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What's On Your Mind About Your Writing?

Sonsofthepharaohs

Still writing the ancient Egyptian tetralogy
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Kalli, you could try doing Editing Wars (Puppy's idea) with a CP. You and your CP give yourselves a deadline, like an hour, to get your problematic chapter to each other. It forces you to prioritize and figure things out at least enough that it makes sense for someone else to read it. It's worked for me - the time limit squashes my analysis paralysis and perfectionism, and I end up with something that may not be War & Peace, but it's better than I expected.

Hey, that's a great idea! But... an hour? Seriously, you can sort out a chapter in AN HOUR?? I barely get my staring into space out of the way and start to think about maybe writing a sentence or two in an hour!

How about a week? Or a month? :D
 

Nina Kaytel

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Trying to execute more showing so I come to this paragraph telling about the main characters trying to teach a mage born character how to play Spades -- so I ripped it out and went on this 2000 word tangent on these four characters playing Spades. Of course, I cut it down since it is the night before the final battle. I kept some of it 'cause it is hilarious.
Showing equals more character development. Who knew?
 

Wanderluster

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Hey, that's a great idea! But... an hour? Seriously, you can sort out a chapter in AN HOUR?? I barely get my staring into space out of the way and start to think about maybe writing a sentence or two in an hour!

How about a week? Or a month? :D

*evil laugh*

That's precisely why you're a perfect candidate for EW! If left to my own devices, I would spend an hour making tea, picking the perfect writing music, contemplating my navel, contemplating the hippo's navel, watching platypus porn, and by then I'd need more tea.

If I have a deadline in a week, it still comes down to the last hour. This just bypasses the other 167 hours of procrastination. :D

Of course your chapter needs to be in somewhat decent shape. As in, you've written and edited it to the point that it's alphabet soup and now you HATE it and want it to DIE. That's the perfect time to do EW.

If there are big chunks missing, then I recommend you first go le hippo's route and do WW (Word Wars) (um, am I giving away trade sekrits here?), where you write like your hair is on fire for 500 words. Also produces unexpectedly delightful results, tho I suspect the hippo either cheats or is sekritly James Patterson in a pink hippo outfit.

*contemplates hippo's/James Patterson's navel*
 

Nina Kaytel

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*evil laugh*

That's precisely why you're a perfect candidate for EW! If left to my own devices, I would spend an hour making tea, picking the perfect writing music, contemplating my navel, contemplating the hippo's navel, watching platypus porn, and by then I'd need more tea.

If I have a deadline in a week, it still comes down to the last hour. This just bypasses the other 167 hours of procrastination. :D

Of course your chapter needs to be in somewhat decent shape. As in, you've written and edited it to the point that it's alphabet soup and now you HATE it and want it to DIE. That's the perfect time to do EW.

If there are big chunks missing, then I recommend you first go le hippo's route and do WW (Word Wars) (um, am I giving away trade sekrits here?), where you write like your hair is on fire for 500 words. Also produces unexpectedly delightful results, tho I suspect the hippo either cheats or is sekritly James Patterson in a pink hippo outfit.

*contemplates hippo's/James Patterson's navel*
There is a such thing as platypus porn? Crtl + Tab Google search. If I land on real life tentacle porn again I think my granny will kick me out. Ah the weird paths of research....
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

Still writing the ancient Egyptian tetralogy
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*evil laugh*

That's precisely why you're a perfect candidate for EW! If left to my own devices, I would spend an hour making tea, picking the perfect writing music, contemplating my navel, contemplating the hippo's navel, watching platypus porn, and by then I'd need more tea.

If I have a deadline in a week, it still comes down to the last hour. This just bypasses the other 167 hours of procrastination. :D

Of course your chapter needs to be in somewhat decent shape. As in, you've written and edited it to the point that it's alphabet soup and now you HATE it and want it to DIE. That's the perfect time to do EW.

If there are big chunks missing, then I recommend you first go le hippo's route and do WW (Word Wars) (um, am I giving away trade sekrits here?), where you write like your hair is on fire for 500 words. Also produces unexpectedly delightful results, tho I suspect the hippo either cheats or is sekritly James Patterson in a pink hippo outfit.

*contemplates hippo's/James Patterson's navel*

Bwah hahahaha! The Hippo is James Patterson... that explains so much! like why all her books are exactly the same...

Oh wait...

*is confused by contradictory evidence*

I may have to investigate this further.

I think I may need to do WW before EW, since there's not really a chapter to edit yet. It's more... word vomit followed by note form summary followed by fuck all.

And you do realise that even writing like my hair's on fire, 500 words is gonna take me a whole afternoon? (It's ok, I have a lot of hair... :D )
 

MookyMcD

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Nerves...

Three months ago, I sent out my first batch of query letters. I ended up with three R&Rs, because my ending sucked. A ton of great feedback (in addition to the three R&Rs, I also got a rejection with 8 pages of notes). A lot to work with. After deleting 30K words, a couple of months of writing and a month of editing and another review by my CP and betas, I'm sending it off. Tomorrow. This is my most nervous night as a writer.
 

Anna Spargo-Ryan

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Nerves...

Three months ago, I sent out my first batch of query letters. I ended up with three R&Rs, because my ending sucked. A ton of great feedback (in addition to the three R&Rs, I also got a rejection with 8 pages of notes). A lot to work with. After deleting 30K words, a couple of months of writing and a month of editing and another review by my CP and betas, I'm sending it off. Tomorrow. This is my most nervous night as a writer.

Good luck :D
 

Putputt

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:( But I loved it. It made me all shaky with brain-ejaculations.

Therefore it is objectively great and anyone who disagrees is a lewser.

Have you even told her about it? "Oh btw I have this totally geniusballs bewk I'm hiding up my buttcrack for no fucking reason BUT NO YEW CAN'T SEE"

pthpthtpttphtptht

Ummmmm I haven't told her about it. BWAHAHAHA. I is scurred. *hides from dragonface's glare*

Bwah hahahaha! The Hippo is James Patterson... that explains so much! like why all her books are exactly the same...

Oh wait...

*is confused by contradictory evidence*

I may have to investigate this further.

I think I may need to do WW before EW, since there's not really a chapter to edit yet. It's more... word vomit followed by note form summary followed by fuck all.

And you do realise that even writing like my hair's on fire, 500 words is gonna take me a whole afternoon? (It's ok, I have a lot of hair... :D )

Oh, if only I could pound out books like James Patterson. Gawd, you lamer, I can probably do WW in a few days. We can do eet together! :D
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

Still writing the ancient Egyptian tetralogy
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Ummmmm I haven't told her about it. BWAHAHAHA. I is scurred. *hides from dragonface's glare*

Lamer. You're even scarder of your agent than I am of mine! well, ok, not really. Coz I am rhully RUHLLY ascared of talking to mine... she's gonna ask me whens I gonna finish eet!!! And I just stand there hiding behind my hair and biting my lip and going 'umm umm uhhhmmmm... buh buh buh... uurrrr... heh.'

:gone:

Oh, if only I could pound out books like James Patterson. yous an me both, hippo! we'd be squillionaires and play poker with Richard Castle while delivering some very stiff and unconvincing lines about private jets...*Mmmm... Nathan Fillion...* Gawd, you lamer, I can probably do WW in a few days. We can do eet together! :D

OK! When?
 

magickalfantasy

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Trying to decide how many character profiles I need to make so I can determine how many timelines I need to create. I'm at a loss for whether or not I need to create character profiles for supporting characters or not. I guess it's time to go back to my cause and effect chart to figure this thing out. :/
 

triceretops

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Nerves...

Three months ago, I sent out my first batch of query letters. I ended up with three R&Rs, because my ending sucked. A ton of great feedback (in addition to the three R&Rs, I also got a rejection with 8 pages of notes). A lot to work with. After deleting 30K words, a couple of months of writing and a month of editing and another review by my CP and betas, I'm sending it off. Tomorrow. This is my most nervous night as a writer.

That's a lot of work in earnest. May you get a big payoff for the effort--good luck!
 

Nina Kaytel

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It is done! Done I say! The Black Sunrise has never looked so good. I'm so excited. I don't want to let it sit so I can edit it again. I want to sacrifice it to critiquing now, but with the massive amount of re-writing I did that might not be a good idea.
 

triceretops

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Finished my first science article and I'm bushed. I'll edit it tomorrow and send it in. Real nervous about this first submission. I'll feel much more relaxed once I get into the routine and have several future credits under my belt. But it sure was a relief. I was making up every excuse to delaying the start on it. I just had to dive in.

tri
 

Blinkk

Searching for dragons
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It is done! Done I say! The Black Sunrise has never looked so good. I'm so excited. I don't want to let it sit so I can edit it again. I want to sacrifice it to critiquing now, but with the massive amount of re-writing I did that might not be a good idea.

:partyguy::snoopy::Sun::hooray::Hug2::D
 

J.S.F.

Red fish, blue fish...
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Almost finished my second rewrite of Lindsay versus the Marauders. Show and not tell...info dumps out and showing in. Not easy to do...but the hard work will be worth it. I'm very excited to work with my editor. She's tough, but a great person to deal with. I'll send the second version off tomorrow and see what happens.

Twisted should be out in March. Looking forward to that.
 

MookyMcD

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It is done! Done I say! The Black Sunrise has never looked so good. I'm so excited. I don't want to let it sit so I can edit it again. I want to sacrifice it to critiquing now, but with the massive amount of re-writing I did that might not be a good idea.

Fantastic! I know how hard it can be to make something sit. But, for me, the compulsion to get it out there as fast as possible is a symptom of what a bad job I'd do editing if I tried. (PS -- I enjoy your blog, too).

Finished my first science article and I'm bushed. I'll edit it tomorrow and send it in. Real nervous about this first submission. I'll feel much more relaxed once I get into the routine and have several future credits under my belt. But it sure was a relief. I was making up every excuse to delaying the start on it. I just had to dive in.

tri

Good for you! It takes guts to submit to people and say "Pay me for this." A lot more guts than most people have.
 

magickalfantasy

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Now that I got some alcohol in my system, I think I can handle tackling this character chart again. I seriously doubt that I'm even halfway done with this since only a few of the characters are characters that I'm using in this first book. I'm thinking I should highlight the ones that I'm actually using so I don't go insane.
 

ArachnePhobia

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I just took my five plucky teenage heroes and dumped them headfirst into a putrid festering river full of dead bodies.

It's days like these I love what I do.
 

ap123

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I'm thinking I feel pretty good. I'm going to let myself feel good before I really begin the query process. :Wha:
 

triceretops

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OMG, crud. The non-fic Chinese publisher just checked their records and found that about half of the article I'd done and sent in was already penned by somebody else. They apologized profusely and said that I could expand on the two sub-topics I had in my original. But the title would have to be changed to reflect the new subject.

Oh, man. And I worked so hard and fast on that one. So, I'll just kick back and think about this. I'll need more and newer research material.

As a bonus though, two direct orders came in from my client site and offered about $30 for two simple articles. I banged both out in 1.5 hours. That was great--chased some of that depression away.

In 24 hours I'm going to get the final galley proofs for my YA dystopian, The Girl They Sold to the Moon. That means a few days of taking my time on this and putting off the Chinese article.

Busy, busy,

tri
 

ap123

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Aack, that bites about the article, Tri. :(

But very exciting that you'll be getting those proofs. :D
 

Roxxsmom

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Bleh, just got one of those crits on an opening chapter that makes me wonder whether my whole approach to storytelling (what I'm trying to do with voice, style, pov, characterization etc) is screwy, or whether my delivery of said approach is simply so bad she's missed the point of what I'm trying to do :(

Stupid to let one person who doesn't like my story put me in a tailspin, I know.
 

continuum9

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I feel alright about my story. So far, everyone who's read it has given mostly positive reviews. One person had some criticisms, but they gave me great feedback on how to make the story better so, it leveled out. Have to take the good with the bad, I guess.

The hard part is trying to get it perfect, making sure all questions are answered and plot holes are filled. Then there's the grammar, have to have good grammar or it all falls apart. So much work, it sometimes takes the fun out of writing.