Publishing E-Books For Dummies

I’m Only Partway Finished, and Now I Have Writer’s Block

A few chapters into writing your e-book, you’ve stalled. It tends to happen in the early stages of writing an e-book. (Many authors find that their resistance slackens later in the process and that they can more easily push toward the end.) You may feel that you have a very long way to go, and you may well have already been working on your e-book for months or even years.

“Stuckness” takes on different forms. Even when a writer believes that her creativity is blocked, in most cases, the situation isn’t that serious. The problem isn’t that the writer can’t write — she has simply come across a problem within her e-book, or within her life, that’s making writing difficult.

If you’re stuck on what to write in your e-book, try these steps:

1. Review your initial plan, such as character outlines or scene ideas for a work of fiction.

2. Review the material you’ve already written to determine whether you need to revise or reshape your plan:

• If you realize that drastic changes are necessary earlier in your e-book, write down a few brief notes now, and continue writing as though you’ve already made those changes. Your notes could simply be “Change the introduction and Chapters 1–3 to focus on allotments, not on home gardens” or “John should be 16, not 11.” You don’t want to go back and make those changes yet, though. By continuing to write, you’ll reach the end of the first draft much sooner — and you might also find that you ...