Last Quarter Blues

Well, this is when the pressure really begins. When your schedule calls for you to finish a chapter every 2 1/2 days and right off the bat you get off track. You start to get back on track, only to find two chapters later that you have to stop and do some extensive thinking about the end of the book: the world, the situation, all the characters (and I have mulitple lines, mulitple places and situations) what exactly is going to happen, and once that is figured out, how best to present it. Not everything that happens, has to be dramatized, even the somewhat dramatic events. Plus I have way more events than I have chapters to put them all in.

So I was supposed to finish ch 30 last Thursday, 31 on Saturday, and 32 today. Instead, I thought about chapter 30 until yesterday when I wrote the first part. Then I decided I wanted to keep going with that particular thread and now I am poised to do 31. Obviously way off schedule. Should I email my editor and tell her I'm probably not going to make that July 5 deadline? I haven't decided yet. The Lord hasn't really made it clear to me that I won't.

I've had a lot of trouble staying focused, too. I don't know whether it's all the distractions (just the dog with all his pills having to be timed throughout the day has been a distraction) or whether I'm tired or it's just a part of the process. But I don't seem to be able to just work, work, work and more than that, I'm not getting terribly freaked about it. In the past I would have, and, I suppose, used that emotional energy to motivate myself. Which is really not what I should be doing. Instead I've done a lot of staring out the window and a lot of resting in the Lord. But now the time is getting short and the doubts grow stronger...

And then there is the Last Quarter Blues. I checked my old writing journals, and in every one of them, when I hit this stage of a book, I am describing the same state. The book just doesn't seem to be very good to me any more. I know I can't tell, because I'm way too close to it, but when I get to this point, I always have to keep going on faith alone. This is where, for me anyway, it begins to get more and more difficult to keep that faith. The idea that I've written 30 chapters of drivel, that I have far too much material waiting to be inserted into what I've done, let alone what I have left to do with the end -- all that combined with lack of time and the need to stay within a certain word count starts me wondering if I've just been a crackpot, a fanatic, trusting that God would come through, when what I really needed to do was Just Have More DISCIPLINE! Anyone who's been reading this blog for very long will know that this is a familiar theme. But at this point everything seems to ramp up, as it looks less and less likely I'll finish on time, and less and less likely that any of it will work.

But as I said, the walk becomes strictly by faith at this point. I know the Lord has called me to do this, and I know that He's been guiding me, because I've asked Him to and whatever you ask in accordance with his will He will do. I know it's in accordance with His will because His word says it is: "Faithful is He who has called you and He will also bring it to pass." "For the Lord God helps me... and I know that I shall not be ashamed."

Unfortuntately sight is saying very different things at this point.

Well, Bear wants to eat, and has been hounding me about it for awhile now, so I guess I'll go feed him... wonder what he'll want to eat this morning? An egg, maybe?

Praying I'll finish ch 31 today,
Karen