What’s the Hardest Thing About Writing?

From time to time, we chime is as a group on writing-related subjects. Today’s question is what, for each of us, is the hardest thing about writing? And dear readers, we’d love your answers to this question, too.

Kate Flora:  I probably have a different answer for this question depending on where I am in the process. I’m going to skip finding an agent, finding a publisher, and all the painful things that come after the work is finished. So for me, my usual problem is that I tend to rush my endings. By the time I finally get to the end of the book, I want it to be done. This is first draft, of course, so no way is the book done. But I was the story tied up. I want to see how it ends. And so I rush. There has never been a book where I didn’t have to go back in rewrite, slow the pace down a bit so things are well described and explained, and also do a read through to make sure that I’ve tied up all, or at least most, of the loose ends so the reader doesn’t say, with a sigh, “But what about the dog?” or something similar. The lesson for me is to keep better notes as I go along and not put things in the book that I don’t intend to finish.

What about you, fellow…what are your biggest challenges?

Matt Cost: As most of life can tilt and vary, so can my writing process. Sometimes the beginning of a new book is the toughest because I have to make sure that the base is stable. If I’m beginning a new series, say with Wolfe Trap, I have to create an entire fictional town. Or with Velma Gone Awry, I had to place myself firmly in 1920s Brooklyn, New York. But more often than not, it is the middle of a novel that becomes a bit tedious for me, and that scares me, because if it is tedious for me, imagine the boredom being inflicted upon a reader. So, I must work hard to keep the plot buzzing along like a chainsaw in the woods, and cut out all that makes eyes glaze over when reading. One thing that is rarely difficult for me is the end of the book. By the time I get to the last ten-thousand words, I generally have an image in my head what is going to happen and the only problem is slow fingers on a keyboard. And then we begin again.

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: These days the only “new” writing I’m doing consists of blogs for MCW, but I am busily revising and editing backlist titles to reissue in e-book and print-on-demand formats. What’s hardest for me about that is stopping. It’s possible to do endless revisions, each time finding more to tweak. Unfortunately, if I yielded to that temptation, nothing would ever be published. I have to force myself to decide I’ve reached the point of  “one last read” to try to catch any remaining typos (I swear they sneak in every time I make a change in the text!) and stick with that decision. At least with e-books and POD it’s possible to go back later and correct any I missed.

Rob Kelley: For me it’s that late second draft when I realize that what I have is tens of thousands of words and a lot of cool ideas but not a compelling story–uneven pacing, weak characters, too many characters, too few interesting locales, dumb or missing plot twists–it varies by book. Right now I’ve got two manuscripts in that same state and the only thing I’ve found that propels the project forward again is time. And this is not a predictable amount of time. More than a couple of weeks. At least one instance where it was more than a year. I’d love to figure out how to make that a more consistent process! Sometimes I can wait it out, sometimes I start a whole new book to give me something to chew while the rumination on those other books happens as well.

John Clark: Feedback from others that hits a nerve. I tend to add too much to stories, and often use older phrases. While I don’t always think they’re outdated, others do, so I gnash my teeth, crawl back in my cave, ponder for a bit and sometimes admit they’re right.