Working hard on my current novel the night before a writing group meeting, I had the sudden thought that writing groups were as much a guilt-driven motivation as they are a support-driven motivation.
In this particular case, I have fifteen good chapters in a novel and have for months. I also have another seventeen not so good ones. I’ve needed to edit those last seventeen for a while, and until it hit me that my writing group is waiting for them, I had no reason to work on them.
Actually, I’ve kind of been avoiding thinking about them, because they are frighteningly messy.
NaNoWriMo was my excuse not to, but honestly? I think a factor of fear is there. I’m afraid to fix these chapters, because I’m not sure I can fix them. And if I don’t fix them, I have to rewrite them. And if I have to rewrite them, maybe I will make them better, maybe I won’t.
And the idea of not being able to close this story, just leaving it hanging for the rest of my life? That about terrifies me.
So I’m glad I have writing groups. Three of them, now, I think. If I didn’t have them, maybe I’d never work up the courage to make myself finish this.
Then again, sometimes fear can create as much courage as peer pressure.
I don’t know which is more of a motivator, right now, but I’ve started working on it again. Seventeen chapters. Circa 40,000 words. And I’m not going to let them beat me.
-Brittany Maresh
