Keep going

You have been work­ing steadi­ly, and you have decent pages under your belt (or your book) and all of sud­den, the writ­ing seems to have weak­ened, and it hap­pens just when the end is in sight. Fatigue has set in. Writ­ing fatigue.

The truth is you are writ­ing bad­ly. What to do?

Keep going.

Even if you know it is bad, keep going. Get the basic con­tours of the plot down and keep going. The fact is, that when you have some­thing with which to work it will be enor­mous­ly lib­er­at­ing. Why? As always, it is the rewrit­ing that makes your work good.

Now and again—but only now and again—in my writ­ing, some­thing spools out that is good. A para­graph. A page. Actu­al­ly, it is quite rare. It is a myth that good writ­ers just sit down and write well. It is always, always, always the rewrit­ing that brings quality.

So—if it is bad, keep going. You will be in the best posi­tion to make it good.