there are many specific reasons for it, I’ve noticed they often fall into two general camps: the story stalls, or the writer gets distracted.

For new writers, it’s frequently a matter of skill level. They just don’t yet know the things they need to move forward, and once they learn that skill, they’ll be okay.