A few weeks ago I merged all my chapter drafts into one big Word document. Then I stared at it. How does one work on such a large document? How do you make a change on, say, page 12, if you can't remember page 74 well enough to know how your change will affect it? Paralysis ensued.
I realize that people write these things called "books" all the time, and thus presumably have to deal with such issues, but I don't know how they do it.
Then I did a word count. 40,000 words! That's two-thirds of what I need! Once again, arithmetic came to the rescue. I figured out that if I write just 1,000 words a week for the rest of 2009, I'll have 60,000 words—my goal length. The only catch is that when I delete existing words from the draft, I have to make up for them.
Having come up with this brilliant plan, I did nothing for weeks, meaning I am already behind in the plan. It's not just big-document paralysis, I think—things have gotten insanely busy at work (I had to go the office last Saturday! and Sunday!), but there is a glimmer of hope that work will calm down soon and I can implement The Plan.
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