We've all heard the phrase "labor of love" used to describe a difficult situation that we'd probably back out of if not for sheer devotion. It's been used to describe jobs, relationships, chores...and perhaps nowhere is it more apt than the process of writing a book. Sometimes writing a book crosses the line from labor into enslavement; your book ties you up in your own plot threads and drags you along, forcing you to churn out pages even when you don't want to. You love your book - but eventually the initial rush of inspiration wears off, leaving you with something that's more work than pleasure.

And trust me: as an editor, I can usually pinpoint the exact moment the author hits that wall in every submission I read.

The writing starts to drag, becoming flat and lackluster; the style turns formulaic and stilted, the descriptions losing all sense of rhythm and flow to simply pack in details as if volume might substitute for panache. The characters seem to sleepwalk through their scenes by rote, while the plot either winds itself into a tangled knot or wanders off, lost and confused, a pathetic little puppy trying to find its way home. Some people call this the muddle in the middle.

I call it author fatigue, and 9 out of 10 times it's what makes me lose interest and put a submission down.

Author fatigue is similar to runner fatigue. Amateur runners can only run a certain distance before their wind breaks and they have to slow down; amateur writers can only write so far into a story before they lose their drive and lose their way. With practice runners learn to push on until they get their second wind; with practice authors learn to write through the fatigue until they find their stride and their story again. The real marathon runners push through to the finish line - whether that line is a stretch of tape, or the words THE END on the last page of the book.

So when your story's staring you in the face, a jumbled mess of disjointed words just daring you to type another letter, how do you press on when you don't know if you can stand to go the distance? Well, you can try these tips on overcoming author fatigue:

1. Take a day off. Stop writing. Yes, it's okay to do that, as long as you remember to start writing again. When you wander in the wrong direction, the solution isn't to keep walking that way until you drift off the crooked path and flounder into the Bog of Eternal Stench. Stop and take a look at what you're doing. Ask yourself where you're going, how you got here, and just how far you need to backtrack to find the right road again. But even as you retrace your steps, pay attention - because you may have found a few worthwhile things while strolling down the wrong path, and it's okay to stuff them in your pockets and take them with you. (Yes, I'm done with the metaphor.)

2. Write ahead. If you're tired of the current scene and you've lost your enthusiasm, write a later scene that just tickles your fancy. Write something that makes you love your story again - and set yourself a goal to connect all the disparate pieces. It'll light a fire under your bum and give you something to strive for as you write through the difficult areas, and when you join the individual scenes the sense of accomplishment will renew your energy and give you the momentum to keep moving.

3. Plan ahead. I know when a new idea starts brewing, the last thing you want to do is slow down and do something as mundane as writing an outline. If you don't want to do it while the first bloom of love is still on the story, how do you think you'll feel about it when you're tired and would rather be flogged with a curling iron than work on your book? Even if you don't write an outline, write notes covering your characters, key details, motivations, overarching plot threads, and anything you might want to work in further down the road. Those notes will be your crutch later, and will hold you up and point you straight when you're limping along without direction.

4. Read - and don't say you don't have time to read. "If you don't have time to read, you don't have time to write." If you don't know who said that, the first thing you need to read is Stephen King's ON WRITING. You may be the best writer in the world, but if the only thing you ever read is your own writing, you're going to stagnate, get tunnel vision, and lock yourself into an ever-degrading cycle of increasingly bad, forced writing. I can name a dozen NYT bestselling authors who've done this. Don't emulate their bad habits; instead emulate their good ones, and read anything you can get your hands on. Learn from both the bad and the good; learn what works, and what doesn't. All the writing courses and tips in the world can't substitute for the hands-on experience learned from a good example (or a bad one). And when you're bogged down, nothing can inspire more than seeing how someone else has taken simple words and crafted an amazing story.

5. At the same time, don't be afraid to reread your own work. Go back and start at the beginning of your story; read what you wrote when you loved it, and remember just what got your little writerly heart all aflutter in the first place. Follow the story's rhythm and flow; in a way it's like listening to a song. If the song stops abruptly in the middle, you'll often find yourself still humming along, following it through to the end. When your unfinished story stops, if your imagination's picked up the flow it'll try to keep running through to the end, and can pull you through some rough spots.

6. Last, and most important: be aware of your own writing. Know when you're writing badly, and when you're forcing it just to get through. Hitting the wall doesn't make you a bad writer; it happens to everyone. Even marathon runners hit the wall, and have to push through until they gain their stride; it's the ones who recognize it and learn to pace themselves who reach the finish line, while the ones who charge on end up breaking, faltering, and falling out of the race. A good writer knows when they've hit the point of fatigue, and knows to slow down, pace themselves, and work their way carefully through to the end. They also know just which areas they dragged through, which they'll need to work on later in edits.

And trust me, you will need to edit. Forced writing stands out, and agents, editors, and publishers will know without a doubt the moment you stopped caring and started phoning it in. Getting through those long, dry stretches is only the beginning; when you're done with them, you'll need to step back and take a good, hard look at the words. Ask yourself this: if writing this made you tired, who's to say it won't be an exhausting read as well? If you're bored during a scene, it's likely the readers are as well. If I hit a point where a book utterly bores me, I'll only read so far before I put it down - especially when the author pours so much energy into the start of the book, only to trip and drop me on my face in a weary, muddled mess some 40-50 pages in.

So pace yourself, and pace your story. Learn to write past fatigue, and learn how to make the excitement and enthusiasm last throughout the book until that "labor of love" isn't a labor to read. Your book will be better for it - and as a writer, so will you.