It's not how you start; it's THAT you finish!

I learned something invaluable in the course of my five-year foray into creative writing: the very best thing a writer can do for herself is finish her manuscript.

Sounds academic, right? But none of the things that have happened to me thus far--the opportunities for exposure, my first offer (and subsequent offers) of literary representation, multiple requests for partials and complete manuscripts, the opportunity to attend a Pitch 'n' Shop conference and pitch a book to four editors would have come about without a finished manuscript.

Whatever it takes, I'm telling you, finish that manuscript. Nothing starts until you do.

 

Last year, as a requirement for my M.A. in Creative Writing from Wilkes University, I finished my third manuscript. And you've got to believe me--it wasn't all good, and it sure wasn't easy researching, writing,  and revising a 93,000-word manuscript in ten months. I'm not the fastest writer, and I edit as I go. In spite of those handicaps, by the first week in January, I shipped off a completed manuscript to my faculty mentor.

Days later, I sent it off to a book club in Lancaster for their January read.

Was I a fool for agreeing to be that month's read for a local reading group so soon after finishing the book? Maybe. I see the flaws in it now, but I didn't have time to address them at the time. But I was absolutely right to push myself to finish. I'm grateful to the Wilkes program and to my friend  who lined everything up with the book club, for pushing me to finish.

Did these things help? Absolutely. Make no mistake, a finished manuscript gets you in the game. Yes, I get rejection letters, but each rejection brings me closer to an acceptance. Yes, I'm still polishing that same manuscript that I finished a year ago but all I need to focus on is revisions. That means I can submit it to manuscript competitions, including this year's Amazon Novel Breakthrough Award (ABNA)--which I did.

I have  three more unfinished manuscripts, each with about 30,000-40,000 words--a young adult novel, a cozy mystery, and women's fiction and ideas for two more.

The best thing I can do for myself is embrace one of those incomplete manuscripts and finish it. And if you haven't finished your novel, you need to as well. You MUST. You owe it to yourself and those publishing ambitions of yours.

Set a word count for yourself. Add a deadline with some teeth to it (because you are trying to enter contest or a challenge among friends.) And tell as many friends as you can what you are doing and enlist their support.

I'm kind of stuck on revising a manuscript right now, feeling like it's sheer dreck. But I'm going to embrace its dreckiness and finish the damn thing because when I revise it, I know I can send it to a publishing house who is waiting to see the revision.
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Because it's not how you start, it's that you finish.