Please come and talk to me. Just for some general writing chat and support...

[BiglyBadgers]

I am about a third of the way through editing my stupidly long book (this'll teach me for writing epic fantasy) and need some chat!

I really loved the chat and support on the nano thread, but now novel writing month is long gone and I am alone! There must be other people out there bumbling along needing a friend to chat to...surely....I can provide coffee, cake and excellent free WiFi

[CertainHalfDesertedStreets]

I'll join you.

I am writing my second novel. Agented but no publisher yet on the horizon.

I am 50,000 words or so into #2 which will come out at around the 80-90 mark I reckon - psychological thriller/shades of the Gothic.

I am a pantser and currently in the Slough of Despond where I can't write, have no imagination and can only regurgitate dead prose.

But the kids go back to school on Wednesday and I'm expecting an upswing in mood and creative focus

[BiglyBadgers]

Yay! Hello certain.

I am also a pantser. Planning is my nemesis. I know nothing about agents, but do they give you a deadline or can you just amble along with it?

Mine is sitting around 95k at the moment, which is actually pretty standard for the genre and didn't feel nearly as long until I got to serious sorting out grammer and typos editing. Now it feels like a serious slog.

I confess I only started it on a whim as I had a sudden urge to do national novel writing month this year. I hadn't thought I would finish the 50k, but now I appear to be addicted to the story and have become irrationally completest about it considering there are only three real life people who even know I'm writing it and I'm not sure I'll even let them read it. I also have an exam I should be revising for in a couple of weeks. Ho hum.

[CertainHalfDesertedStreets]

My agent lets me amble. But tbf there are no publishers involved. I would guess at that stage they would have an idea what timescale they were working to and it would get more serious?

#1 was a children's Sci Fi actually. I decided to write something based in this world this time round. Plus I wanted to see whether I could write something actively commercial after the disappointment of #1 not actually being published

I tend to get scenes coming to me and then write those and then I sort of just have to close the gaps iyswim? How does your pantsing work?

[BiglyBadgers]

Oh, that must have been disappointing not getting it published if you had an agent and things. I do love a bit of SF though.

I have to start at the beginning and write in order. I do tend to have key scenes in my head, but they aren't very detailed and I don't write them until I get to them otherwise I don't think I could make it all work out. I often find my characters decide they don't want to do what I have in my head, which can be very tiresome of them.

[CertainHalfDesertedStreets]

Yeah mine do that. Bastards.

Yes it was bloody annoying not getting published as getting an agent is supposed to be the hard bit isn't it? But back on the horse and all that.

What sort of Sci Fi is it? For whom?

[BiglyBadgers]

I'm currently writing fantasy, but have done some SF short stories. I'm thinking I would like to build on one of those at some point for something bigger. I particularly like space opera, Iain M Banks sort of thing. I read Children of Time this year and it was amazing. I also love a bit of cyber punk.

I would like to get my dd on some SF at some point soon. She is 5 and we are currently reading a lot of fantasy. DH read her the Hobbit and has got through book 1 of lord of the rings . I'm currently reading her the first book in the Edge Chronicles which she loves.

[QueenHalloween]

May I join? I'm the opposite, can plan a novel to death but sitting down to write it is another unfinished story

[CertainHalfDesertedStreets]

Hello queenhalloween What are you writing/thinking of writing/planning?

Sorry I don't know why I got Sci Fi not fantasy. I'm very impressed with your dd though. Mine is 7 and we're still very much into anything-as-long-as-it-has-a-pony-in-it territory

I think I need to read a bit more modern fantasy/Sci Fi. I feel very out of the loop. I do think I have a zombie move in me at some point

I'm a bit scared that I just had one book in me and my agent is going to say 'Oh. Oh dear. We...um...We thought you could write.'

[CertainHalfDesertedStreets]

That's a zombie novel. I have many zombie moves...

[BiglyBadgers]

Hey Queen do come in and pull up a comfortable seat with nearby charging point suitable for all devices.

I didn't write fiction for yonks because I would try and plan like all the 'how to write a novel' books and classes said and just tied myself I'm knots. It was only when I stopped planning that I managed to write anything at all.

My zombie moves are awesome.

Would you go for the straight faced zombie book or something more postmodern and ironic?

[User45632874]

Hi, I am about half way through editing my contemporary/ historical novel which is probably going to be around the 80,000 mark. I am 6 months pregnant with two dc -one at secondary school and one at pre-school, I have been dithering around with my latest chapter but as someone said up thread, hoping to get back into the swing of things once the dcs are back on school on Thursday. Above all, I am feeling daunted at the prospect of getting my book finished with a potential new born on the horizon, is it even going to be possible to write, I don't know... but having worked so hard on it, my aim is to get it completed by the end of 2018.

[CertainHalfDesertedStreets]

I think a YA postmodern one. I love zombie novels while simultaneously thinking that the idea of zombies themselves is pretty stupid. But the whole 'no longer top of the food chain' thing is fascinating.

And I wish I had written World War Z

[99balloonsandproblems]

I can do pep talking :) I am a bestselling author.

[yawning801]

I'm having a bit of a writing slump at the moment

[CertainHalfDesertedStreets]

Hello user. IME the preschooler is the problem. The newborn not so much as you can walk and think. All my best thinking gets done while walking

[CertainHalfDesertedStreets]

Pep talk away 99balloons I need it. I am definitely too full of Toblerone to be on a mental upswing at the moment.

[QueenHalloween]

I have a graveyard of bits and pieces, some sci fi, some supernatural, some horror (possibly thriller?) I'm not great with genres but along those lines plus a couple of game plots. Trying to focus on the horrorish stuff at the moment.

big zombie fan it has never occurred to me to write one.

[QueenHalloween]

I love the planning but sometimes I get a bit carried away I think definitely need to spend more time writing the actual words. I'm struggling through one but my brain is on another story entirely. Any tips for focus?

[BiglyBadgers]

queen Maybe you should have a go at pantsing a bit and just start writing the other story. One of the issues I had with planning is once I knew everything that was going to happen it sort of seemed pointless writing it. I have really enjoyed working this one out as I go as it's genuinely exciting seeing what will happen next.

Funnily enough I like a good zombie movie, but have never read a zombie book. Maybe I should give one a go. I'm not very good with horror books though. I blame my over vivid imagination.

[QueenHalloween]

Hmm. An intriguing idea. I could try it but I already know the end not a lot of the details though.

you've never read a zombie book! Try world war z, it's a real gem and no relation to the film at all

I also love some of the ideas in warm bodies. Ending not so much but the beginning is great. Neither are horror

[ReanimatedSGB]

Oh, World War Z is wonderful and I also wish I had thought of it.

I have a half-finished sort-of-zombies novel that kind of fizzled out. Most of my published fiction is erotica of one sort of another, currently working on something which is... challenging in that it's got an odd structure (the central premise is a bit like Sliding Doors in that one moment split the protagonist's life in two different directions).

[CertainHalfDesertedStreets]

I am definitely a pantser so utterly unable to advise a planner. I think you need a planner to help you. Do you feel like you've ever got to the end of your process? Like maybe you just haven't ever planned enough to actually write??

And yes WWZ is an amazing book. It's apparently based on an oral history of the Vietnam war...

None of us are actually writing zombie novels though are we?

[Witchend]

I'm onto thinking about editing. It's the thought that counts isn't it?

[QueenHalloween]

The one I'm focused on goes okay until I hit a bump in the planning, then I get a bit lost. I can handle shorts okay but the long stuff is so different. I will try more planning and less planning and see what works

I wouldn't know where to start with zombies... I've seen too much, I doubt I could turn out anything original. My favourite zombie fiction is the story writing in the resident evil games

[CertainHalfDesertedStreets]

It's definitely the thought that counts.

I think all over the place. Usually not only purpose iyswim. The actual writing it down is fairly prosaic.

But isn't that the definition of a pantser? Hate that word...