#common writing problems

Everything needs to be perfect.

No it doesn’t! As a perfectionist myself, the need for everything to be 100% flawless is something that really slows me down sometimes. Learn to take a breath and say, “There is always the opportunity to improve this.” You can choose to fix it now, or your can choose to fix it later. But right now, in this moment, you don’t need to be looking for perfection — only satisfaction with your own writing.

I can’t do all of this on my own.

That’s okay, because you don’t have to! The responsibility of getting your book ready for publication doesn’t fall on your shoulders alone. You still have the beta readers and the professional edit (both of which shouldn’t be skipped!) to get through, and they’re going to contribute to your work more than you might think.

They may not be writing your story for you, but the insights that they’re providing will take you far on your path to success. There’s more than just these two, as well: you can get out there and look for as much help as you want if you think it’s going to be beneficial.

There’s too much left to write.

What is your goal for this draft? Let’s use the classic NaNoWriMo example: I want to write 50,000 words in a month. That’s a lot of words to think of in a month. When you break your goals down into smaller chunks, however, it becomes a lot less daunting. 50,000 words in a month is the same as 11,669 words in a week. Still terrifying? Let’s go further: that’s 1,667 words in a day. A little better, right?

If that’s still too much, don’t be afraid to downsize your goals a bit. Create a goal that works for you, not one that you think should work for you — those are two very different goals.

I’m overwhelmed by my story.

I’ve been there before. Maybe there’s too much going on in your book, or maybe you don’t think you have the level of writing skill to do your story justice. Here are the solutions that I know have worked for me in the past:

Divide the story into multiple books so that the plot is more manageable.

Cut out any unnecessary details from your outline until you have just the necessities, and build back up from there.

Work through the story anyway — you’ll learn more about your craft.

Put the story away until you think you can “properly” write it. (I don’t recommend this one.)

In all honesty, every writer doubts their ability to write their story in the “right” way. What makes a writer is pursuing the story anyway, and editing and reworking and fixing everything until you get it to where you wanted it to be in the first place.