I've been trying to get a new draft of my manuscript finished since June. This hasn't been a particularly easy edit, and there have been a fair number of days where I've wanted to throw my computer into a fire pit and roast marshmallows over it. I want to say that I've always been amazing at just keeping going, even when the writing looked a bit like this:

I can't.

Every writer, including me, knows what it’s like to set a manuscript down for an evening and just… not pick it up again.

When that happens, usually we have every intention of returning the next day, but for some reason or another, we don’t.

One day turns into a week. Then two.

The longer the manuscript’s been set aside, the harder it becomes to pick up again. It becomes this dark, hulking presence lurking at the edge of your consciousness, like something in a horror movie, eating away at that piece of your identity labeled “writer.”

The reasons for not picking it up may change. They may build. But there’s always one.

For me, it's usually because I've written myself into a corner and simply... don't know where to go from there. Sometimes it's because I'm overwhelmed by other things going on in my life. Sometimes I feel inadequate to the task at hand. Sometimes, I sit down to write, and I just find myself unable to open the file.

If you have ever felt this way. If you feel like this post is a bit of a personal attack. If you're in that place now...

Don’t fret.

I've been forced to fight my way through my own writing ruts, because as the summer has gone on, I simply haven't had the time to set the book aside for longer than a weekend. I think I've finally gotten to a good place, developed a good system for spending time with my manuscript every day, no matter what. And now, I would like to share my method with you.

How to Return to Your Manuscript

The very day you realise you're in a rut, set aside ten minutes to look at your manuscript.

I recommend starting with the last chapter/scene you wrote, but this is your manuscript and your time. You can look at the first page. Or that one scene in the middle that you actually kind of like. Just don’t look at a blank page. Blank pages are scary and this is all about eliminating writing anxiety.
I make this the last thing I do in the day, so I go to sleep with my manuscript in my head. Sometimes it helps to let my unconscious mind have a go at sorting through what I’ve read. However, I think it’s helpful to do this before any long period of time when you can let your mind wander. You may find writing more helpful before work/school or during lunch. Before a commute. Whatever works best for you.
I also do this at night, because I do it the very day I've told myself I'm going to write all day! and found that I couldn't bear to open the document.

But don’t write and don’t look for more than ten minutes.

You’re not allowed to change a single thing in the document. Not a comma. Not a misspelled word.
When the time is up, simply close the document and go on with your day/night.
There will probably be some things that you do want to change in the manuscript. They may be very simple, sentence-level fixes, but they may be as big as an idea for continuing the scene or the start of the next chapter. Let those thoughts sit with you, instead of all of the manuscript doubt and anxiety that were sitting with you before.
And yes, keeping your time down to ten minutes is important. You want a focus on a bite-sized portion of the manuscript. If you read too much, you’ll give yourself too much to consider for the next day, you’ll find too much to change, and you’ll run the risk of making your work as anxiety-inducing as ever.

The next day, sit down with your document for another ten minutes.

Allow yourself to make the changes you didn’t make yesterday. This may mean adding a few commas and removing a few ‘that’s. This may mean continuing with the scene. Ten minutes is the perfect amount of time to set down a well-crafted paragraph. You may want to try starting with that.
Again, force yourself to stop after ten minutes, even if you’re on a roll now. The stopping is important. It means that you have to keep all of those changes that you’re excited to make inside your head. It means that your thoughts about writing are good and productive, that when you're thinking about going back to your novel, you're thinking about all of the work you want to do.

Key advice: at the end of every writing session, rut or no, always leave an edit in your head. It’ll be that small, tangible thing you can start with in your next session.

Rinse, repeat, and make it routine.

Sit down for at least ten minutes every day. Make it a routine. Once the manuscript is open, do whatever feels comfortable to you: whether that means reading a chapter, editing something old, or writing something new.
If you’re coming up with edits and scenes that simply require more than ten minutes, start amping up your writing time. Write for an hour. Write for three.
Have a super busy day and know you can’t write for an hour? Those ten minutes are still fine. They’re still enough. Never feel like having spent three hours writing yesterday means you have to spend three hours writing today. That will only lead to not writing that day at all.
Get stuck again? Go back to a shorter writing time, go back to reading. The important thing is simply returning to your manuscript every day whether you have something good to set on the page or not.
Never got un-stuck in the first place? That’s still okay! Keep spending your ten minutes with your manuscript. Write or just read. You don’t owe the story more words, just keep it in your thoughts. Make it a defined, real, thing instead of that monster lurking in your head. It may take time, but eventually, something will click, and by that point, you’ll be in a place where spending time with your book every day, opening up that file, is easy.
If you are able to write for an hour or two a day, you may find it useful to continue setting aside ten minutes each evening to read that day’s work–read but not edit–and keep a few edits in your head for the next day’s session.

By the end of a week, whether you’ve written a hundred new pages or fixed a lot of bad grammar, you’ll at least be in a place where you’re once again thinking about your manuscript in tangible terms, as a thing made up of words and paragraphs instead of anxiety and blank pages.

Maybe in the end, you’ll decide that you simply need to abandon this story and pick up a new one. If this happens, you’ll be in a great place to start, with a writing routine already in place.

More likely than not, just spending time with your story will fan up your love for it again. And once more, your manuscript will be the annoying, stubborn, untameable child you adore instead of a lurking horror.

Now, it's time for me to get back to my own WIP.

xx Julia