The Final Push

As we’re so close to the end of the year, with just over two weeks to go until 2013, it seems like an apt time to discuss the idea of the final push.

Not just the final push at work before you leave the office for Christmas, but the final push that can occur at any time of the year – those final stages of writing a book, where finally finishing it still seems a struggle yet you are so close to the end.

Completing those last little bits can be surprisingly hard. You might think that once you’ve got over the challenge of writing a whole draft of a novel and then editing it more times than you can count, putting a few final touches to the manuscript would be easy.

Yet it isn’t always. I think one of the reasons for this is that once you’ve made that final push and got to the very end of the novel, it will be finished. There’ll be nothing else to do to it. In many ways, this is one of the amazing bits of being a writer. There’s nothing quite like the satisfaction and achievement of having written a whole proper book, whether or not you decide you want to publish it.

But this time is also scary. What if you finish the book and then decide that, actually, you don’t like it after all? Declaring a book done can be nerve-wracking, because once you’ve done that you have to start thinking properly about what comes next – publication, promotion, starting the next book…

It can also be easy to leave those final little touches undone for long periods of time. After all, you’re so nearly there and there’re only a few tiny things left to do on the novel; they won’t take long, so why do them now? You’ll still be able to finish it tomorrow.

True enough, but dangerous. It’s all too easy to leave your novel for so long that going back to it in any form eventually becomes all but impossible. Staying with it now, when you’ve already spent so many months and hours slaving over the manuscript, might be difficult, but it’s much easier than coming back to it months later.

So, if you’re at that stage in your novel where you’re nearly there but not quite, don’t give up. The final push can be draining, but keep yourself focused on the prize. Just as the prize at the end of the year is, with any luck, a jolly good time and a few beverages, the prize at the end of your novel is the joy of having written a novel. Embrace the season and push on to the end.

What are your tips for keeping yourself engaged right through to the end of your book?