Last month my wife began her maternity leave. Normally she works long hours in a posh consultancy firm being highly impressive and executive and stuff. I can do eight hours in the library and still be home in time to get some FIFA played before she gets back. It’s a good pattern and I’ve found a nice routine. Now that pattern has been disturbed and things have got a little bit more complicated. I have to learn some discipline.
It happened to me again. 
A couple of weeks ago I was with my Mum in a pub near Wales. I was boring her talking about story I was writing where the underground rivers of London come to life once a year and go hunting in the East End.
“Oh, like Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch.”
I’d like to say I responded to this with good grace, but what I actually did was bounce my eraser on the table and act a bit stroppy for the next couple of minutes. Only a little bit stroppy. But there was definite, observable stroppiness. Why all the drama?
How long should your story be? The usual answers (‘how long is a piece of string?’ or ‘however long it needs to be’) are not always helpful. Sure, a story should be the size it needs to be, but by what magical instinct are we to tell what size that is?
This is something every writer experiences. It has certainly been my problem in the last month. I’ve been productive, to be sure. I’ve got a little stack of blog articles, two or three almost finished short stories, even a book chapter that just needs another 400 words. But, for whatever reason, nothing gets finished.
This blog article will lay out some techniques that can help when you are having trouble finishing. They are all things that have worked for me in the past. This is for when you have bits of work that just needs that last push, but every time you boot up the computer you find yourself scribbling notes for another project or starting off that short story idea you had in the shower and BAM – the day is over and nothing is finished.
I’m hoping writing about these ideas will help break my block. With a bit of luck it will help you as well.
Apparently this is a thing. The terror of the blank page. Staring at the sheet and feeling you have to fill it with profundity, insight and wit. Or just enough words to satisfy your deadline.
To be honest, I’ve always had more trouble with the other part. The closer I get to the end, the harder it is to continue. But writing is hard, start to finish, and there are so many easy ways to stop that it is amazing any of us ever start. I’ve been given some pretty good advice over the years regarding all three stages, beginning, middle, and end, and here at the first post seems like a good place to share them.
