Anyone up for a novel writing support thread?

[Cel982]

Just thought it might be nice to have a place we could give each other a kick up the bum cheer each other along as we try to get our novels written.

I'm currently on the eleventy-hundredth draft of my first novel - hoping to have it ready for submission in the next month or two. Have been stuck on a niggly plot point for the last few weeks but had a bit of a breakthrough the other night so now the words are flowing again. Am a SAHM with a toddler at the moment so all my writing is done in the evenings when I can tear myself away from the TV. I know, I'm inspiring

So... you?

Soo thanks a lot, I'd LOVE to have a young beta reader. But I'm not writing in English...

I was reading about the negative comment about your book. I've posted something about it a few days ago here - I'm terrified that someone will "read into me" through my book (and maybe get comments like the one you got). But I think this is just part of the job. As you said, RR Martin writes pretty sick stuff and people just love and respect him.

In your situation, it looks like the reader's discomfort is more about THEM, and not you.

And I've finished reviewing one more chapter! :)

Gah!
I've been stuck recently. finally getting back on track. Did 1500 words yesterday, trying to do the same today.
Anyone else out there who's struggling towards the end of their book?

raises hand

Me. I wrote my most recent draft (starting on a blank document having made some significant changes and dropped an entire narrator) quickly almost straight through, but was obliged for work reasons to stop just before the end, and now I will be able to get back to it soon, I feel the momentum has gone, and I'm afraid (this is about draft 1000000) that I'll just twiddle with it endlessly and lose all sense of the shape of it.

No advice, just fellow-feeling!

What bit of the ending are you stuck on ChequeredPasta, is it the wrapping things up neatly? Or it not feeling satisfying enough, the ending?

I have plotted out the last third of my book ( just a few sentences per chapter) but have no idea how I'm going to wrap things up in the very last chapter so that my characters live happily ever after without it being too cheesy/ cliched.

I find messaging my sisters a loose version of what I want the ending to be helps.

It's lucky they know I write or they'd have had me commited by now, the messages I send them, musing over plot points.

Strawberry - I've sot of written my ending, and written the first half of the book. I'm struggling to link the two together, and tie up the various loose threads I've left myself. I keep rereading what I've written, and thinking 'crap! Forgot about that, need to make that make sense...'

Good to know there's others in a similar position
I'm going on holiday next week - taking the laptop with me in the hope that inspiration hits!

Can I join please? I'm definitely not a pantser and have spent about 6months plotting and planning the entire thing. I actually only started actually 'writing' in the last couple of weeks but I'm determined to go for broke and knock out my first crappy draft by Hallowe'en.

Don't know how I put two actuallys in there!

Demented, good plan!

I turned out to have a middle ear infection so no progress this week but will do a bunch tomorrow - have to go a long way to see a friend today.

I'm at the local library right now trying to finish the whole thing, but I'm MNing instead! My beta reader (who is an editor, but is reading my book as a friend) will go on holidays in the next few days and it MUST be ready by then!

I have a deadline and I can't focus. I'm rewriting for the tenth time a tricky scene by the end of the book, that will set the tone for the next book (that's how hopeful I am - have a whole trilogy in my mind!).

I guess I'll just have to leave it as it is, isn't it?

Please, tell me to get on with it! It's my first book and it's almost ready, and I'm proud of it!

ishall - get on with it or I'll take your library card away!!

seriously, if you need a Beta read on the whole book and can't get one scene right for you, use one of the other drafts and just tell the reader that many rewrites are already available!

Hi everyone! Just back from our short holiday today - didn't get any writing done while I was away, but I wasn't really expecting to so not feeling too disappointed. Hopefully now I'll be able to knuckle down to it again for the final push. I find that coming home from a holiday always motivates me to make plans and get moving on various projects.

I'm totally with you on struggling to finish, Chequered! In my case it's not the actual ending, which was written long ago, but another thread that ties various things together - it's been more trouble than all the other chapters put together...

Lorelei thanks for the kick on the butt! If I don't finish one or two chapters, I'll just let him know that they are drafts... Hopefully he will read the book in the plane, going on holidays. I'm counting on the story being enough of a page turner that he will read it all.

Fingers crossed /I can dream :)

Cel people here have told me that in a situation like yours, the best thing to do is just keep writing and making the skeleton of a scence, going back to it later. I spent years not following that advice, and now I know it was perfect advice!

I did no writing today
i just couldn't be arsed

Hmmm.

Hello

Bit late to the party but would love to join.

I've written a rough first draft (well 62k words but I tend to underwrite and then have to fill it out later). I guess you could say it's the commercial/book club end of literary fiction. I've been using Scrivener to plan out the chapters and write which has been really useful.

I wrote the draft on the principle of just getting anything down on paper (so it's a mess basically) and that was helpful in just getting it done but now I"m a bit overwhelmed at how to get it into a readable second draft. Any tips on where to start? There's so much to do and I'm procrastinating again.

I'll pop back here when I have a bit more time to comment but sounds like there's lots of work going on amongst you all!

Thanks

That sounds great, Kai - you've a lot done already!

When I had my first draft finished (many, many moons ago ) I just started reading from the beginning and highlighting passages I wasn't happy with. Then went back over it (a chapter at a time) and rewriting/deleting/otherwise 'fixing' those bits.

I found this a relatively quick and quite enjoyable part of the whole process. It was only when I realised that one whole subplot needed to be entirely rewritten that the trouble started...

Kai well done! In my case, I work chapter by chapter, looking up at all the plots and subplots, and rewriting each of them, so it doen't feel too overwhelming. Of course at some point you have to read the whole thing, but I feel that each of my 31 chapters are a manageable chunk of the story.

Mine is a sort of ensemble cast...is it bad that there aren't sub plots? They are linked and there's definitely characters who are more important but there's no sub plots really.

Five hundred words written this morning, must do at least another five hundred this afternoon... I feel like I'm moving forward, but at a snail's pace!

That's how I'm feeling Naicehamshop. I'm getting there but very slowly. I didn't get anything done last night because the kids were here.

My novel is now about 18,000 words long. It's a series of 3 novellas that will come together to make one long novel. My fist one was about 37,000 words long so I need this to be in the same region.

I made the mistake of joining a writing challenge as part of another group I am part of. Write and publish an erotic short, don't advertise or do any promo and see how well it does.

Well, it did well. It's been out three days and has been borrowed from KDP or bought at least 3 times a day. I now feel I need to pay as much attention to that as I do my 'main' writing, since it's actually making me money.

I spend 2 months writing 37,000 words of what I believe is fairly decent dark, paranormal romance, with orginal ideas and no-one buys it. I spend one night knocking up 3,500 words of pure filth, that is pretty much just 50SOG but worse and people are lapping it up

Since I actually need money, I'll see this challenge through to the end. I'm not good at short stories so it ended up as a To Be Continued, that I thought I'd just ignore unless it started selling. I never expected it to start selling.

Soo - that's really good, well done!!

I have to say, I'm not finding much - any! - motivation at the mo. It's like I'll write if I get one of those bursts of enthusiasm but rarely get them and the rest of the time it feels like a slog

I should probably add, on Tuesday night I started, well I sat down with and then just thought - I can't be arsed. Oops.

I do that a lot, Lorelei76. Usually if I force myself to write at least one paragraph it starts flowing a bit easier. If it doesn't then I just leave it for the night.

I think a lot of it is just hard slog - I'm pretty sure the writers for whom it all flows in one big creative burst are few and far between. Which is why most would-be writers don't actually finish anything...

Wow Soo - well done on your erotic short story ... I'm very impressed!