As I wrote about in February, I’m working on a sci-fi novel, rewriting it to be a draft that I can then bring to my writers’ group for critique and improvement. I have between 15 and 20 chapters to go — as I write, I’m making changes and sometimes things get longer or shorter depending upon their importance to the story.

Since February I’ve only written (or rewritten) ten chapters. I finished Chapter 34, and then I just… stopped. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Well, I’ve been at rest for two full months, and now every time I open those windows to work on that book I find myself feeling less and less motivated to actually do it. I want to finish the book; I want my writers’ group to get their hands on it. I’m just… not doing it.

Some folks might say it would help to start getting the book critiqued now, that it might jumpstart my writing process. However, I don’t think that works for me; I’m more concerned that it’ll change so much of the book that I won’t want to continue at all. It was the same way when I was writing fanfic and posting it online: I didn’t want to post anything before the story was done, because I didn’t want to risk losing my momentum — or, worse, getting a bad review and then abandoning the story altogether.

I have done some work on other books in the meantime; I have two other contemporary fantasy novels and a middle-grade fantasy novel that I could do more with, but I just know that I’ll end up abandoning those too and then I’ll have four abandoned books, instead of just one. One book I can explain away as being stuck, but four of them? That’s a bigger problem.

At the time of this writing, I’m about to head on a week-long work trip where I’ll have basically nothing to do after work while I sit in my hotel room. Maybe I’ll work on the book then.

Hopefully. We’ll see.