On Finishing
The first book I wrote flowed out of me like a thundering waterfall. I couldn’t have stopped it if I wanted to. 62,000 words in four months felt great, and it all started with a silly idea of a time traveling horse. The story crystalized around one scene that made me cry. I wrote that scene on a whim, and the rest of the book demanded to be told.
I’m sure a lot of you have been in this situation. You have a manuscript and… now what? I’d heard of critique groups, but reddit had not been a kind place to me. Eventually, I stumbled on scribophile.com (highly recommended), where I discovered a place where writers help other writers get better.
I began to critique other works as I posted chapters of my own. If you’ve read my essay Burn Your Art, you know that this book was no good. It was a difficult choice, but eventually I realized this wasn’t worth working on. Painfully, I put it to the side and began working on other projects, but at least I had gained a group of trusted critique partners.
“The problem is I’m a dopamine addict.”
Over the last year, I’ve started and halted three different novels and two novellas. The stories are solid and worth telling, I’m confident about that, but each one has some issue that I can’t get past. Often, it’s an issue I can’t even recognize.
As is my want, I tried to force the issue. At first, I set a goal of one chapter a week. I figured a deadline might work. I wanted to post it somewhere as well, so I set another deadline — March 2026. The plan was to finish the book, then begin posting it serially during revision. Things were moving along nicely until I got to the Act 2 turn and I didn’t know where to go.
I moved to another idea, one inspired by a conversation with my critique friends. I began to watch documentaries and movies, the inspiration was rampant. I couldn’t help but start writing. But again, I tried a new approach.
Rather than post the chapters as soon as they were complete, I decided to delay that dopamine hit. As my pace flagged and the words became more effortful, I added a new strategy — dominate myself. Super smart, right? I’m sure it works for some people. The idea was that I wouldn’t be allowed to pick up another project until I finished this draft.
The only problem is that was literally impossible. I write these weekly essays, I work on a monthly comedy newsletter with my writing partner, and I make zines on a whim. It was mandatory that I obfuscate my own mandate. After two months of staring at a blinking cursor, I decided this experiment had been a failure.
What had been different with the first book? Could it have been as simple as my ignorance? Was the story better? As tempting as it was to go back and review my past work in search of a pattern, I’m not that easy to trick. Of all the differences, the one I could test was sharing.
Writing is lonely. We spend time with people and places we’ve imagined. They’re real to us. They make us laugh and cry. We want to share them, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Sharing our work isn’t the issue, though. Writing is meant to be shared.
The problem is that I’m a dopamine addict.
This is the same reason I couldn’t deal with social media. Still can’t! The allure of people “liking” something creates a strong undertow, but in a critique group people are reading 2-4k words and responding to specifics — what a rush! That’s the hard stuff you gotta get from Crack-Head Jimmy behind the bad CVS across town.
So, the plan was simple — draft it in isolation. I didn’t even mention my progress until I hit 50k words of the planned 65k and I had the ending plot points outlined. I still haven’t told anyone the title or what it’s about. It’s been hard, but this seemed to work better than anything else I’ve tried.
And the best part is, I still get that dopamine hit. And it’ll be exactly when I need it … during revisions.
I finished the draft last night. I’m cheating a little bit, actually. Technically I didn’t write the epilogue yet. I’m allowing myself to believe that writing it after the revision pass will make it a better chapter. As I scroll up to the first lines, excited to review the story that I’m sure I’ve half-forgotten, I know I’m breaking my rule again.
As long as the story gets finished, my boss will let it go.
From the Rift,
Thanks for Reading!
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