Where are you? (in your novel)

WriteMinded

Derailed
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 16, 2010
Messages
6,209
Reaction score
775
Location
Paradise Lost
Got Slate out of the mess he was in, but don't like the chapter. The one I wrote the first time around had great tension. This one, not so much. Rethinking . . . rethinking . . . and rethinking.
 

BethKLewis

not sure...
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 13, 2011
Messages
162
Reaction score
21
One novel is back with my agent after the first round of edits. So I've just started a new one. About 2k in.
 

jmichaelfavreau

Smells like bacon
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
59
Reaction score
4
Location
Vermont
My MCs just blew a tire and are stranded. The chapter ends (and where I stopped writing for the night) when they are confronted by another group of survivors...dun dun daaaaa!
 

field19

DreamSeeker
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 14, 2014
Messages
87
Reaction score
4
Location
Demarest, New Jersey
My FMC is on the run from two of the antagonist's secondary henchmen and is hiding from them in an abandoned building where (I hope) she kills them.

My MMC is in a mano y mano fight to the death with the antagonist's lead henchman (guess who wins that one?).

Describing fight scenes are a really challenge for me, so it's slow going.
 

PandaMan

Panda girls are the best!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 17, 2013
Messages
1,570
Reaction score
237
Location
Florida
Panicking because I'm terrified that I'll finish this edit and it will be actually finished and I won't be able to make it any better than that.

Self-sabotage ho!

Well, this sounds like human nature to me. :) Happens to me all the time.

Good to see you on the forum again. Guess you've been busy with those edits, huh? Eagerly looking forward to the final product!
 

PandaMan

Panda girls are the best!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 17, 2013
Messages
1,570
Reaction score
237
Location
Florida
I'm working on the big reveal just before the climax. God it's difficult. By far the most challenging thing I've ever written.
 

Lhowling

Mischief Witch
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 24, 2014
Messages
295
Reaction score
17
Location
Connecticut
I'm over halfway through and I'm wondering if the pacing is slowing down a bit. I'll only know during rewrites. One of the MCs gets her hands on an important object that will show her the fate of everyone she loves. Meanwhile, her brother is confused about his feelings for a woman who is ambiguous about her feelings for him... and with good reason.
 

TheRob1

Trained by the soft master
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 25, 2009
Messages
281
Reaction score
14
Just finished the second draft of my fantasy western. Start basic editing tomorrow.

Just starting a uf/PR. Where our heroine's (Lucy) parents just died in a car accident.
 

SCUBABry

The day job is the my antagonist...
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 2, 2014
Messages
130
Reaction score
8
Location
Germany
Website
www.facebook.com
Second draft of "No Name" is complete and, borrowing King's advice, sitting in a drawer for the next six weeks. My wife is reading it though.

In the meantime I'm working on another project where the ghost has just come back from the afterlife after talking with the murder victim. He is waiting for the private detective (Dirk) to get back to his office so he can tell him what he found out.
 

WriteMinded

Derailed
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 16, 2010
Messages
6,209
Reaction score
775
Location
Paradise Lost
Stopped. Like a drain clogged with my long hair. Not going anywhere.
Something like that.
I wrote a chapter that had great tension. Then I realized that the way it played out didn't work. I rewrote the chapter, but lost too much of the tension . . . I think. Rewrote it again. Don't like it.

Now, like you, I'm stopped.
 

hearosvoice

Sockpuppet
Banned
Joined
Nov 10, 2010
Messages
96
Reaction score
1
Oh dear.

I'm working on a memoir.

Chapters 1 & 2 (~8,500 words combined) are done and polished. I'm satisfied with them. I hope I have the endurance to reach that same level of satisfaction with the rest of my chapters.

But the rest of the book is a total mess at the moment (#fixitjesus). I have a good amount of material (~50,000 words). But it comes in various forms: notes, journaling, little vignettes, a couple/few longer scenes/pieces that might be able to stand as chapters but need polishing, random funny/witty/insightful one-liners, paragraphs, and anecdotes, etc.

I recently started using the Scrivener app and it has helped tremendously in organizing all this material I've hoarded. Hopefully it will help me convert it all into proper writing. I believe most memoirs are about 80k words, so I basically have most of the material and things I want to hit laid out. It's just a matter of arranging it, filling in gaps, and converting it into proper prose that flows.

Tentatively, I plan on starting the book with some recent events then going back in time to childhood and proceeding chronologically. My first two chapters are about recent events (getting involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital and my subsequent recovering, but without revealing the causes of my nadir) and I'm working on my third chapter which is about my earliest memories (my relatively "idyllic" childhood, at least in comparison to the aforementioned nadir). So that's where I'm at in terms of the story.

I'm hoping to have a rough, mostly-unpolished but complete first draft of the memoir/book in the coming months (3 months?). I used to write very slowly but very carefully, tacking on one polished sentence after another. But I've decided that I should just churn out a rough draft of the WHOLE story/book so that I have the whole plot laid out and sequenced, then I will go back and fine-tune/enhance/beautify the prose. I think I will have an outside editor assess this rough draft in order to get feedback on how I've arranged and sequenced the story and plot points.

I hope to finish this project completely before 2016. I would LOVE to finish it over the next 6 months, but I think ~12 is more realistic. I want it to be PERFECT and for me to be utterly satisfied with it—not just "finished." I might take some breaks from writing to read more memoirs in order to study them, which could delay things a bit.

Pray for me.
 
Last edited:

TheRob1

Trained by the soft master
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 25, 2009
Messages
281
Reaction score
14
On my just finished 2nd draft, I've done a large scale spell check and made sure all the made up names are spelled the same the whole way through. I'm three chapters in and my hero didn't commit suicide this time, either. So, that's good.

On my new wip, haven't made much progress the last couple days and probably won't for a few more. Lucy just told her two best friends that her parents are dead. I'm having some trouble w/ this one, most of the characters feel stiff and stereotypical right now, but it's early first draft and I can soldier on and clean things up as it develops.
 

IdrisG

the wicked wit of the west
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 11, 2013
Messages
207
Reaction score
18
Location
The Federation Starship Voyager
The Big Bad is telling Anthemone why they did what they did. Now, I just have to come up with a compelling reason for why they did what they did that's more intriguing than 'because I could'.
 
Last edited:

djwv

Lucid Storyteller (Self-proclaimed)
Registered
Joined
Oct 31, 2009
Messages
24
Reaction score
3
Location
N. Calif.
Website
storyandcraft.net
Almost there. Editing first 25% after having a critiquer look at it. Not the easiest but starting to use the "read out loud" method to help my editing process.
 

Axl Prose

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 18, 2014
Messages
490
Reaction score
67
Location
the slums
About to get started on a new project. Just getting some last things straight before I dig in. A really, exciting/scary time. That part about sitting down and putting words down is always my biggest hurdle. Now if I can ever jump that hurdle I'm gone like Usain Bolt. Just have to jump first.
 

Akuma

Rare Writer Pokemon
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 21, 2005
Messages
1,034
Reaction score
334
Location
Colorado
My MC makes a break for it; it doesn't work out.
 

Altiv

Chasing the dragon...
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 27, 2014
Messages
267
Reaction score
32
Location
Chile
Reviewing a chapter of my novel in which a secondary character betrays his queen to seek his people's redemption by allying with my MC.
 
Last edited: