Discouraged

I'm going to be honest: I'm not very good at sticking with things. I'm not the girl who holds her head up and pushes through. I'm very easily discouraged, and I like giving up. Because it's easy, and it's a fast way out of the things I don't want to do.

I really want to give up writing my novel.

You see, giving up my novel is not something that's easily done. It's not like giving up on a half-painted birdhouse, or a scrapbook that I'll make "when I have the time." This book is my life. I breathe it, sleep it, and write it. It consumes me. I'm not Mandy Peacock without writing. And I'm not Mandy Peacock without my book.

My book has been a part of me for almost four years. And I'm so sure that this is the draft that's going to make it. This is the one. It needs editing, and revising, and a much stronger plot. But it's there. The words dance off the page. My characters are real. The book is realistic. I have great descriptions, the perfect amount of witty lines, and the perfect kiss of romance.

So why do I want to quit so badly?

The short answer is that I'm sick of it. When you've been working on something this long, you just want it gone. I want to be able to stop working on this book. I want to be free of it. I love it to death and I'm so proud of it, but I'm ready for the novel to no longer be mine. I want it to be someone else's now. I want it to sit on a shelf at a library. I want someone to pick it up and say, "Huh, this looks pretty good." I want someone to read it. I need to share this story.

I have three thousand more words before I reach my rough draft goal. That's three more days. And those 72 hours seem like the longest time of my life. I'm discouraged, and I desperately want to quit. I want to ditch this book and start a new one. New novels are always fun. But this book is so old to me that it doesn't even feel like my idea anymore. I don't feel like I'm the writer. I feel like the characters are telling me what to do, and I provide the typing and wording for it. That's all. I want this book to be done. But I do know that when it is done? Everything I feel right now will be very much worth it.

--Mandy