you pause and count the words and find there are only 3,000.  A novel should have at least 70,000 words.  See the first problem?

You bash on regardless convinced there’s a lot more up there yet to be revealed and after 8 weeks of solid writing you begin to realise the story has become disjointed and what you’ve just written in chapter 6 should have appeared in chapter 3.

No problem, any half reasonable word processing system will enable you to cut and paste with ease.  Then you find you are referring to things in chapter 7 which weren’t mentioned earlier so back again.  Somehow you manage 20,000 words and its time to let someone else read it.

Ahhh. Why don’t they think the story is as good as you do?  Why are they being so pernickety     about your spelling and grammar?  Don’t they understand good pros when they read it?

Suddenly you realise what was going to take a couple of months could now be a couple of years.

Now you’re beginning to understand the problem just as I did.  This is a marathon not a sprint.

Even when it’s finished and your critics are happy, the job is only just beginning.  What’s the use of the manuscript lying in a drawer.  Isn’t the idea to get it published?  The publishers are inundated so want literary agents to provide the first filter.  Problem is the literary agents receive upwards of 300 manuscripts each month so yours will languish in a heap with the other masterpieces.  What now?   You go to ShieldCrest who will help you do it yourself.