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What's On Your Mind About Your Writing?

Simpson17866

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Hit the 40,000 word mark in my novel today...and I think it's time to stop. I've gotten most of what I want to say on paper and need time away to reassess and reevaluate. One weakness I've already identified is that the story isn't very exciting. Maybe I'll change my mind after re-reading it, but something feels very non-urgent. I've spent so much time obsessing over the technical, science-fictiony details that I might have neglected the human element. The manuscript is much shorter than I anticipated, but right now I think my brain needs a break. Worse comes to worse I can try selling to Analog or similar magazine that serializes longer works (and that's a very​ long shot indeed).
... That is almost exactly what I've realized about my own WIP having gotten almost exactly as far.
 

rwm4768

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I'm lucky to write A word when I'm depressed, let alone 2000. Good job!

I'm bipolar with more depression than mania, so I'm pretty much forced to write when I'm depressed if I want to write. A lot of times, it's a real struggle at first, but once I get going, the writing helps with my depression.
 

WriterDude

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I think i sorted my MC issue. His objectives were woolly but I've sussed it. He's an outcast that wants to be accepted, so has turned his back on his shameful heritage, and embraced the symbolism of the middle classes, but finds himself trapped between being seen as a pretentious arse and class traitor, and fighting his urge to go feral and live in the woods alone. I think I can make that work.
 

HaHs

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I've just surpassed 30k and am currently trying not to feel too bogged down by the fact that most of what I've written is no good so far. It's the first draft! First drafts are allowed to be messy, basic attempts at getting the words on paper. Making it good is what revisions are for, which I'm REALLY looking forward to! I just hope I can keep up this motivation. So far I have some days writing 5k words, some days writing 0 words, and an average of between 1k-2k words. It's a little daunting knowing I probably have at least another 60k words to go... but I've been working on this for less than 3 weeks, so I'm making good time. I CAN DO THIS... I hope...............

And that's what's on my mind today.
 

Lakey

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I think i sorted my MC issue. His objectives were woolly but I've sussed it. He's an outcast that wants to be accepted, so has turned his back on his shameful heritage, and embraced the symbolism of the middle classes, but finds himself trapped between being seen as a pretentious arse and class traitor, and fighting his urge to go feral and live in the woods alone. I think I can make that work.

Congratulations on the breakthrough. I might have had similar yesterday, when I worked through a couple of plot issues that were troubling me. I had been trying to figure out how two characters would each get to know a secret about the other, and what it would look like when they talked about it. I was really, really struggling. Yesterday I finally worked out how one of the revelations would happen, and realized that the other revelation didn't have to happen at all in the way I was struggling to imagine it.

One of the weirdest things about this process has been the experience of struggling against things that have been major story points since my very first outline and then just - changing them. These people and their experiences have become so real to me, and yet I can just change the course of their lives when I decide I need to. It's very peculiar.

I've just surpassed 30k and am currently trying not to feel too bogged down by the fact that most of what I've written is no good so far. It's the first draft! First drafts are allowed to be messy, basic attempts at getting the words on paper. Making it good is what revisions are for, which I'm REALLY looking forward to! I just hope I can keep up this motivation. So far I have some days writing 5k words, some days writing 0 words, and an average of between 1k-2k words. It's a little daunting knowing I probably have at least another 60k words to go... but I've been working on this for less than 3 weeks, so I'm making good time. I CAN DO THIS... I hope...............

You can, and you're amazing. I am in very much the same place as you, with about 50k written and about another 60k to go, determined to get through my first draft before digging in to the revision ideas that have been piling up and that I am absolutely dying to get to. Except for me, the time frame is much stretched. I have been working on this for about 10 months, and a week in which I get 2000 words into it is a good strong week. I'm just too tired out from my day job most of the time to do more than that, and I'm still bad at just writing writing writing - I spend a lot of time crafting sentences and attempting perfection as I write, which makes me very inefficient (as it's all going to have the stuffing revised out of it later either way). Point is YOU are doing great. Keep it up.
 

HaHs

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You can, and you're amazing. I am in very much the same place as you, with about 50k written and about another 60k to go, determined to get through my first draft before digging in to the revision ideas that have been piling up and that I am absolutely dying to get to. Except for me, the time frame is much stretched. I have been working on this for about 10 months, and a week in which I get 2000 words into it is a good strong week. I'm just too tired out from my day job most of the time to do more than that, and I'm still bad at just writing writing writing - I spend a lot of time crafting sentences and attempting perfection as I write, which makes me very inefficient (as it's all going to have the stuffing revised out of it later either way). Point is YOU are doing great. Keep it up.

Thank you so much for the kind words of support!! This is what I needed to hear today. My speed is probably entirely down to the fact that I just finished my final year at university and am temporarily ENTIRELY FREE to write all day/every day… yesterday was one of those days. Soon I’ll be stepping out into the “Real World” and getting a job, so I’m going to have to start figuring out how I’m going to find a suitable work/writing balance for my life.

Really glad to hear that you’re trying to write even when you come home tired - that’s not something I imagine I’ll be very good at doing. Also working on a project for 10 months shows incredible dedication, I really hope the rest of it goes well for you.
 

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Kind of wondering whether I need to write a query as an exercise to figure out if my plot is actually doing what it's supposed to do, because I'm stuck. Not cool.
 

Reservoir Angel

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I'm bipolar with more depression than mania, so I'm pretty much forced to write when I'm depressed if I want to write. A lot of times, it's a real struggle at first, but once I get going, the writing helps with my depression.
God what I wouldn't give for the ability to push through depression to be creative. For me any sense of depression just utterly destroys my creativity. It's hard for me to get motivated about writing when I can't get motivated about literally anything in my life.

On another point: What I'd planned as a self-indulgent fanfiction is demanding to be its own stand-alone original work and I don't know if I can deal with that since it involves a whole other level of investment than what I'm currently operating on regarding this thing.
 

Simpson17866

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Kind of wondering whether I need to write a query as an exercise to figure out if my plot is actually doing what it's supposed to do, because I'm stuck. Not cool.
That actually helped me recently. I've been writing my WIP as being about my protagonists discovering the existence of magic, but writing experimental pitches made me realize that this would actually be more secondary than I'd originally thought.
 

indianroads

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Kind of wondering whether I need to write a query as an exercise to figure out if my plot is actually doing what it's supposed to do, because I'm stuck. Not cool.

One of the reasons why I usually plan and outline before I start writing.
 

Morri

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One of the reasons why I usually plan and outline before I start writing.

I did outline, but it's looking like I don't have the right kind of events. I'll have to think on it some more.
 

RLGreenleaf

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Just read a book that discusses how to outline and plan a novel.

I suppose that works for a good number of writers, but then...it does not work for others.

It does not work for me -- when I am writing the story, the characters take on lives of their own, and I let them behave as their personalities dictate, and as a result, I am often surprised at the results.

I tried planning ahead several times, but those pesky characters kept going off in other directions anyway.

You should try both ways and determine what works best for you. Perhaps outlining might even work well for you in one novel, but not in the next.

Experiment, try, fail, retry...

you just have to find what works for you.
 

Tepelus

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Took some time off of work starting yesterday. Yesterday was a busy day and today I decided to just do nothing. I've had no ambition to do anything anyway but sleep so I thought I would open up my WIP document and try to get back into writing again. I haven't written much since March. Boy, it's like pulling teeth just to get something written. It's taken me three hours to write a mere 400 words. I always find it hard to get back into writing once I stop for whatever the reason.
 

rwm4768

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Somebody rated my book 5 stars today. I'm not sure how that happened because it isn't out yet.

Maybe it was somebody associated with the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off, which I've entered. I don't know.
 

Taylor Harbin

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I sent a story to PodCastle. They replied yesterday to say it's been passed up the chain! I feel that I'm on the cusp of my first SFWA-qualifying sale. Trying to keep expectations in check and it's proving very difficult! So excited and nervous!
 

Dysnomia

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IT IS SHIT. EVERYTHING IS SHIT.
 

Lakey

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Thank you so much for the kind words of support!! This is what I needed to hear today. My speed is probably entirely down to the fact that I just finished my final year at university and am temporarily ENTIRELY FREE to write all day/every day… yesterday was one of those days. Soon I’ll be stepping out into the “Real World” and getting a job, so I’m going to have to start figuring out how I’m going to find a suitable work/writing balance for my life.
Hah! Congratulations on finishing university - also an accomplishment to be pleased with. Enjoy your writing break while you've got it. :)


Really glad to hear that you’re trying to write even when you come home tired - that’s not something I imagine I’ll be very good at doing. Also working on a project for 10 months shows incredible dedication, I really hope the rest of it goes well for you.

I'd say "obsession" rather than "dedication" but, you know, po-tay-to, po-tah-to. I too hope the rest goes well. I'd hate to lose steam and lose interest after sinking so much effort in - it's something I'm afraid could happen. I am a serial obsessionist and my obsessions, which tend to last anywhere between two and four years, can change without warning.

But, I worked out some story points I'd been struggling with and wrote a new outline this weekend. The 11 chapters I've written of the novel so far will, with some rearranging, some cutting, and a little addition, account for 15 chapters of the new outline, which is still just about halfway through the story. As tempting as it is to go back to the beginning and do that work to turn my existing 11 into the new 15, I think I shall try to press forward along the new outline. Because I suspect that as I work on, as much will change about the second half of the story as has changed about the first half. So my first goal remains: Complete a draft, no matter how ragged and lumpy and ugly a child it is shaping up to be.

ETA: Oh, and I came up with a title, at last. It's a hella melodramatic and rather dreary title but a title nonetheless.
 
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heykatydid

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Reading back through my first draft to figure out what I need to tackle first in the editing phase has made me realize that sometimes my writing is pretty good! ... and sometimes it's not, haha. Here's to sorting out all the dull parts and figuring out my pacing problems. It feels way too fast to get anything done - but it's a novella, so that's kind of the point.
 

Undercover

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Somebody rated my book 5 stars today. I'm not sure how that happened because it isn't out yet.

Maybe it was somebody associated with the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off, which I've entered. I don't know.


That happened to me too and I was mindboggled until I Googled it. Seems that some readers rate their books as levels of excitement on how much they want to read it. It's how some sort out their bookshelf. 5 stars though, congrats on that!

I have the bipolar disorder too and know how that is to fight to keep working while you're depressed. It's hard, but it's worse if I do nothing at all for the day. I always try to remember doing something (even if it's small) is better as opposed to doing nothing at all.
 

Tepelus

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So yesterday I ended up writing a little over 2k words! I started around 3pm, struggled to get going until around 6pm when things started to happen for me and the words became easier to write. In the past, the 6-7pm time seemed to be when I had the most ambition to write...it is also around supper time and I'm usually not around to sit at my computer then. I was yesterday; I stayed home and ate supper later. It felt good to finally get this chapter moving again after being stalled on it for weeks. It's almost done, then I can move onto the next chapter.
 

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Spent the last 4 days writing chapter 22 and it mostly needs to be re-written because I've made it sound like its happening in the nonfiction sense instead of the fiction sense.
 

Punk28

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Maybe removed around 100 words from chapter 22. Still needs work, though. Now that I'm about to hit the sack for my few hours of sleep (being an insomniac is so much fun), my mind conjures up the question of what the difference is in lean and lanky (lean, mean, fighting machine is throwing me off when I look it up, as it says that lean means little to no muscle but there some fighters out there who are described as "lean" but have good muscle on them).
 

Morri

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Maybe removed around 100 words from chapter 22. Still needs work, though. Now that I'm about to hit the sack for my few hours of sleep (being an insomniac is so much fun), my mind conjures up the question of what the difference is in lean and lanky (lean, mean, fighting machine is throwing me off when I look it up, as it says that lean means little to no muscle but there some fighters out there who are described as "lean" but have good muscle on them).

I always thought lanky to be long-limbed and skinny, while lean meant slim but with muscle.