Look, the second book in my Merlin’s Last Magic trilogy is not finished.

It has been more than four years since The Thirteen Treasures of Britain came out. This is not something I’m proud of. I HATE that it’s taking me so long to finish.

Part of the problem is that I’ve written a lot of words, but they haven’t all stayed in the manuscript; by this point I’ve written well over 75,000 words, but only about 40,000 of them are usable. This has slowed things down.

What’s also slowed me down is lack of inspiration. I want the novel to be great, but so many of my ideas are not great. They are cliche, predictable, boring. Whenever I work on coming up with ideas, I end up coming up with ideas for other stories, other worlds, other novels.

It’s not like I haven’t been writing. I’ve written short stories, poems, blog posts, even several chapters of a novella. And I’ve been working on Ysbaddaden too. It’s just taking awhile.

I’m also blocked by my perfectionism. I freeze up and can’t write because I’m afraid that my writing will suck.

I wish I didn’t think of this novel as being “important.” That would help a lot. But since it’s been more than four years since my first book, I feel like this sequel has taken on importance just because the wait has been so long. I don’t want to be frozen by perfectionism. I don’t want to go another year without finishing this book.

I wish I had a snazzy pep-talk thing to tell myself so that I could blaze through the next few months and finish this novel. But I don’t have any snazzy pep-talk things to say. I know I need to sit down and put words on paper. I know I need to have the courage to write as well as I can and not worry what people will think. I know I need to somehow find the energy and time to get my work done. I know I will eventually finish, even if it’s not anytime soon. But I will finish, as long as I keep writing. That much I know.