What's On Your Mind About Your Writing?

I printed out my manuscript and am reading through it, with the goal of spotting mistakes and cliches so that I can then go back through and tighten up the writing. Goal is three chapters a day, trying to stay steady but also avoid rushing through. As of today, I'm almost to the halfway mark. I'm finding a lot of overused phrases and clunky writing, and the thought of fixing it all is kind of daunting. How do people come up with unique and engaging and meaningful descriptions??

I'm also brainstorming ideas for other stories, but nothing's really jumping out at me at the moment.

Staccata said:

... How do people come up with unique and engaging and meaningful descriptions??....

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Still struggling with descriptions myself. What I do is seek out the kind of image(s) I have in mind and pin a bunch of them to a Pinterest Board. I find it easier to describe from an image on the screen than one which is just in my head.

I've been researching phoenixes lately because I had a crazy idea. What if a phoenix's ashes got mixed with a human's ashes and they formed one being when the phoenix reincarnated? Just a crazy flame (pun intended) of an idea that may end up never written, but mythological creature research is so much fun.

I also did some research on if a humanoid alien's blood was black. That was a rabbit hole of good fun.

I'm working on a few different projects right now, and until last week I felt like my writing was the best I've ever done. Currently, I'm worried about if I'm even an adequate writer. Have I wasted years on a craft I'm not even good at? What's worse, I'm essentially living like a hermit and am the only eyes on my (very slowly typed) pages.

Breabee - I've felt the same way, too (and I'm self-published) I've barely made any sales and that has dampened my spirit. I hope we can both get back in good spirits.

The Second Moon said:

I've been researching phoenixes lately because I had a crazy idea. What if a phoenix's ashes got mixed with a human's ashes and they formed one being when the phoenix reincarnated? Just a crazy flame (pun intended) of an idea that may end up never written, but mythological creature research is so much fun.

I also did some research on if a humanoid alien's blood was black. That was a rabbit hole of good fun.

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The phoenix idea sounds cool and unique.

breabee said:

I'm working on a few different projects right now, and until last week I felt like my writing was the best I've ever done. Currently, I'm worried about if I'm even an adequate writer. Have I wasted years on a craft I'm not even good at? What's worse, I'm essentially living like a hermit and am the only eyes on my (very slowly typed) pages.

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Wasted? IMO, Just loving to write is reason enough to continue. These days writing is about the only thing that brings me any happiness, so that's what I do.

Finished the third edit of what will be my seventh novel today. Took a while as I found a problem in the final act and had to rewrite two chapters.
Fixed it, and will take a few day’s away from writing befor hitting it again. After that it goes to my editor.

This is a cool discovery. I picked the name, Adara, for a character needing a gender change from the name Adam. Turns out Adara is "The name is originally from Arabic عذارى‎ ʿaḏārá, "virgins"." So that's not a big deal because being a virgin isn't part of the story. But I picked Adara and her mother Deema with the idea in mind this is a few generations in the future and these people are Arabic descendants. I thought I was making it up but this is better.

I'm thinking about giving it a break one two of three of my MG projects and really focus on writing funny clean adult stuff. It's just what I want to write right now.

*Sigh* Just had a whole conversation with my author sister about the direction one of my WIPs is taking. Then an hour later I pick up the conversation again only to find she didn't remember it because she was asleep the first time. She was talking in her sleep. We had a whole discussion while she was alseep!

The Second Moon said:

*Sigh* Just had a whole conversation with my author sister about the direction one of my WIPs is taking. Then an hour later I pick up the conversation again only to find she didn't remember it because she was asleep the first time. She was talking in her sleep. We had a whole discussion while she was alseep!

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I'm so sorry, that is massively frustrating but I'm literally laughing aloud.

Those are some mad sleeptalking skills right there.

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The Second Moon said:

*Sigh* Just had a whole conversation with my author sister about the direction one of my WIPs is taking. Then an hour later I pick up the conversation again only to find she didn't remember it because she was asleep the first time. She was talking in her sleep. We had a whole discussion while she was alseep!

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I'm so sorry, that is massively frustrating but I'm literally laughing aloud.

Those are some mad sleeptalking skills right there.

The second act (8 chapters) of my WIP I'm writing from a female POV. I've just sent out 3 sample chapters to my (female) editor, my daughter, and my wife - asking them to give feedback on the tone and the internal dialogue.

I just re-emerged from plumbing the depths of the Library of Congress's online archive. I've been playing with a historical focused on a particular event in the 1840s, and ran across tons of newspapers from that time, conveniently text-searchable and in no ways briefly described. I have just read two separate accounts (one pro, one anti) of House of Representatives debate and vote.

I forced myself to come up for air when I found an entire page from earlier in the year devoted entirely to letters to the editor on the subject. Wow, that could keep me "learning but not writing" for a good long time! But, what a treasure trove! I now know what my characters can say, and what the public discourse was at the time separate from 175 years of hindsight.

Desperately trying to write my way out of a block—decided to try writing out-of-order. Possibly unblocked.

Except my tired brain keeps wanting to call it "asynchronous" writing, as in "asynchronous instruction" as in my day job. Pardon me while I go outside and—go right back inside b/c it's smoky—scream.

Sorry about the smoke, Kat! We've got haze in Ventura county but so far have escaped the fires.

I sat down with my spreadsheet to diagram my scenes/sequels throughout the WIP and am about 1/4 through them. I'm simultaneously horrified at the number of scenes with no clear goal and excited at the prospect of all the deletions ahead.

Kat M said:

I'm so sorry, that is massively frustrating but I'm literally laughing aloud.

Those are some mad sleeptalking skills right there.

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Well, we're twins and I read that twins are more prone to sleep talking than others. And don't feel bad about laughing. I laughed, when I calmed down.

Speaking of laughing out loud and twins...I was naming a character who is the identical twin of the bad guy and a random scene popped into my head that goes like this: He's trying to convince the heroes he isn't the bad guy and introduces himself "Thur". As in "Thurgood". The no-so-bright friend of the FMC says, "See, guys? He's literately got the word 'good' in his name. He has to be the good guy!"

Puns are fun

So, this might be kind of long, but I think it's significant. About 7 weeks ago, due to a pretty major meltdown and finally succumbing to the realization that I've lived with anxiety and depression for way too long and it seems to be getting worse, I went to the doctor and to put on Lexapro. The journey over those seven weeks has been interesting, but I can definitely say that I am much more balanced, leveled out, and soooo much less stressed and anxious now. In fact, I didn't realize just how bad the anxiety had gotten. It was almost constant. I know that now because I'm living anxiety-free (well, for the most part, I'm still human, LOL) and it's such a game-changer.

Anyway, I picked up my WIP that I've been ignoring for a long time. When COVID hit and everything shut down, I began working from home and really thought I'd get back to writing and have a great time with it. My anxiety had other plans though. So, I didn't write. Or rather, I'd try and get frustrated or have major insecurity and self-doubt about my writing and give up. I'd try to start new WIPs that I thought might be "better" and then I'd lose interest in those and scrap them.

Luckily, I kept the story that I've had in my head and been slowly plugging away at for...years. I dusted it back off recently and have been plugging away again. And the most miraculous thing has happened. I no longer obsess over my writing not being good enough. I read back over it sometimes and think to myself "well this is crap" but I just shrug it off and keep typing. Sometimes even while I'm typing I'm thinking how bad it is, but...it doesn't bother me. It's like I can deal with it and it doesn't kill my motivation to keep on keeping on!

I just crossed 20,000 words in this WIP, and I'm pretty sure I've never written that much on one project before. I have yet to complete anything that I've started writing. Today, for the first time, I had the inkling of a feeling that this will be the one. And I let myself imagine what it will feel like to actually finish it and write The End. And it felt so good just thinking about it. It doesn't seem impossible. I don't care that it's going to be a first draft full of flaws. I don't even care if it never sees the light of day (though honestly there's a sparkle of hope that it will). I just want the accomplishment of finishing it. That's it. And if I don't I don't...but I really think I will. It may take me a few more years to finish it. That's okay too.

Anyway, I'm excited. I'm going to try to do NaNo...though as a rebel. My plan is to have 50k words total by the end of November, and since I'm already just over 20k, that's obviously not within the normal rules of NaNo. That's fine. I just want to make significant progress. 50k will probably be about halfway of this book (it's a fantasy), and just thinking of reaching that milestone fills me with excitement.

That's it!

@ PamelaC - It's a great thing to learn how to shrug off self-doubt. I'm proud of you!

RANT ALERT!!!

Word is being a litterbox-head! <-- (my newest insult) More than 1,000 words gone! I wrote for an hour to finish up a short story and as soon as I finish it...poof! Now it's gone, because Word didn't autosave! I know it's my fault for assuming auto-save, but I don't want to blame myself because today is just one of those horrible day and it's only 9: 45 in the morning. I'll have my tech-savvy dad look at Word, because I need it to write a paper that'll count as part of my midterm. Ugh.

I've just had an idea for a great plot twist for my story set 40,000 years ago, but to make it work someone has to kidnap a child who's being carefully guarded by upper palaeolithic mama bear (human, bear in figurative sense) who's with a group of women all armed with digging sticks that have huge spearheads hafted onto the non-digging end (due to previous attempts to kidnap said child, who isn't hers, but she's protecting him for story reasons), and no-one ever told them that women are supposed to be the "gentle sex" because sexism hasn't been invented yet.

The Second Moon said:

RANT ALERT!!!

Word is being a litterbox-head! <-- (my newest insult) More than 1,000 words gone! I wrote for an hour to finish up a short story and as soon as I finish it...poof! Now it's gone, because Word didn't autosave! I know it's my fault for assuming auto-save, but I don't want to blame myself because today is just one of those horrible day and it's only 9: 45 in the morning. I'll have my tech-savvy dad look at Word, because I need it to write a paper that'll count as part of my midterm. Ugh.

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When things like this happen to me, I try to remember that the rewrite is always better. As frustrating as it is, you tend to remember the good bits and forget the bits that don't work, and find a way to make it work.

Although it's still worth getting your dad to have a look at it because there are ways to get stuff back sometimes.

Feedback from a Beta has made me reconsider my first chapter for the hundredth time. But I think she's right. I spent time on one scene thinking it introduced the main conflict and hopefully introduced the new planet. Now I think I can do that with my character walking through the strange land, exploring her surroundings more generally. But it's a major rewrite. Oh well... best get to it.