Dear DD, I come to you again with a request for "getting unstuck" advice. I did successfully finish that one novel-length story I was working on, and since then went on to write two more planned novellas for that series of works, and am now at about the halfway point of the last, concluding novel of that cycle (70k as we speak).
And it. Is. The. Worst. My normal pace is 1600 words per day; this one? I can barely manage 300-400, because every damn line is a struggle. (And breaking pace makes the struggle worse.) Occasionally I have a breakthrough and write a Chapter (usually after 3-4 days of coming up empty), but the next chapter goes back to the same beating my head against the wall, and I am not at all sure if it's because I fucked up 10 chapters back somewhere and am pushing through in vain or if it's because this is the final book in a 400k-long series, and it's Just That Hard, or because I am continuously weeding my parsnips, and I have no idea how to tell.
The biggest problem that comes to mind: because it's the concluding book of the cycle, it's also the book where I need to bring together all the throughlines that I'd been rotating through different stories previously, which means I have four protagonist groups with conflicting goals and values, and that's before factoring in the antagonists. Now it feels like there's too many, but interweaving the throughlines was always the plan--and I'd been building up towards it for the rest of the cycle, the structure is pretty set in stone, and if it can be changed, I'm not sure how to think about it to make that happen. (Or that I want it to happen--it's been 1,5 years of work, I'd like to stick the landing I'd been planning since very early!)
I've tried plotting (in fact, I have a pretty damn good vision of the endgame--but implementing the culmination is kicking my ass). I've tried just sitting down in front of the text and just writing the damn thing. I've tried spending days re-reading what I wrote. I've tried "burn down everything and rebuild"--I did that like 3-4 times this novel with different sequences of chapters in the first half, and I am pretty happy with how those turned out in the end, but I wasn't blocked on those the way I am here. I've tried taking breaks (but honestly, I'm more of a "if you leave, you can't come back to it" writer, so I'm not going to risk anything more than a week or two).
I'm going to get through this book, or so help me. But if you've got anything that I've missed that could possibly make this less frustrating (even if it's just a "yeah, that's just how the final books in a cycle are, keep going"), I'd be very grateful.
Actually, in my experience that is kind of how it is. Last books of series are hard. ...I mean, I've got one I've been working on for thirty years now. And the closer I get to finishing it, the harder it seems to be getting. It's like the Zeno's Paradox of novels. (insert helpless laughter here)
...I think one of the main causes of the kind of difficulties you've been having is exactly because you've got so very much energy tied up in sticking that landing. Or (ruthlessly mixing the metaphors here) it's because you're coming up to the very end of a long plate-spinning act...
...and all the plates are spinning, more than you ever had going at one time before... and the energy required to keep them all doing that until you're ready to stop them is considerable. And when you're not even sure how you're going to do it, that makes things seem even worse.
At this point I'd hesitate even to attempt to introduce some Weird New Trick into your workflow: partly because I don't think it's necessary. I think you're doing the right things, as best you can. I think you should keep doing them, as they seem to work best for youāchanging up tactics as necessaryāuntil you suddenly realize that you're done, and there's no more novel to write.
Two things then tend to happen. (a) You have a brief delighted collapse. (b) You suddenly find that all the energy you've been having trouble accessing comes back in a rush, and is available to use on things like (sorry, it's unavoidable, but I have to use the R-word here...) ...rewrite. ...Because inevitably now also will also come the point where you realize (having done the hardest part of the work, telling yourself the story) that now you need to climb back down into the work and start making sure that it's intelligible to everybody else who might read it.
In the meantime, you have little choice but to keep on working, but always with the thought hanging in front of you: There's going to come a point when this is done. Oh thank gods. ...This final slog is sooooo annoying. But when it's done you'll be so incredibly pleased with yourself... and you'll have reason.
You will get there. So: once more into the breach. š ...And good luck! (Because some of that never hurts...)
