Making Progress Through the Pile

It's been two days since my last post and I'm happy to report that I've been working every spare minute on the book. It's been overwhelming at times, which I knew it would be, but I'm happy to see some slow-but-steady progress. And I've been marking it with the growing pile on my office table. Allow me to explain.

I've written many types of books. As I mentioned in my first post, the book I'm working on now is my 22nd. Some books use only a few references (love those!). Others require references in the hundreds. I'm working on one of those. I wrote the first edition of this book in 2002. It's on trauma and health--a topic that researchers have really embraced over the past 10 years. And I've been collecting articles for the revised edition all that time.

Do you get the idea that that's a LOT of articles? That's putting it mildly. I have a file drawer bursting at the seems, a bunch of pdfs, and a whole bookshelf with carefully marked books and journals. How long should that take?

I'd estimate that it takes me anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to read, digest, and write up results from a single study. When you multiple that by what's in my files, I think you can see why I was dreading getting started. As I wrote in an earlier post, the amount you do in the beginning seems like a drop in the bucket compared to what you still have to do. It's enough to make you want to watch a lot of TV and forget the whole thing.

Which brings me to the point of tonight's post. When you have a large goal, you need to give yourself clear markers about where you are and what you have already accomplished. In my case, it's the PILE.

True, I could file the articles I've finished neatly away. But for now, I'm enjoying them in all their glory at 8 inches high--and growing. That pile is messy, but it's providing me with tons of inspiration. So when you work on a writing project that seems overwhelming, give yourself lots of little reminders along the way of all the things you have already accomplished. It will encourage you and hopefully keep you from panicking (as much) about all the things you still need to do.

Yes, I still have a long way to go--but by God, I'm finally making progress.