For months, I had been working towards 90,000 words as though reaching that number would magically transform me into a calm, confident and unquestionably legitimate author. I imagined typing the final few words, checking the word count and feeling nothing but pride. Perhaps I would pour a glass of something cold, stare wistfully out of a window and congratulate myself on finally becoming the sort of woman who finishes manuscripts.
Instead, I reached 90,000 words and immediately panicked.
There was no cinematic celebration. No inspirational soundtrack began playing in the background. I simply looked at the number on my screen and realised that the vague little idea I had been quietly working on had become a full-length novel. A real one. Or at least something closely resembling one, once I removed the repeated descriptions, unnecessary dialogue and approximately four hundred instances of characters looking at each other.
When the Dream Starts Feeling Real
Writing a novel is strange because, for such a long time, it can remain safely within the fantasy stage. You are writing a book, which sounds wonderfully ambitious, but you are still able to hide behind the fact that it is unfinished. Nobody can judge it yet because it is not ready. Nobody can reject it because it has not been submitted. Nobody can misunderstand your characters, criticise the plot or leave a devastating two-star review because it currently exists only between you, your laptop and whichever friend has been forced to hear about it repeatedly.
Reaching 90,000 words changed something for me. Suddenly, I was no longer simply experimenting with an idea. I had created characters with entire lives, relationships, arguments, flaws and questionable decision-making skills. I had written the beginning, survived the middle and somehow made it close enough to the end that finishing became a realistic possibility.
Naturally, this was when my confidence decided to leave the building.
The Fear Behind Finishing a Manuscript
I had always assumed the hardest part of writing would be finding enough words. It turns out that producing the words is only one part of the problem. Once they exist, you have to read them back, improve them and eventually consider allowing another human being to see them.
There is something deeply exposing about writing fiction. Even when the plot is entirely invented, pieces of you make their way onto every page. Your humour, fears, fantasies, experiences and observations all become tangled up with the characters. You can insist that nothing is autobiographical, but then somebody reads a particularly specific scene and suddenly you are avoiding eye contact at family gatherings.
Finishing also means losing the excuse that you are “still working on it”. At some point, the manuscript has to become something other people can form an opinion on, and that is where the dream becomes slightly less whimsical and considerably more terrifying.
Looking Back at How Far I Have Come
Once the panic had settled into its usual background position, I tried to look at the milestone more rationally. Ninety thousand words did not appear by accident. They were written between a full-time career, motherhood, family life and all the other things I insist on adding to my schedule because apparently I find peace suspicious.
Some chapters arrived easily. Others had to be dragged onto the page while kicking and screaming. There were scenes I loved immediately, chapters I rewrote repeatedly and entire sections I briefly considered deleting before closing the laptop and pretending they did not exist.
However imperfect the manuscript may still be, I wrote it. I created an interconnected world, developed characters I care about far too deeply and continued even when self-doubt suggested I should abandon the entire thing and take up a less emotionally demanding hobby, like competitive gymnastics.
Reaching 90,000 words reminded me that progress does not always feel triumphant while it is happening. Sometimes it looks like writing 2,000 words and deleting most of them. Sometimes it means reading other people’s novels under the extremely flexible definition of research. Sometimes it is simply reopening the document after a bad writing day and trying again.
Taking Stock Without Picking Everything Apart
My natural instinct is to immediately focus on everything that still needs work. I can identify the chapters that need more depth, the dialogue that needs tightening and the plot points currently being held together by optimism and a very questionable timeline.
That work matters, but I am trying not to let it erase what has already been achieved.
This manuscript began as an idea that I was not entirely sure I could execute. Now it is a story with a beginning, a middle and an ending that is gradually coming into focus. It is not finished, polished or ready to sit proudly on a bookshelf, but it exists. That alone feels worthy of acknowledgement before I begin dismantling half of it during the editing process.
I think aspiring writers are often so focused on the next stage that we forget to celebrate the one we have just completed. We finish a draft and immediately worry about editing. We complete the edits and begin thinking about submissions. We reach one milestone and instantly move the goalposts because apparently ambition cannot simply enjoy itself for five minutes.
Anyway, Here We Are
So yes, I reached 90,000 words and immediately got scared. I questioned the story, my ability and whether anybody would ever want to read something that had occupied so much of my mind for so long.
Then I remembered that fear does not necessarily mean I am on the wrong path. Perhaps it simply means the thing I have created matters to me. The possibility of failure feels frightening because the dream behind it is real.
There is still plenty of work ahead. I need to finish the remaining chapters, edit the manuscript and confront all the sentences I apparently wrote while temporarily disconnected from the English language. But for now, I am allowing myself to take stock.
I wrote 90,000 words. I created a novel. I am scared of what happens next, but I am still going.
Anyway, here we are.
