TEN REASONS TO FINISH WRITING YOUR NOVEL

1. There’s a child out there whose life will be forever changed, enhanced, uplifted after reading your book.  

A parent as well.

2. Your husband (or wife) won’t have to deal with your moping.

3.  Your dog won’t have to deal with your moping.  (Or your cat, goldfish, orangutan or yak)

4. You won’t have to deal with your moping.

5.  All the revenue generated by your best seller will single-handedly prevent Barnes & Noble from closing down 23 stores. 

A statue of you will be erected outside the B & N nearest your house.  Pigeons will perch on it in the noonday sun and owls at night.

6.  The joy of completion, the intoxication of finally reaching the finish line, is an experience to which you are entitled.  You have paid your dues.

7.  You’ll pump new blood into children’s literature.

8.  ‘What if’ will be forever deleted from your vocabulary.

9.  Your agent will use her cut of the profits to put her daughter through med school and the daughter will go on to discover a cure for cancer, which never would’ve happened if you had tossed your manuscript in the trash and eaten three pints of Haagen-Dazs ice cream.

10.  You can finally move on to your next book.  Then your next book can stop seeing a therapist.  Are you aware that your next book has been in therapy for years because it’s afraid that it doesn’t exist?  Your next book is a basket case.  It has high blood pressure, low self-esteem.  It thinks you hate it.  It wonders what it did to offend you?  Show it some love.  Finish your current novel and wrap your arms around the next one.