Today, I reached a point in my current story (The Sands of Truth) where I felt lost. Not in a plot sense – it’s all meticulously outlined. It’s the characters that’s doing it to me. Most of this book is very internal, very focussed on the mind of my protagonist. It’s set in a barren desert with minimal things for him to interact with.

In short, it’s quite different to what I’ve written before, where I often force two or more characters to work against (or with) each other to achieve their competing desires. I’m not sure if my current approach will produce something new and exciting, or whether it will lead to a lot of boring characters.

In short, I’m in the doubt zone. Looking back, I often seem to feel this when I reach the middle of my drafts. Despite my insistence that I need to finish at all costs, I start to question this desire by asking myself if the story is any good at all. I don’t think I’d give up, per se. But boy was I feeling like giving up was close.

Then tonight happened.

The circumstances were abysmal. I didn’t start writing until twenty minutes before bed, mainly due to a lot of procrastination. I didn’t think I would produce anything worthwhile. I went into the writing session purely intending not to break my (2 day) writing streak.

Somehow I wrote almost 800 words in 30 minutes, developing a scene that not only added nuance to a character who was feeling flat, but also including a song that feels beautiful – along with adding a touching emotional poignancy to the whole story.

Let this be a lesson to me. The Resistance, as Steve Pressfield calls it, is real – and it is cunning. It will bully you, it will distract you, it will seduce you – and the closer you get to achieving something meaningful, the stronger it becomes.

But tonight, I beat it. I beat it through habit, through making my mind work for me rather than working for my mind. Let this be a pledge to you. Until I finish The Sands of Truth, I will work on it every day – no matter how much I don’t feel like it. Because as I’ve learnt today, the muse doesn’t care about my feelings. It cares about me showing up. It cares about me doing the work.

It won’t reward me all the time – but on nights like this, it will.