What's On Your Mind About Your Writing?

In my horror story I have everything worked out but the ghost.

I can't decide to do about Chapter 1.

My inciting incident doesn't involve the MC.

But there's no crucial reason to show the MC until after the inciting incident.

I'm tempted to make the inciting incident a dreaded prologue, but am not sure. Is it worth it to show the MC first even if the scene would be more of a mood setter than a plot pusher?

Adverbs. I'm going through my MS and cutting those that aren't pulling their weight.

I didn't write today. Nor did I want to. I watched tv, worked and went for a walk. I read too.

Forgive me writer gods, for I hath sinned.

Slowly writing the first chapter of my epic fantasy. After each sentence, all I can think about is how daunting it'll be to design the world the way I envision to and put it on a story-telling format. So many things to write about, so many explanations, so many cultures, their histories, their traditions, the magic system etc. All of it with as few info dumps as possible... *sighs*

Still kind of burnt out on my current WIP. It's good that I still like it, but I think I need a break to think of more ideas for it.

Might start thinking of another project to write. I'm nervous because it might give me just another excuse to not finish something...

I hit a wall with my writing a year or two ago. If it wasn't for an author friend giving me some advice I might have stayed stuck. Now I'm just constantly fretting over whether my book is good enough. I sent out my first round of query letters and I'm in this constant state of anxiety as I wonder if I should have noodled it just a little more. After seven years though I had to call it done. Now I'm trying to just focus on some related short stories that I'm putting out there to help drum up publicity. I still feel like I've lost my muse though.

I was extremely pleased with my latest short story, then I read some Raymond Carver. I think I'm gonna go drink myself to sleep now.

taeray said:

I still feel like I've lost my muse though.

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You don't have a muse, it's you. You are the muse. You wrote that book and that book is good and you will write more things that are good, better than that book, and then you will light fires everywhere.

Write you brilliant bastard.

I haven't had time to work on my WIP for nearly a month now. I need to make myself at least try to write a little everyday, or I'll never make progress at this rate.

Must find balance between schoolwork and WIP!

E.F.B. said:

I haven't had time to work on my WIP for nearly a month now. I need to make myself at least try to write a little everyday, or I'll never make progress at this rate.

Must find balance between schoolwork and WIP!

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That's my struggle too! I hear that comment from a lot of writers. But just like any other skilling, finding the right balance takes practice. Gah, but it's so damn hard.

Editing, editing, and more editing. Every time I think it's ready, I find something else to improve.

So so so close to being finished with the first draft of my first novel.

So excited. So exhausted. Trying not to think too hard about all the work I still have ahead of me. At least not right now.

Just can't wait to be done and walk away from it for a minute and to start something new.

My arch-enemy, chapter six, fooled me this time. Back when I was writing it, it went deceptively well, as far as chapter sixes go. So naturally, when I went through it with Holly Lisle's one-pass revision, it decided it needed a new scene, and then that scene was a pain in the ass I had to spend days writing this way and that until I found a version that accomplished what it needed to, fit with the rest of the story, and didn't break up the narrative.

Finally, onward to chapter seven.

Editing something written in italics is a pain.

rwm4768 said:

Editing, editing, and more editing. Every time I think it's ready, I find something else to improve.

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I hear you on the editing part - except for the "every time I think it's ready part." *sigh* I know I'm not there yet on the one finished WIP (and sooooo not there on the other finished WIP that really needs the editing comb yet. Right now I have my fingers in my ears, singing "lalalalallalala" on thoughts of editing that beast.)

I keep discovering other nasty habits I need to go back through and cull out...so I've decided to quit beating myself up in the editing dole-drums for a while and read King's On Writing. Maybe that will help me figure out a whole slew of other things I'm doing so I can nip them ALL in the bud at once. Right? Right...

My current state: garnering perspective and insight

Crutch words. Today's biggest culprit is "even."

asyouwish said:

Editing something written in italics is a pain.

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Yes. Yes it is. Which is why I change it back while editing, and only italicise it after I'm finished

On my mind today: google chat is broken and I need to speak to my crit partners about this stewpid book I can't write, aaaaargh!!!

Well, I finally fixed the last scene & there was a lot of tweaking & rethinking going on there. First off, the scene felt like I was backtracking in my writing skill & I had to clarify a lot of actions & delete a lot of unnecessary adjectives. Then, the phone conversation felt too much like an excuse for exposition rather than a natural conversation between two people who know each other well & are relatively well aware of what the other is doing.

Then, I thought about breaking in the middle to introduce my third POV character, but that didn't work. It was all internal, I ramble when I start going on the internal, & I was revealing way too much about her character- and badly- so I undid that.

Finally, I managed to finish & went to go on to the originally intended scene for that third POV character... but, she was present in the second POV &, oddly, I somehow ended up managing to do the only two things that scene was meant to do already- introduce the character & hint that she is intrinsically involved in the plot, so I decided to scrap it for now & hold off on introducing her POV until & unless it's needed.

So, now, I'm onto my next scene, which is going back to POV 1 & is mercifully short & before moving on to what used to be POV 4, but, I guess, is now POV 3. So...

Worked on a scene with two of the main characters arguing and found an important subplot of buried, long-simmering sibling rivalry.

I'm really struggling with what to do. After finishing the first draft of my first ever novel a couple of weeks ago, I've come to realize that I might have bitten off far more than I could chew. I mean, it was epic fantasy with 5 point of view characters, a ton of subplots, intrigue, magic, war, complicated political and cultural histories, and it ended up being a bit of a hot mess.

I know all first drafts are a hot mess to one degree or another, but damn, I was ambitious.

So now I'm torn between jumping immediately into a second draft - which would be a complete overhaul and rewrite of the first version - or to work on one of my other novel ideas which are far simpler in scope. Perhaps it would be better to work on one of those first and come back to the big story once I have more experience?

Though that makes sense to me, I still feel like it's a bit of a cop out.

Enrika said:

I'm really struggling with what to do. After finishing the first draft of my first ever novel a couple of weeks ago, I've come to realize that I might have bitten off far more than I could chew. I mean, it was epic fantasy with 5 point of view characters, a ton of subplots, intrigue, magic, war, complicated political and cultural histories, and it ended up being a bit of a hot mess.

I know all first drafts are a hot mess to one degree or another, but damn, I was ambitious.

So now I'm torn between jumping immediately into a second draft - which would be a complete overhaul and rewrite of the first version - or to work on one of my other novel ideas which are far simpler in scope. Perhaps it would be better to work on one of those first and come back to the big story once I have more experience?

Though that makes sense to me, I still feel like it's a bit of a cop out.

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This guy....this guy knows what I'm feeling right now. This is basically my exact situation. Thing is, as a writer I think we all want to improve as we get older and work on more projects. But I'm worried that I've reached my glass-ceiling as far as my writing skills go, or I've peaked, and I'm currently trying to get over that feeling. I want to somewhat improve in ability day after day.

Enrika said:

I'm really struggling with what to do. After finishing the first draft of my first ever novel a couple of weeks ago, I've come to realize that I might have bitten off far more than I could chew. I mean, it was epic fantasy with 5 point of view characters, a ton of subplots, intrigue, magic, war, complicated political and cultural histories, and it ended up being a bit of a hot mess.

I know all first drafts are a hot mess to one degree or another, but damn, I was ambitious.

So now I'm torn between jumping immediately into a second draft - which would be a complete overhaul and rewrite of the first version - or to work on one of my other novel ideas which are far simpler in scope. Perhaps it would be better to work on one of those first and come back to the big story once I have more experience?

Though that makes sense to me, I still feel like it's a bit of a cop out.

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Haha, none of my first three story attempts have ever seen the light of day. They were horrible, and like yours, a hot mess. I'll probably never revive them.

But still, you should follow your gut. I think it's a great idea to practice writing with some other stories and once you feel like you've got more skill under your belt, go ahead and come back to that first draft and do a rewrite. That's a nice way to go about it.

Lately in my dual POV story, the girl's chapters are coming easily but the boy's chapters are very difficult to write. I realized that the girl has a companion that plays well off of her, whereas the boy doesn't, and it makes the flow and writing much more difficult.

But I can't give him a better traveling companion, so I'll just have to power through until the next stage where he meets up with his friends. (Or somehow make his current guide more interesting to me as a secondary character...) Hmmm.

ArachnePhobia said:

So naturally, when I went through it with Holly Lisle's one-pass revision, it decided it needed a new scene, and then that scene was a pain in the ass I had to spend days writing this way and that until I found a version that accomplished what it needed to, fit with the rest of the story, and didn't break up the narrative.

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I've never heard of Holly Lisle's one-pass revision. I just googled it and it seems like an awesome way to do it. I may test this out on one of my short stories and see how it works for me. Thanks for the resource.