When we arrived home from our spring break trip a few weeks ago, my husband tasked the older two kids with cleaning out the camper. I ran to the grocery store and came back to find them still hard at work, vacuuming and sanitizing.
As I put away groceries, my oldest came inside and said, “Whew. Dad just said the best words ever to us: ‘You’re finished. Great job.'”
There’s a certain satisfaction we feel when we complete something, and that feeling intensifies when you finish well. In school, we have a lot of milestones that make it clear we’re progressing. We move from kindergarten to first grade, from middle school to high school, and so forth. But the idea of “progress” gets murkier when we look at the writing life. (Or adult life, but that’s a different topic for a different blog!)
How can we get the “You’re finished. Great job” kind of feeling that my daughter expressed? Our finish line isn’t always obvious and often nobody is paying attention to our writing except us. Here are three ideas:
Identify (and do!) your next right thing.
Make like Anna in Frozen 2 and identify the next thing you need to do. Is it read another section of that research book? Design the spaceships in your storyworld? Brainstorm your villain? Write chapter one?
Don’t think about what you need to do seven next right things from now, just one. There’s definitely a time and place for thinking and planning ahead, but right now focus on the immediate future. You’re not trying to write a first draft, you’re trying to write the first draft of chapter seven. You’re not trying to build your Instagram presence, you’re just creating the next post.
Identify your next right thing, do the next right thing, and then signal to yourself that you completed this task. That can be as simple as checking it off a list. Maybe (and I know this sounds dorky) even say aloud, “I finished this” as you mark it off.
When I’m closing down work for the day, I often say to myself, “Good work. Enjoy the rest of your day.” Tease me all you want, but I don’t often struggle with boundaries between work and personal life the way lots of people do when they work from home. (Side note: If it wasn’t a good work day, I don’t lie to myself and tell myself it was. Then I say something like, “You’ll have another chance tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day.” I’m uncool. I’ve made my peace with this.)
If you have a writing friend (or someone who’s a writing supporter) you can provide that “You’re finished. Great job,” feeling for each other. Just yesterday, Roseanna and I had this brief text conversation:
Roseanna and I have both been professionals for a long time now, but we still send each other messages like this. “Finished that scene I was stuck on!” Or, “Sent that scary email!” Receiving a simple response of “Yay” or confetti emojis feels very satisfying.
Know what Done looks like.
When I’m making dinner, I know when I’m done. It’s when the food finishes cooking and we all sit down to eat. If you’re mowing the lawn, you’re done when all the grass has been cut. If you’re at baseball practice, you know it’s over when the coach blows his whistle.
But a project like writing a novel is different. When are you really done? After you’ve edited the book? After you’ve proofread it? Or turned it into your editor? Or when it’s on store shelves? Or when it goes out of print? WHEN???
Some projects take a very, very long time to cross off. Some never really do get crossed off, like parenting or laundry.
This is why specific next-right-thing type goals are so useful. Putting “Work on novel” on your to-do list will feel frustrating, because when do you get to check that off? A much kinder to-do list item is something like, “Write 1,000 words on work-in-progress.” You’ll know when you’re done.
You can do this on a bigger scale too. If you’re unpublished and trying to write a novel so you can look for a literary agent, Done might be defined as, “When I’ve edited my novel and input feedback from my critique partners, then I will be done and can start sending out queries.”
Regularly review your progress.
For about two years now, Roseanna and I have had a phone call every Friday afternoon. We tell each other what we got done that week and what we plan to get done next week. Most Fridays, when I’m making my list of what I got done, my spirit lifts. I realize that I did more than I remembered. Not always. There have definitely been some weeks that I entered the call feeling rather glum, but most of the time the progress I made is obvious to me when I stop to pay attention.
In his book Finish, Jon Acuff says, “Progress . . . is quiet. It whispers.” I love this quote. One of the ways I turn up the volume on progress is to review what I did in the last week. You can do that even if you don’t have a Roseanna.
Writing a novel is really fun, but there are also times where it feels like a slog. Noticing your progress will help keep you motivated along the way!
Do you know what your next right thing is? Or what Done looks like? Or do you have a way to pay attention to your progress?
P.S. Next week, Jill, Shannon, and I are teaching together in-person for the first time! We’ll be in the Seattle area at the Northwest Christian Writers Association teaching a class called “Three Ways To Improve Your Writing.” Here’s the link to the NCWA website for more details: https://www.nwchristianwriters.org/Meetings
If you’re not a member of NCWA, you can still come! It’s just $5 at the door.
Monday, April 4th
7-9pm
Eastside Foursquare Church
14520 100th Ave. NE
Bothell, WA 98041
Stephanie Morrill writes books about girls who are on an adventure to discover their unique place in the world. She is the author of several contemporary young adult series, as well as two historical young adult novels, The Lost Girl of Astor Street and Within These Lines. Within These Lines was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, as well as a YALSA 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults pick. Since 2010, Stephanie has been encouraging the next generation of writers at her website, GoTeenWriters.com, which has been on the Writer’s Digest Best Websites for Writers list since 2017. She lives in the Kansas City area, where she loves plotting big and small adventures to enjoy with her husband and three children. You can connect with Stephanie and learn more about her books at StephanieMorrill.com, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.