I want to tell you a story. Not the one I’ve been writing, but the story of bringing it to life.

About five years ago, something sparked. A character showed up, then a scene, then a whole world. I remember thinking, This is it. This is the story I have to tell.

What I didn’t realize then was just how long “telling” would take.

I had this image in my head of how it would go: sleepless nights, fast fingers, drafts piling up like magic. You know the stereotype, the fevered genius at the keyboard.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, writing this story turned into something slower. Quieter. Not a mad sprint, but more like wandering. I felt like a lost hiker, circling the same trees, passing the same landmarks, unsure if I was getting anywhere at all. But there was hope. Every plot breakthrough gave me energy—just long enough to run into the next wall.

In the beginning, everything buzzed. But the spark isn’t supposed to last.

At some point, the dialogue dries up. You lose the thread. You open your draft and just… sit there.

I told myself I was “thinking about the story,” when really, I was avoiding it. Because facing the page meant facing the fear that maybe this story wasn’t good. Or worse, that I wasn’t good.

That’s when I started to understand: inspiration might start the fire, but discipline keeps it going.

So I began showing up. On bad days. On tired days. For ten minutes at a time. I’d rewrite the same paragraph five times and still feel like I hadn’t moved. But that was progress, too.

Writers like George R. R. Martin have talked about the middle—the long slog—as the real heart of the work. 

Eventually, I gave up on waiting for ideal conditions. I let go of perfect. Some days I wrote two pages. Other days, I added a single word only to cut it. That had to be enough.

What helped was remembering that no one reads the first version and that revision isn’t punishment—it’s a privilege.

Robert Jordan used to write sprawling, chaotic outlines just to figure out what he might say. Brandon Sanderson rewrote entire books. That gave me permission to take my time too.

Time wasn’t the enemy. It was the process.

There were moments I felt guilty for not writing. For thinking about quitting. For wondering if I should just start a new project with all that fresh, exciting energy again.

But there were also quiet wins: a chapter that finally clicked. A problem I solved after months of spinning. The story shifted. So did I. It stopped being about finishing fast and started being about building something I enjoyed.

Characters evolve not just in my drafts, but in my mind. Themes start to mean more. My voice changed. The world I wrote grows richer, not because I pushed, but because I lived with it.

That’s what chipping away builds. Not perfection. Not speed. But depth.

Every great epic—The Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire—wasn’t written overnight. They were sculpted. One patient, faithful, messy page at a time.

These days, I think of persistence as its own kind of art.

It’s not about grinding harder. It’s about staying close to the work. Trusting that something is happening, even when it feels slow. Especially when it feels slow.

So if you’re working on something long—something that keeps asking for your time and care—you’re not behind.

You’re not lost.

You’re an artist in motion.

Maybe you’ll finish the thing. Maybe you’ll shelf it. Maybe you’ll come back in a year with fresh eyes and finally crack it open. Whatever happens, the time wasn’t wasted.

If you’re in the middle of a project that’s taking longer than you expected. Keep chipping away.

And remember: art isn’t finished. It’s only ever abandoned. There is no end. 

So maybe today’s the day you write one more sentence. Maybe that’s enough.

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