Quit While You're Ahead!

Disclaimer first—I do not consider myself a professional anything, so my suggestions and tips should be taken as just one more person on the internet sharing his personal opinion based on his own experiences.  These tips and ideas may work for you too, but they may not.  Just saying.

Writing Tip #009

Quit while you’re ahead!  

Okay, that sounds bad, and I'm sure that you're probably taking that the wrong way, but that's not the way that I mean it.  What I mean is, when you're getting tired, and you know that you need to stop writing for the night; or because you need to get ready for work, or whatever-- find a spot to quit that will be easy to start up again.  

Example:  Sometimes, I will find myself at a turning point in my story—maybe in the midst of a confrontation, or even on the verge of killing off a character.  Stop right there.  Wait.  Let the words that you’ve already written soak in for a few hours, maybe even overnight.  I find that when I do this, it is much easier for me to pick up writing from that point the next time that I sit down.  I think it's because I know exactly where I'm going with the story at that point.  Once I get the words flowing through the keyboard, it's easy to keep going and continue with the next scene of the story.  Quitting while you're ahead may sound redundant, I know, and it may fall into the realm of tips that only works for me, so try this tip with caution.  I'd love to hear how it worked for you.