Why you Haven't Finished Writing Your Novel.

"I'm going to write a book" is one of the biggest lies some people tell themselves.

They always start writing a book, but they never reach the most important part that is absolutely crucial to writing any type of work no matter the length or the genre.

Finishing the book. 

When I first started writing, I sat on a dozen half-started, barely even long enough to call them stories, for years. The spark was always there in the beginning and then it just simply fizzled out. The documents eventually moved further and further down the list in my word processor until the point when I eventually got back to it and I didn't have a clue what I was even writing about.

I'm sure you have dozens of reasons why you haven't finished writing your novel and this article is going to be about telling you why each of your reasons is an excuse and how to get past it so you can finally finish your novel. 

Excuse Number One:

"I Have No Time To Write" 

I'm sure you're busy with your everyday life. Between work, children, family obligations, laundry, dishes, mopping the floor, and scrubbing the ceiling you don't even have ten minutes to spare.

Are you sure about that? 

Do you come home from work every night, eat dinner, and then lose yourself in a few hours of some mindless tv show or scroll through even more mindless social media? How many hours have you spent on TikTok today or scrolling through Instagram? 

I had a friend once tell me he wanted to write a book, but he could never find the time to write it. I told him that if he replaced the time he spent on his Xbox with writing then he would be able to finish his novel in less than three months. 

He took the challenge.

It took him two months.

Take a good look at how you spend your time. Social media can be removed from the equation or limited, chores can be moved around to different days, and you could always wake up just half an hour earlier each day and get the words in before work if you're a productive morning person… or desperate. 

Excuse Number Two:

"I have this amazing story idea, but I don't know how to put it in words."

Well, that sounds like you need to practice writing because despite what anyone might have told you… writing can be learned and taught! 

The best thing you can do if you have a story idea is to start writing down what you do know about it and then figuring out what you don't know at a later time. 

Here's an exercise you can do to solve this issue.

Bring that story idea to the front of your mind and set a timer for five minutes. In that time fill as many pages of a notebook as you can with bullet points about what you do know about your story. If you can only fill half a page that's perfectly fine.

When the time is up, set the timer again for five minutes, move to a blank page, and start asking yourself questions about what you don't know. For each bullet point try to ask yourself two or three questions to fill in more information. 

• A group of men travels the woods looking for a hidden magic cave.

-> How many men? What are their names? Where are they coming from? 

You don't have to be able to answer all of these questions right away, but spending time thinking about your story and filling in some of the blanks will help you outline your story.

Spend a day doing research on the outline/drafting process of writing a novel and find a method that works best for you.  

Excuse Number Three:

"Nobody will want to read what I write."

How do you know if you haven't written it yet?

The best advice I can give for this is to always write a story that you want to read, by the end of the writing process you will have read your story more than a dozen times cover to cover so it better be one you like. 

There are markets for everything and you would be surprised what readers may want.

There's a romance novel out there about a woman who fell in love with the Covid virus. It's currently sitting at almost a four-star rating with over 700 reviews. Plus there are three more books in the series.

Whatever story you want to write there's going to be someone out there who wants to read it. Marketing and advertisements will be your best friend when it comes to finding readers.

Excuse Number Four:

"I'll never get published/getting published is too expensive."

Here's a secret to the world of publishing… you can publish a book without it costing you a single penny.

Writing the book, cover design, editing, and self-marketing can all be done for the special cost of absolutely nothing.

This won't guarantee that you are able to publish a world-famous novel and earn millions of dollars from it for nothing, but if you believe that to be possible I have a bridge in California that's for sale.

When writing your novel publishing it should be the furthest thing from your mind. It may not get published in the traditional way when you're finished writing it, but it sure as hell won't get published if you never write it. 

There are many sites out there in which you can hire freelancers to help you with the parts that you need help with. From editing to cover design most services won't cost you an arm and a leg and you can find something that fits your budget. 

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The longer you put off writing your novel the less likely you are to ever finish it. Life happens and things get in the way that may make it impossible to finish your novel later on even if you want to write it. 

Like dying. Don't go to the grave with a half-finished book sitting around that someone may read and judge you on what you never got to finish. 

There's no good reason or excuse to not work on your novel at least one or two days a week and move that dream of someday writing a novel to a goal that you will be able to reach out and grab.

You can't cross the finish line if you never start the race.

So start writing! 

With love, 

B.K. xo

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This story was originally posted on Medium.

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