Where are you? (in your novel)

My big bad, Samuel, who does not care to explain himself via monolguing (he hates that) has taken over the survivor camp and is now enjoying toying with the survivors by seeing how much he can torture them in the name of offering the hope of survival. My MCs are disgusted, considering stomping off the page to pout because I offer them so few options. If they act they risk being shot, thrown out into the world they would not survive at this point, or worse.

Samuel disgusts me and I keep trying to kill him off but he insists he's not done. He's resilient, resourceful, and sadly, still necessary for the story.

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maggiee19 said:

Yeah, the computer I was writing them on crashed and I didn't have a Dropbox account at the time.

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This sounds very traumatic! I think I'd cry...

Blinkk said:

My MC totally made his own decision during a stressful event. It was a decision neither of us planned, and I said, "WTH, lets just roll with it." His decision ended up forcing him to leave his temple, and now he's out wandering the countryside, going into hiding. I never planned for this at all. I'm so excited to see what he's going to do next. Nothing is planned. Let's go exploring, MC. Let's see what you're capable of.

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I love surprise writing! I haven't read a word of your writing but now I want to yank the ms out of your hands and read it! I'm hooked lol

Emily Patrice said:

I'm writing a contemporary... um, family saga or something... and I'm working on book 8 (of 9 or 10) which is about half a million words in. I've written about half of the book, and have the rest mapped out by scene, but all over the place (I did not write this saga sequentially).

!!!!!?!?!?!!

(The first seven have been through 2 beta readers and are at about third draft -- I don't really write drafts, I just write and then endlessly fiddle, so it's hard to track it. I'd call them more or less complete.)

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This is more or less my style as well. I hope it's going well!

Wrapping up revisions for section 3/4. After that only about 10k words to polish off (round out section 4) and then start going through beta feedback.

About 2/3 of the way through making edits suggested by my beta readers. In fact, one of my beta readers is a writer for several online magazines who has been providing me input an editor would. I really lucked out when I found her!

I'm close to the halfway point for my final book in the Isaac Comett series! Hurrah!!

Earth is saved (sort of...) and now a whole mess of secret motivations from the cast have been revealed. So yeah, kinda that crap-hits-the-fan moment.

I'm editing the climax of the story right now. I'm sure other people can relate to the fact that whenever I reach the end of something I'm writing, I have almost no motivation to work on it. It's like, I'm at the end now, and I know what happens. All the intrigue disappears. It's also because I get impatient about finishing it. But I find that as far as quality goes, it reaches its lowest point during the climax/resolution of my stories.

I'm about 8,000 words in and working on two scenes at once right now.

It's kind of odd but it seems to be how the story wants to come out. I'm just getting to the point where the bad guys are going to attack and capture Doc and the team and all their problems can begin. In the last chapter everyone got to show off how tough they are - this time they get to have their asses handed to them by the bad guys.

C.Harmon said:

I'm editing the climax of the story right now. I'm sure other people can relate to the fact that whenever I reach the end of something I'm writing, I have almost no motivation to work on it. It's like, I'm at the end now, and I know what happens. All the intrigue disappears. It's also because I get impatient about finishing it. But I find that as far as quality goes, it reaches its lowest point during the climax/resolution of my stories.

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Yes to all! I totally get this! When I reach that point I tend to just let my pen tell me what happens and then either tell the pen it's an idiot and throw it away or tell it it's a genius and promise to use it til all the ink runs out so it can die with honor. Yes, I'm weird. lol I'm used to it...

C.Harmon said:

I'm editing the climax of the story right now. I'm sure other people can relate to the fact that whenever I reach the end of something I'm writing, I have almost no motivation to work on it. It's like, I'm at the end now, and I know what happens. All the intrigue disappears. It's also because I get impatient about finishing it. But I find that as far as quality goes, it reaches its lowest point during the climax/resolution of my stories.

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It never happens to me during the climax because that's when I always (so far) have the huge epiphany re what ought to happen instead of the climax I'd been working towards.

I can get bored in the denouement however. The only thing that keeps me interested is deciding which threads I'm deliberately going to leave untied...

Just had

the huge epiphany re what

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ought to happen instead of the climax I'd been working towards.

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Instead of Lily being uneasy about the only slightly shady situation she instigated, she'll realize she's participating in a (soon to crumble) Ponzi scheme. Yikes!

Thank you, Mr. Epiphany.

I am 3/4 of the way through my second draft. Elliot decided to set out on his own and let the group continue on the road-trip without him. He doesn't realize the head injury is why he has been so temperamental recently. He just left the Jetsetter Inn to buy liquor and return to begin his writing project.

FINALLY back to it. I took an (agonizing) 3 day break between editing passes, to map out a motorcycle ride I'll take from Colorado to the Outer Banks NC in June. My characters were screaming at me to get back to work the whole time.

I'm having writer's block. I know where the scene is supposed to go, but the dialogue between two characters isn't flowing at the moment. I feel like I want to step into the scene with them and say, "A little help, please?"

The zombies made me said:

Yes to all! I totally get this! When I reach that point I tend to just let my pen tell me what happens and then either tell the pen it's an idiot and throw it away or tell it it's a genius and promise to use it til all the ink runs out so it can die with honor. Yes, I'm weird. lol I'm used to it...

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Blinkk said:

My MC totally made his own decision during a stressful event. It was a decision neither of us planned, and I said, "WTH, lets just roll with it." His decision ended up forcing him to leave his temple, and now he's out wandering the countryside, going into hiding. I never planned for this at all. I'm so excited to see what he's going to do next. Nothing is planned. Let's go exploring, MC. Let's see what you're capable of.

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I love it when this happens. I hope it goes well for you. Something like that changed the entire ending of my story, but it ended up being better in the long run.

indianroads said:

FINALLY back to it. I took an (agonizing) 3 day break between editing passes, to map out a motorcycle ride I'll take from Colorado to the Outer Banks NC in June. My characters were screaming at me to get back to work the whole time.

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They will be screaming at you while you are on that trip too.

flarue said:

I'm having writer's block. I know where the scene is supposed to go, but the dialogue between two characters isn't flowing at the moment. I feel like I want to step into the scene with them and say, "A little help, please?"

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My own go-to technique when this happens is to have a giant robot punch a hole in the wall and disrupt the conversation. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for all stories or genres.

However, I think the principle does hold; add an event to the conversation that will create an emotional reaction and use that to trigger feelings in the characters.

Just wrote a murder scene in space involving thinly-veiled expies of Zuckerberg and Cardi B.

Just finished my first draft! 95,536 words. Yay!

Now for editing...

Dave.C.Robinson said:

My own go-to technique when this happens is to have a giant robot punch a hole in the wall and disrupt the conversation. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for all stories or genres.

However, I think the principle does hold; add an event to the conversation that will create an emotional reaction and use that to trigger feelings in the characters.

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I guess that probably won't work in mine. My book has enough weirdness in it already (though if a human with super strength crashed through a wall or punched a hole in it, I probably wouldn't bat an eye).

The event already exists, but you gave me an idea to think more about the character's emotional reaction. Maybe I'll try to step into his shoes and go for a knee-jerk reaction (what would I say?); he gets kind of flustered by the previous question. Thanks.

Congrats greendragon!

Hope it works, flarue . . .

Just wrote a scene from a different character’s POV. I have been sticking to my MC POV for the most part... I had the experience I’ve read about, of him doing something I had not expected - that was fun! I think is what makes writing interesting for me - seeing what rises to the surface of my subconscious. It’s all in there, churning and fermenting and then something just pops up and surprises me...

It's 1938 Philadelphia. Lily has just realized that it doesn't matter which of the umpteen possibly-impending disasters she's avoiding or possibly-impending delights she's missing, she is going to flee Philadelphia. Now.

A new life beacons.

Going crazy because I'm forcing myself to take a week off from writing. I love the story and can't wait to get back to it. It's in very good shape, just one final pass through and I'll (self) publish it on Amazon.

To pass the time, I wrote up a self-defense curriculum for a local Tae Kwon Do Dojang... then today I ordered a iMovr ZipLift+, so I'll be able to stand up while I write... I also bought myself a fancy new chair... 2 days down, 5 to go.

Finished editing for now. It's time to start the sequel!

Taking care of all the chores of getting the latest into distribution while procrastinating on starting something new. Hey, I'm thinking about it. Isn't that enough?

Pretty close to the beginning -- 6,600 words and just starting the fourth chapter! I ran out of steam and couldn't figure out how to end my project for NaNo 2017, and before that I took a mental health break for a few years, so it feels really nice to be chugging along on something I've fully outlined and love extremely.