The Lull of the Halfway Point: Excerpt From My Book: A Friendly Guide to Writing and Ghostwriting
As a director, I get halfway through it and I wonder what it’s all about. Why am I telling this story? Does anybody care? I have to forget about it and just go ahead.
Clint Eastwood
You’re about to run a marathon – a little more than twenty-six miles. You wonder what on earth you're doing there. How will you ever make it to the end? How painful will it be? You warm up your muscles and drink lots of water while your inner voice is screaming something like: You should have practiced more. You can't do this. Who do you think you are? Superwoman? No one in her right mind would try to run a full marathon. You’ll probably finish last if you finish at all. Avoid the humiliation and quit while you’re ahead.
You take your place at the starting line, the gun cracks, your mind focuses, and you're off. You’ve practiced this run many times and the familiarity kicks in. Your body begins to shoot adrenaline. Your confidence surges and your heart pulses in your chest as the world flies by. You feel strong, you’re in your element, indomitable and determined. You know you've got this – until you hit mile thirteen. The halfway point.
This is when your body begins to rebel. The lactic acid has built up and you have excruciating pain in your joints. Your breath is labored, your skin burns, and no matter how much water you drink, it doesn’t quench your thirst. The participants around you seem to be in better shape than you are and it’s all you can do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I hate running, you tell yourself. It’s abusive. Why did I decide to do this in the first place. What’s the point? I should quit.
But you don’t. You remind yourself that you chose to do this and it’s up to you to finish what you started. “One more mile,” you tell yourself, and then another and another – until you get a second wind. You may not break through the tape but you finish the race and that’s what counts.
When you're about to write a book, you sit down at the computer and ask yourself: What on earth made me think I have what it takes to write a book? Who do I think I am? I hate writing. You consider all the great books that other people have written and yours feels like an exercise in futility, but you decide to give it a shot. You try a sentence or two for a warm up. They don’t feel right so you delete them and try again. When you find one you can live with, it feels okay for a while. You soldier forward, following your train of thought, weaving your story together, ignoring minor upsets and confusions along the way. You watch the words flowing onto the page and you think, Hey this isn't so bad. It actually feels good. I’m writing a book.
You're moving along until you get to the halfway point. It’s mile thirteen. You come to a halt. It’s as if someone stuck a STOP sign in front of you. You’ve written yourself into a corner and you can't find a clear direction out. Right or left? Forward or backward? Should you keep on writing or go back to the beginning and redo everything? It feels like the dark night of the soul in the middle of the day. You’re spiraling downward and you wonder why you should keep going. You don't care about what you're doing any more. You feel heavay, depressed and incapable of continuing.
When you reach that mental roadblock, if you stay with it, the lull of the halfway point will usher you into the next phase of your story. All is not lost. Far from it. The halfway point forces you to step back and evaluate where you are. You take a good look at how far you’ve come. You got badly beaten up by your inner critic but you banished him, you nursed your wounds and found your writing voice. You collapsed your Table of Contents and rearranged it repeatedly. You made hard decisions, you chose your words carefully, and you became your own cheerleader. Now you’re halfway through and you can’t imagine carrying on. This is a moment of reckoning. Will you keep writing or will you quit?
We have no control over much of what happens to us in this life, but how we deal with it up to us. When the initial rapture is gone, when you feel yourself stumbling and your writing sounds boring, you can consciously breathe life and energy into your work and be patient or you can abandon what you’ve done so far and take up a different project. The trouble is that if you decide to trash what you did and go on to something else, the same challenges will inevitably rise up and paralyze you, wherever you decided to go.
When you read your book at the halfway point, just like beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, good writing is in the mind of the author. Here are half a dozen things that have worked for me when I hit the lull of the halfway point:
1. Celebrate the halfway point instead of letting it torment you. If you managed to write the first half, you can write the second half.
2. Stop re-reading your material. It will keep sounding worse. You can read it again later.
3. Don't believe the critical voices in your head. Take control and remember that they aren’t telling the truth.
4. Get a new outlook by taking a walk, working out or taking a nap.
5. Think of your book in sections and take it one chapter at a time.
6. Keep on writing. Always.
When you label yourself untalented, stupid, awkward, or unable to discern good from bad, you can’t appreciate what you’ve already done. You can't use it as a springboard. But when you choose to treat yourself with kindness, and encouragement, your heart opens and you can tackle your project with renewed enthusiasm. You write one more page and another and another until you're skimming along once again.
It all comes down to how you decide to view your experience. Are you disgusted and think that life isn't fair? Or do you feel excited that you have a project to finish? Do you feel betrayed or do you feel confident that you can do it? Are you angry and blame everyone around you for making you write? Or are you prepared to take responsibility and have some patience with yourself? It may feel like something bad is happening to you but the truth is that the halfway point can strengthen you, inspire you, and ultimately set you free.