Struggling to Finish That Book? I've Got a Secret For You
How many years has that manuscript been “right there?”
…At the very edge of completion? This publishing dream has been years in the making and here you are gritting your teeth just to make it through the next sentence. What… happened?
This book started out as what you were sure was your purpose here on Earth (plus the royalties sound REALLY nice), so how could just the thought of finishing the last few pages of your final edit (or chapter) become the absolute BANE of your existence?
But you know it, you just know it. You’re 80% of the way there, only a few words left…
But you’ve been staring at a blinking cursor for minutes, maybe hours, literally a blank page.
You know you’re just 5 miles from home… can’t stop now.
But every time you hit the keyboard at dusk, after you’ve avoided this manuscript all day like the plague, finished 6 weeks worth of laundry, checked all of your email, and re-organized your sales pipeline for the 452621st time, you still can't...quite...get there with your book. And it’s frustrating.
Because the last chapter feels like it’s bursting from the seams and in fact, you’re still not exactly sure why you can’t finish writing (or editing) that book. (Or maybe you really do know why…)
Could it be…
The siren sparkle of the latest Instagram Reel, shiny new SubStack, or BookTok that you swore you’d only read/watch for 5 minutes? (How has it been 2 hours already!?)
Perhaps it was that 15th phone call about.. well, goodness knows WHAT at this point. (10X the number of phone calls if you have 1 or more children.)
And oops… there’s another anxious thought flitting through your head:
“Is the page count long enough?”
“Should I really share that last paragraph?”
“What if he/she/they read it?”
“Am I really going to put this out in the world?”
Though I know you’re sure you’ve squeezed every last drop out of yourself today and you’re certain your hands are about to fall off, you find yourself in a familiar place yet again with this book…
And grateful as you might be when the clock finally strikes midnight again, so you may rest your weary eyes, you can’t help but wonder, as you collapse into bed, a lump in your throat:
Will you ever finish this edit? Those last few words? Will you ever publish?
Like a hellish loop straight out of Dante’s Inferno, you can’t stop thinking about it.
Well, friend, I’ve got some good news for you.
We talk about this all the time at Reaching & Rooted Publishing.
Here are 3 tips on how to finish that book:
Lock yourself in a hotel room for the weekend. Do not take phone calls. Don’t watch your favorite show. Order your meals in. You don’t have to produce something perfect, you just have to finish it. You can edit later.
Take a step back. Ask yourself: are you getting too dialed in? The last stretch of your book is often where you are rounding up much of what you said and the higher level ideas. This is probably not the place to introduce something new or divert into a new tangent in your manuscript.
Instead of picking up right where you left off every time, go through your book from the beginning. Read the whole thing again and let the ending flow more naturally from there.
Or… behind door #4:
If you’ve been struggling to get the words out… feeling a little stuck… pent up… like your brain is just about ready to effing BURST… hit us up, we got you.
Our Extraction process will pull the rest of that book right out of your head for you. If you haven’t experienced it yet, well, imagine it’s like tapping your brain like a keg and letting decades of personal & professional genius, proprietary processes, and transformational memoir material flow onto the page.
If you want to know more about how we can help you finish up your book, just smack that reply button, send me a
emoji, and we’ll Wonder Woman-lasso those words right out of your head, AND gift you your first 5 book prints on us. (I guess Christmas in July really does exist!)
Love,
P.S. I know it’s only June but we’re approaching capacity for additional Extraction hours through the end of the year. If you really want Christmas in July and a book launch party for the holidays, you’ll chuck that 📚emoji at me faster than a melting snow cone on a Texas summer day. ☀️🍧
