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?

ah bless you, it must be really good then! clink clink
yes this is the second novel the first one is out with readers still, I have now become quite unsure about it but am waiting to see what they say. there's an agent i want to try and I don't want to blow it with her as she has been recommended. not a good point at which to feel the ideas are trite and the writing is banale. Total cold feet. Am due some feedback this weekend the rest over the course of the summer ..
so yy am plodding on w no 2, half distracted by the ghosts of entirely more promising, untried ideas. Going to grit my teeth and keep going but it's as if that elusive, perfect novel is floating always just out of reach
my friend told me a v interesting scenario today that is def short story material. there's just too much to write about and soo little time.

I have 3 scenes left and then it's done!! I've been told to get it to over 40k so I have 8k left to write.

belle great news. did the report make a massive difference? are you pleased with what you have now? keep going you are so nearly there now!

It did. I'm pleased I had it done, she's done a great job and had pointed out a few things that I'd never thought of/edited out so have replaced. I've pretty much changed the last 1/3 and I feel as though it flows a lot better now. I'm getting nervous now though. I've stuck mother nature in there, I'm not sure how well this will work. She's one of the 3 remaining wizards.

How are you? I've not been on here a lot.

Belle, wow, it was obviously worth paying the freelance editor then. Fantastic! I may consider it when I'm done.

I'm fine. I was writing terrifically well (in terms of word count) until this week when I got derailed by real life (in a good way) and now I also have the flu . So no writing for me until next week, I think.

Here's my plan:

• Complete this (second) draft by July (ideally beginning)
• Put aside for a week or two, see whether it's worth paying a freelance editor to review, then complete third review/draft by end September
• July to September also make list of agents to submit to and prepare synopsis
• Beginning October send out to agent, one by one
• Take a break then start, in October hopefully, researching and planning next novel while waiting for responses (already have loads of notes for next novel - like ninah, I'm very excited by this next one too and can't wait to start it).

I think it is Bssh. Sorry to hear about your flu. Take some time to recover. I like your plan

Hello everyone, good to see you're all doing so well (except for the flu). I'm in the middle of exam revision and essay writing, so am mostly writing boring stuff

I mentioned earlier that I entered a romance competition a while ago. Well, I didn't win, and I knew I really shouldn't, as winning anything when you've barely put pen to paper for the last ten years would be a miracle. I was still disappointed, though

Anyway, some time after the competition ended, I got a very nice email from one of the people holding it, giving me some really good feedback and telling me that they liked what I'd written, but that it wasn't quite there yet. She suggested some changes, and offered to send me a couple of their romances so that I could have something to compare my work with. I think I'll follow her suggestions, which means revising my plan for the first book, at least, entirely. So I'll use my spare time whenever I have it for the rest of the week (still revising - AND visiting inlaws for the weekend) to work out a new outline, and then start writing it next week.

On another writing note, I've finally managed to finish my thesis proposal for my Master's thesis and send it off to a Professor to ask if he would be my supervisor. I've been putting this off for ages because I wasn't quite ready to decide exactly what I wanted to work on, and it's also extremely uncomfortable for me to contact people I don't even know in this way (social anxiety). But now I've done it! And he answered, and seemed very positive. So that's one thing off my chest

yeah I thought you had gone quiet belle you must've been up to your eye w rewrite! if it's so much better, I'm delighted for you
funny how ed told you to put stuff back in. I've read so many times 'pare it down' and I think sometimes you can throw out some good stuff while still v engaged in the writing as opposed to editing process. I do find the self critical part immensely difficult I must say.
bssh sorry you are unwell - but that is a v coherent schedule. Give yourself some time off and some tlc in the meantime! you deserve it
and brain, wow to being contacted by comp organisers, esp when as you say you have not written for years. Feedback is like gold imo. Valuable and hard to come by! they must have been impressed
still on target here

Yes, I thought it was incredibly helpful of them to send that mail. I rarely receive this kind of feedback; the only one I get from my friends when asking them to read is 'well, I think it's good!' or 'maybe you should have a comma there'. Both of which I'm grateful for, of course, but it would be nice to have someone commenting on the larger picture (and daring to be critical) once in a while. I feel the same way when it comes to essays at University; much of the feedback is either just correcting the odd mistake or 'no, this is fine'. People rarely tell me what my essays would need to actually become better, which doesn't really make it a good learning environment

I am lucky in that I have a couple of volunteer readers who are passionate and discerning about books and don't pull their punches in commenting on mine
agree with you the 'it's great' school of criticism is ultimately unhelpful. which bits? why? and more importantly, which are the crap bits? in draft two or three there are bound to be some stinkers ime
of course this is a job you get better at doing for yourself, but I'm a long way off that, myself
it's harsh short term to hear that at least 40k of a 80k novel really doesn't work - but pretty damn useful in the long term
think about who you know that reads widely and with catholic appetite, and ask them, even if you don't know them all that well? people are surprisingly willing to give views on this kind of thing. Or I believe you can get into mutual crit online. And there's the £ kind, of course.
bet you could set something up at uni, some kind of readers' group? you prob have subject group emails addresses, or the dept certainly will - it could be done anonymously? just ideas

Hello.
I just discovered this board the other day, and although I haven't read through this whole thread yet, you've already inspired me to finally start typing on an idea for a novel I've been playing with for well over a year.

I've written 182 words!

And it felt so good.

Well done, TimeWasting, and welcome! It's fun to finally start writing, isn't it?

Thanks for your ideas, ninah. Maybe I'll look into some of those.

Welcome and well done TimeWasting! No "time wasting" for you now, eh?!

well I was procrastinating getting down to actual work, brain! however, still on target and my art student has cancelled tonight so have an hour and a half i didn't expect to to get on with it!

I've done nothing very little writing today. I've not received a response from the publishers about the picture books that they said they wanted to buy the plots to in Jan, they were rewritten and all I've had is 'better but not quite right'. I was told a couple of months ago to send them to someone else there, she was going to get back to me in April, then as a priority when she gets back after easter. It's not looking good is it?

I don't think you can say til you've heard from them belle. You know this can take ages ... this is the first full working week back after easter, anyway. Try not to be discouraged. Sending you positive vibes!

also your current project sounds as if it's coming along so well, focus on that and forget about the other for the mo if you can?

In theory I've been waiting since the start of January as this is when I had the first feedback. I'm trying to forget about them and concentrate on the novel but it doesn't bode well IMO.

On one publisher's info the lead time was 6 months. SIX MONTHS! with these kind of hiatae (?) the only thing you can do is keep working. It's like sending messages in bottles!

It's rediculous to make people wait that long. It's more of a test of patience then anything else. I don't think they appreciate that writers need to eat! If they hadn't have expressed an interest then it would have been far better then being left dangling.

Oh belle, how frustrating. I would feel like you too in that position. I think it can do no harm to call/email and request the status of your picture books from the editor. Straightforward, simple, short email/call just to find out where your books are in the "chain".

In the meantime youmust definitely crack on with your other creative writing piece(s). It's always a waiting game, even when you have a publisher and a contract. Published authors crack on with their next book when the current one is in the process of being submitted/published.

Keep at it, girl!

She said she'd look at it 'as a priority' as soon as she returned on the 3rd May. I don't mind hanging around as long as I get an advance first, the girl needs wine!! The agent's only intererested in the novel so I'm unsure where this will leave the picture books also. It's all sooo .

I really need your help. Agent wants the rest of ms, says it might be too similar to something she already has but wants to see it. Feck. From the thread I know this could well be the start of a real anticlimax in a cruel twist on the usual rejection saga so I am trying to stay cool, but here's the thing ...
I've advised her already it's out with readers. I hope to get some feedback this weekend. One remaining reader could take a while longer. Agent says send it when I'm ready, but how long do you think I shoudl wait, bearing in mind she already has something similar? wait for final reader comments, or just go for it next week?
Agent gave me a v civilised rejection w feedback for last novel and I would def like to be repped by her if at all poss.

What does she mean when she says she has something similar? Similar in style? Similar in content/plot/structure?

I'd wait until after the weekend, see what the other readers say and have a think from there. I wouldn't wait for the final readers comments, it's just one person after all.

Best of luck. It's exciting yes??

it's gut churningly exciting but I am trying not to get carried away, bearing in mind some of the experiences on here. Thanks for your sensible advice. I clicked on the email thinking rejection, here we go, it's fri 13th after all, and then went into a bit of a tizz when it wasn't yet.
you have been on this roller coaster since jan belle no wonder it's doing your head in!
as for similar, I don't know in what way. She just says 'similar'. She suggests one revision to the chapters I already sent her so I'll have a look to see if there are similar issues further on. But I'll def calm down before I reply.