What's On Your Mind About Your Writing?

I am 34K into my first draft of my novel. The original concept was a wish fulfillment fantasy, to stay forever on my laptop and to never be published unless posthumously (there are reasons for everything in this sentence. Leave me alone). A is poor and estranged from her family. She meets N, who is old money and has a wonderful family. They go through some trials before getting their HEA.

I have a romantic drama on my hands instead that is jammed full of conflict and sadness. I'm just now getting to write about N's wealth and how close she is to her family, but this -is not- wish fulfillment. It's not character torture, either. It's realistic and it makes me so sad. N's wealth and her family aren't making things any better; they're just accidentally highlighting that A is estranged from her family with no chance of reconciliation and she is unlikely to get out of her current financial situation. The second draft will look at themes I wanted to gloss over but can't. It might be even sadder.
I'm happy that I'm writing this, though.

I hope that I can start writing again now that my work schedule is easing up. Work completely sucks the life out of me.

Finished typing the first 20,000 words of my children's WIP. Might take a quick breather to finish a science fiction story, and while I don't usually do it during a novel, the next section is going to have to go a little slower, as it is only in second-draft form.

rwm4768 said:

#3 on Amazon, #5 on Goodreads. Everything else is 4 or 5 stars, but that one review really brings down my average.

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My first and only one star review described my book as choppy and morbid. It's about a future where assisted suicide is normalized. It says so in the blurb. How could it NOT be morbid?? Sigh.

I just finished editing the third draft of my latest novel and sent it to beta readers, and now I'm cracking open the very first novel I ever wrote. My kind first editor (my husband) tore it to shreds six or seven years ago and I'm trying to salvage it. I don't know if I should just give up and start something new or keep at it. I've cut 20k words so far and am stuck on a scene about 20k words in.

UGH. I spent HOURS trying to get through this short story and only got five pages written. Why is this one so hard? I had an outline written on paper, plot points mapped, and know how it ends. But the words just aren't flowing like I thought they would. I'm tired, yes, but even so, I expected today's progress to feel​ like progress.

All this politics is distracting me. I must get back to editing.

Slowly, very slowly, getting through chapter 11. There's just so much to this chapter that needs fixing, which is why it's coming along slower than the previous 10. Right now, I'm trying to figure out the "which" and "that" words (in the first edit, there's a "which" which seems to not belong there yet, when I put "that" in its place, it also doesn't seem to fit). I shall get through this chapter... one day, and hopefully with my sanity intact.

MaeZe said:

All this politics is distracting me. I must get back to editing.

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I know that feeling. Between politics and my normal life, I'm really struggling with my depression at the moment. I've barely been writing or editing anything.

rwm4768 said:

I know that feeling. Between politics and my normal life, I'm really struggling with my depression at the moment. I've barely been writing or editing anything.

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Do you have any light-hearted stuff you can read?

He and She

I wonder if I am using too many He/She sentences. Ex: She didn't know what to say. He stared at her and knew things were different. I enjoy not using my characters names until one of the other characters asks their name or figures it out in some way. I wonder if that is a stupid or lazy thing to do.

I just keep thinking about NaNoWriMo even though it's August. I keep working on the setting and characters.

Mad Broom said:

I just keep thinking about NaNoWriMo even though it's August. I keep working on the setting and characters.

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You and me both, MB. You and me both. I decided a couple of weeks ago that I'm going to write a novel about a giant monster, and that the short story I'm currently working on is a prequel to it.

Also on my mind: I need to up my game when it comes to sentence structure, and for that reason I'm reading It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences​. Pretty good stuff so far.

Managed 2000 words in about 90 minutes tonight. It's good, but I worry that I do most of my work late at night. Messing up my sleep schedule.

Words happened today.

I mean they weren't on my main story idea that I've been agonising over, rather they were on a short urban fantasy idea I've had knocking about in the background but never really had any intention of properly focusing on writing.

But still, words.

I'm mostly here to complain, bc I have no where else to do it.

Just feeling bummed that I didn't get any requests for PitchWars. A couple betas said they enjoyed my book and suddenly I'm expecting too much. I'm almost feeling like my ego got too big and now it's hurting extra to get rejected. Currently worried that I don't know what good writing looks like, and that even if I edit the hell out of these words, agents won't want it b/c the competition is too high, it's all subjective and I'm not experienced enough as a writer to know that vague thing that is good writing. You have to write five books for decades before you're decent, don't you know.

I should write something else, but I'm worried about rejection bc another novel will definitely take another year or so. I feel like I have some great ideas and that I'll be really sad if they get trunked.

Bah.

My main reason for hesitance in writing anything set in a contemporary setting: I've lived in a small-ish town of very little significance or interest all my life and have never really been to any large city for any length of time, and I feel like anything I'd write in a contemporary setting would need to be in a city. And I have zero experience of that. Best I've got is occasionally and briefly visiting London.

This explains my current desire to turn my urban fantasy into steampunk fantasy, even though it involves some form of dimension-hopping so it seems daunting having to establish two fantasy worlds simultaneously.

I also may just adore steampunk in general.

TL;DR: I continue to instinctively make things more difficult for myself.

Six hundred words yesterday on my kaiju short story after doing some cleaning around the house. Planning on doing another five hundred today, then switch over to my novel-in-progress. Then some more cleaning. Then I need to somehow convince my wife that the online course I'm thinking about taking is worth the price.

I'm reworking the first novel I ever wrote - I think it's turning into a novella given that I've cut 20k words so far! I'm also wondering if it's worth it to try and turn this into something or if I should just work on something new.

gmwhitley:

Congrats on starting your first novel!

I don't know what will work for you, but let me tell you what I did, concerning a novella I wrote:

I put it aside for a while and then came back to it later, and when I did, I decided that I wanted to expand it.

But I was afraid of "breaking it", as it was already complete in itself.

So I made a copy of the novella as it stood, and then started expanding it, keeping a copy of the original, in case my edits did not work out. So far, they are working out ok.

Not sure if any of this helps, but it is a suggestion.

Good luck to you!

gmwhitley said:

I'm reworking the first novel I ever wrote - I think it's turning into a novella given that I've cut 20k words so far! I'm also wondering if it's worth it to try and turn this into something or if I should just work on something new.

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My "all else being equal" advice is to start on something new and come back to it after you finish your second novel. The time and distance could grant you insight that may prove to be valuable.

On the last section of chapter 11 now, which should be done tonight. The bells are ringing, because I've been working on this particular chapter since the 7th. The next chapter will take 2-3 days, while the next will be another where it'll be a while before it's finished. Instead of going on to chapter 14 when I'm done with 13, I'm going back to read through from the start before continuing with the other half of part 1 (there's just a lot needed to be done with these chapters, which I can't just leave alone until I'm done with 14-25).

I used to get stuck on defining main characters because I'd always tried to make them the typical badass hero type and it never worked.

I just had an impromptu therapy session with my urban fantasy's main character (and that sentence makes me sound like I need a therapy session) where I found out that the guy's essentially the exact opposite of the badass hero and suddenly me and him understand each other a lot better.

The other main character's still being an elusive arse but being enigmatic is kind of what he's best at right now so I'll wait for him to come to the therapy couch of his own volition.

... it's amazing how writers discussing character revelations always sound slightly barking mad.

I just checked the word counter for my current session and it read 1023, which made me smile knowing I wrote 1111111111 words.

^Nerd.

I'm in the middle of a short story, a psychological thriller, that's different from the kind of stuff I normally write. I love it. I have no idea if it's any good, but it's so luxurious to write horror like this.