Are You in the Messy, Muddy, Maddening Middle

“I’m in it for the long haul.”

Are you though? Am I? We think we are. I think I am. But are we?

In it for the long haul is super easy to say at the beginning when things are all dreams and vision and possibilities. When the world is your oyster, and you’re at the very beginning of a finish line, you’re propelled by energy and excitement. Typically, you’re really connected to why you’re starting something to begin with – a new goal, a new dream, a new business, a new path, a new career, a new long-term relationship, a new version of yourself. All of the above. None of the above. The newness of it all is inspiring.

If you’re not connected to why you’re doing something, it’ll become glaringly obvious. When you reach the messy, muddy, maddening middle.

The middle is the part where shit gets hard. I should know, because I’m in it. I’ve been in the middle before, in other ways on other projects, but nothing has been as middle-ish as this (except probably my very middle-child tendencies. Those fine qualities and attributes are oh, so middleish).

I’ve written about aspects of this book-writing-journey before. As you probably know by now, I’ve been working on a novel, with real verve and dedication. We’re talking weekly meetings with a writing coach kind of commitment to the craft. My manuscript brings a woman of huge historical significance to life in the 30 years before she made her mark (founding an organization that we all know and love).

It’s been two years of work, and there’s still so much revision left to do.

In the first few months of this grand idea, I was madly researching and outlining.

That was followed by six months of drafting the first half of the manuscript to show my agent.

She read it. It had…potential? But needed to reworked. Majorly. To it’s core. Also known as a page 1 rewrite. So back to my outline to re-plan, before I re-wrote.

For the next 11 months I rewrote the manuscript. The whole thing this time. All 91,000 words. Scene by scene. Chapter by chapter. Rewrite by rewrite.

And then I printed out three copies and asked my beta readers to read and give me feedback.

They gave me feedback, alright! Which I worked chapter-by-chapter to incorporate. Once it was all glossy and every word triple-checked (for 262 pages of a Word doc that is), I sent it to my agent. At this point, we’re 20 months into working on this thing.

And we got feedback!!!!!! Lots of it. Great feedback from brilliant agents. But to really, fully, appropriately do the shaping that they’re asking for, I needed to…

That’s right. GO BACK TO MY (f*cking) OUTLINE.

So it’s around this “go back to the outline” talk that I really start to lose it. Agent feedback wasn’t the problem. I knew it would come and make me better and I could handle it. But GO BACK TO AN OUTLINE in order to solve for their feedback? For some reason it felt like literary treason. Like I was past that. Beyond it. Or the opposite. As in, way way way further away from my goals than I had properly realized.

In reality. Neither were true.

What’s true is that I’m in the messy, muddy, maddening middle. I’m in the phase where I don’t have the energy from the beginning, and I don’t have light drawing me to the end.

But I knew I had to find it. Because the frustration and temper-tantrum feelings and digging my heels in and twirling my hair too much weren’t going to shape the novel. I had to.

But first I needed to remember why I would spend two years (which can and will easily become five years before this book hits a shelf) working and investing in something that a) I pour huge time, emotion and resources into b) I make no money doing c) has no guarantee d) I give up free time for.

Look, I never second-guessed this project for a second. And I don’t second guess finishing it. It’s never really crossed my mind to “stop”. BUT. AND. It’s really hard to be stuck in the middle and find your energy and motivation to keep going.

I recently interviewed someone who said “they’d have to pay us to quit” and that’s the mentality you’ve got to have when things get hard, and you’re slogging through the middle.

So if you’re pretty sure that shit is hard right now. And you’re pretty sure you’re right in the dead middle with less motivation than you’d like to see the long haul through, try a few of these things:

1. Return to WHY you’re doing this in the first place.
2. Set up some mini milestones to celebrate. Ton of them. Between now and the end goal.
3. Reconnect with your future self. The one who is NOT in the messy, muddy, maddening middle. See what she has to say about today.
4. Do one, small thing to get going again. To keep going.

Your motivation will come back. Your energy will, too. I’ve spent the last month doing all of the five steps above and I can tell you I’m back in the saddle, moving forward with a lot of energy and excitement to get this next revision right. And shoot, I could end up back here all over again, but at least this time I’ll know what to do when I hit these middle feels.

Remember, in the midst of the long haul is where we figure out what we’re made of, and what we really want and are willing to do to have it. Good things take time, and you just happen to be in the middle of it.

Keep going, and I will too. Woman on xx