Why does it always take so much longer than I expect?

If you noticed the dearth of blog posts through July, I can offer my explanation. Namely, I went underground, avoided literally everything, and tried to finish a book. And for more than four weeks in a row, I was absolutely certain, "I'll finish it this week!"

It mystifies me how these things take so much longer than intended. Near the end of June, I had about 80% of the novel rewritten for a major revision, and just ("just") needed to tie together the climax. This involved two converging POVs and 5 major character arcs, but I had a plan, I swear! I typed out my plan and it seemed sound.

Then every day, I'd get a few thousand words farther and realize, wait, that plan doesn't work. So I'd spend a day sorting out a new plan. Inch forward, and throw it out the next day. Repeat.

Something very frustrating about writing full-time is that it doesn't bend to my will the way my previously academic career would. In school, lectures took a certain amount of time to review, exams came up regularly, textbooks took distinct chunks of days to read assigned chapters and digest. At work, it was even more straightforward, because appointments were scheduled, in-patients needed to go home at the end of the day, and if I had to stay late an extra hour to finish all paperwork, so be it--then the next day started largely fresh. But with writing, I can pour the hours into it, and not freaking get anywhere.

Even worse, I can make progress all week, then realize I wrote myself into a corner and have to backtrack through all of that progress to make a course correction. So even if I give myself very conservative estimates, such as "Each scene will take one day to work on," and even if I largely stick to those estimates, there always pops up some new problem that I have to spend hours or days to untangle and fix.

Maybe I write books that are too complicated.

At any rate, I slapped a stamp of approval on that manuscript and launched it off to beta readers. The ensuing freedom is joyous. But also a little weird, because... gee, what do I do with myself now? I just spent a month of every spare minute writing! The good news is, my next project has been approved by my agent, and I might tell you about it soon.

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