WORD: Those Late Nights

by Gabrielle Linnell

As I'm writing this it is... too late at night for my taste. Granted, I'm a firm believer in lots of sleep for teenagers and get more sleep than is respectable. But I had outlined my word count goal in order to finish THE BOOK's first draft on September 1, and had (of course) missed the first day of THE MANDATORY WORD COUNT yesterday. Which meant I had double dose today.

Which I finished.

If you get serious about writing (whether it's finishing the novel or freelancing or poetry), you will make sacrifices. You will push limits. You will do a lot of drudging. There will be a lot of late nights.

But if you make those sacrifices, and drudge away and push those limits and stay up those late nights and finish your 1008 word quota, there's a good feeling at the end. You accomplished this. What's more, nobody was telling you to. There's no teacher, no parent, no gunsman. You did this without thinking about your report card.

Enjoy this part of writing. It's romantic, it's self-indulgent, it's self-expanding. You are the chivalrous hero(ine) who has given all for the great work. There will be editing in the morning, and the pain of revision and oh-this-is-crap, so enjoy this part. It's pretty sweet.

Gabrielle Linnell is an award-winning writer who has been published more than thirty times. She was reading A Year in the World, Violet in Private and Intrigue in the House of Wong this week, and listening to Disneymania.