For anyone else who wants to start/progress/finish writing a book in 2011

[artifarti]

As the title says really!

Me: After several years of dithering with short stories, I committed myself to Nanowrimo last month and managed to bash out a 50,000 first draft of an idea I've had for ages. There is some excrutiating crap in there but also the bare bones of a plot and some interesting characters. So I'd really like to spend 2011 trying to develop it into something better.

But I need some company so that we can mutually kick each other's arses when the temptation to watch Holby City is proving too great. Anyone else?

thanks
have a pile of papers ready to go. Am going to do it in batches I think, like applying for jobs, so there is always one on the go!

That's a good way to go. Are you submitting to agents also? Some want to see it exclusively (which is a PITA when it takes them ages to reply).

Best of luck

Good luck all with the submissions. ninah are you submitting before you've redrafted the entire MS? I'm asking because the last time I went through this process, I completed an entire MS (final draft) and only then submitted it to agents (synopsis 1st then agent got back to me within a week or two so I sent it all to her). I was thinking of doing it the same way this time - ie not submitting query and synopsis until I was happy with the entire MS (complete and final draft). Just curious, really.

PS Best of luck all

well it is pretty much complete bb. Am just being really really picky about Part Two. I have been through the whole thing four or five times, there are just a couple of details I might change, nothing that will derail the focus of the book. It didn't seem worth waiting before I made those changes, especially as they can take weeks to get back to you and it's stuff in chapter 27. I plan to finish this week. Can't bear the sight of it now!
Also, I don't really anticpate success. I hope for it, but don't anticipate it. I am already thinking about the next novel, which has a complicated male lead character,and I can't wait to get my teeth into him! I think I'll have a personal nano type month in May, just to get it off to a cracking start.

have finished. All but one para. Feel a bit sick! what am I going to do now?! housework lol? will start writing again in May. happy Easter all

Fantastic, ninah, congratulations [grins].

What a fantastic thread and so glad you posted.

Count me in!

Hello!

I was directed here by some of you on another thread some time ago, and I'd like to join you

Lately I've been wanting to take up writing again (after convincing myself I was rubbish and gave up years ago). The hardest thing for me is to actually get the writing done. I lose interest in my ideas so fast that I always want to write something else, and then nothing gets finished. After getting helpful advice on here I decided to set myself a target for each day. 500 words would be manageable, I thought, and wrote 500 words. Thinking this took no time at all, I decided 1000 words would be the target. I was going to write 1000 words every day. Which I did. For two days

Soo... I'm thinking it might help to hold myself accountable to you. I started on a novel some time ago, and have been thinking about it a lot, but I've come to the conclusion that it won't work, which is a little hard, because it's my baby - the first thing I've written in years. Instead of digging myself further down into that hole, I'm going to finish a romance novel that I started for a competition (they only wanted three chapters). I don't think I'll win the competition, but it'll be a good exercise. The books they want aren't even that long - 50k words - so it should be possible. If I write!

Those of you who set targets for each day/week, do you find it easiest to have a set amount of words or work for a set period of time? I'm extremely easily sidetracked, so when I am to write 1000 words, I sometimes find it takes ages because I've been mumsnetting researching so much while I work. This should (in theory) not happen if I tell myself to work for e.g. an hour, but I suspect that I've become incapable of just doing one thing at a time (that's internet for you)

I also want to say how lovely it is to see you all support each other like this, you seem like a bunch of really nice people

Note how I managed to write all that and STILL didn't set myself a target

Ok. I'll start slow.

3000 words a week.

You're my witnesses

brain, I set myself a flexible, realistic DAILY target. It might be 500 or 1000 words depending on where I'm at.
You need to stop thinking and start writing. Good luck!

Houseguests have all left; I hadn't been able to write since last Wednesday. Today it was time to get back on track. The day was warm, the garden was sunny, DD was with the childminder and I was so tempted to sit and read and laze around.

Then I remembered this thread and I remembered how, back in March, I had committed myself to recording daily word counts to you all, making myself publicly accountable.

And wrote 1768 words .

Go for it MyBrain and Happy - make yourself publicly accountable. It works for me, at least.

Okay, so next steps. Long Easter and Royal Holiday weekends coming up with DD and DH at home and lots going on so I need to be productive with the days/hours I have left. I want to finish Chapter 11 tomorrow. Next Tuesday, after Easter, I want to spend the day editing Chp 11 then start planning out all the chapters for Part 3.

Hold me to it, everyone.

that's brilliant bb
picks up colt automatic
you have to write, if only to escape the wills n kate madness ...
I'm having a couple of days off but can't stop thinking about my lead character in the next book. And I have bought my new Writing Dressing Gown (buy one for each book as I live in them when I'm writing - don't have the chaise longue, secretary or chocs, but apart from that I AM the Lady Novelist from Little Britain)

Oh I love the sound of a dressing gown! Never seen Little Britain, but in a novel I once read, there was this woman who wrote romances, and she had her own little writing room and special clothes - maybe it was a dressing gown - she only wore when she wrote. She wrote under a pseudonym, so whenever she was writing, she was entering into the character she had created as the writer of her books. She was one of the highest-earning writers in the country, and she didn't even exist

I managed 1000 words yesterday, now lets see what I can do today.

Hello all, BsshBossh pointed me in this direction and said I should post, so here I am! I'm a 27 year old SAHM and I've scribbled stories for as long as I can remember. The first one was written on Winnie The Pooh notepaper, aged six, and it was about two terrier dogs called Muffin and Snowy. Can't for the life of me remember anything else about it - can't have been that exciting!

I don't profess to be "a writer" in the proper sense of the word. I've never entered competitions, I've not had anything published, but I can't not write. My imagination takes me down some strange roads and if I couldn't scribble down ideas I don't know what I'd do...

...however, I've got those pesky monkeys on my shoulder, Doubt and Ridicule and they're very annoying. I mean, I'm just me, why on earth would anyone want to read something I write? The few people who have read my short stories have said I am good, but they might have just been saying that, right?

Anyway, in an attempt to get rid of my own self-doubt issues, I'm going to make an effort to write everyday. I bought Louise Doughty's book "A Novel In A Year" last week and am finding it interesting in the sense that the weekly exercises are good for getting me back in the habit of writing with focus.

You all sound so focused and driven and full of inspiration - I'm jealous!

I can't believe how much you lot write in one day. 1,000 would be an absolute bumper day for me. I am going to aim for 1,000 a day in May, but 500 is my comfort level, pathetic isn't it. I've been looking into self publishing since mme.g's comments; amanda hocking can write a novel in a week or so! I'm more the slow and steady kind of writer, I don't know if I'd be able to maintain sufficient output to make a go of self pub ...
mybrain, I like your romance writer! I'd love a special room to write in. I do seem to change places when I start something new; I've moved from under the stairs, to top of the piano, and now in bedroom. And the dressing gown has gone from grey man's one, to pink stripes, to white cotton (asking for trouble).
welcome catpower! don't waste time doubting yourself get on with writing. It's like social confidence, fake it first and then it will come along naturally. People do write, why not you? and if you've had good feedback, all the better. You can usually tell when people are being polite or fobbing you off. Embrace the positive, and start on something that really enthralls you. You'll never look back!

Hello everyone. BsshBossh mentioned this thread on another thread. Can I join you? Just read through the whole thread and you are all so inspiring! I write a lot of articles for work and have done one or two others on leisure topics for local publications and lots of people keep telling me I should write more. Recently back in touch with my inspirational English teacher from school ( I am now 45, he is 70) who told me "Years ago I should have told you that should write something so I am saying it now- get on with it!!". Very busy with work until the end of May, but after that am committing to get a few more articles done. Until then I will quietly lurk!!

Aaaand thousand. I'm basically writing without thinking now, because I need to get into the habit, and if I agonise over every word/sentence, I'll never get anywhere (so naturally everything I write is complete bollocks, but I'm hoping it'll improve.)

at writing a novel in a week. If you write the kind of romances I'm trying for now, you're expected to churn them out pretty quickly, but that's just... Is it even possible to type that fast

Welcome from another newbie on this thread, CatPower and schoolchauffeur I still really can't believe that so many of us write or want to write, it's very exciting.

MyBrainIsOutOfTune and CatPower - I think I'm a combination of the two of you! I read MyBrain's post first and thought, 'that could be me writing that', and then read CatPower's and thought 'so could that'! I have so many ideas for stories so spend what little spare time I have writing those down, and hardly ever get round to actually writing the stories themselves. Despite loving writing, I also find it very hard to motivate myself; I sit down to write and invariably end up looking at Mumsnet/doing online shopping etc. And this is because...I'm scared. It all comes down to fear of being no good. If it were confirmed by a publisher that my writing is no good, I would lose hope in my dream of being a writer. So it's all rather self-defeating really. I can't be a writer unless I try, and I can't be a writer just in my head and not in reality. So I've resolved to just do it...at least twenty minutes a day at first, and see how I go. I've already started a novel and am really enjoying it when I do it. Just got to get that critical nagging voice out of my head while I'm doing it...

Haven't posted on here before but would like to join in and will be following with interest.

Good luck to you all, and you do all sound fabulous!

mojito I started doing a little bit each day, it's like running, your muscles get stronger ..
met someone who teaches lit in prisons and has offered to let a class loose on my ms for feedback. Exciting but scary. Braces self ...

Okay, public accountability time again: 2017 words completed today and Chapter 11 is complete. Editing of this chapter and planning for Part 3 begins next Tuesday. See you next week and Happy Easter everyone .

Good evening everyone!

Yesterday I hit 40k of my WIP. As it's written long-hand it's very sketchy. I actually think I have written enough of the story to start typing up/rewriting! I'm flabbergasted!

I have made a decision about changing the POV and order of things, and the voice and everything and I'm very excited about it. But I can't start writing it until I get a new laptop...going away for a week tomorrow, and will hopefully have the vouchers we need for the laptop when we get back. Will be good to have a rest from it anyway.

In the meantime, have written two short stories, and will write more over hte holiday - skill honing.

Welcome those of you new to the thread :) And well done eveyrone for your word coutns!

artifarti, so sorry about your molar pregnancy and loss. No wonder you've not been able to do much . But great news that you're writing again .

You've all been busy.

So sorry to hear your news arti