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

Nice work TossDaily

I got a 'are you going to write another chapter to this story' comment on something that I hoped would work as a stand alone chapter because I tried to write more and seriously got stuck. And have since planned and attempting to write something completely different.

I love getting comments, really I do.

Reading these last few posts have reminded me I am published already. Just a poem in an anthology which must be nearly 20 years old [shock). I have had something in more! magazine when I was 19 too about working abroad but I'd love to write an actual book.

The idea of standing up at a festival or competition and pitching my work is possibly the most terrifying thing I could ever imagine doing

Thanks burning. Not too long at all, just very illuminating. Congrats again. The stats are quite terrifying but it's always reassuring to hear stories from the front so to speak.

I'm with bigly on the fear front! But I keep hearing so much about competitions I feel I should start to look into them more. I really hadn't considered them at all before. I can't imagine thinking my work is good enough to win anything, but if it's not good enough for a competition it's not good enough to submit anywhere. Hmmm.

I said to dh the other day that in the past I worried I'd never work out what I wanted to do with my life. But what's far worse is that now I've worked it out I worry I'll never be any good at it!

The thing about the pitching competitions is that it encourages you to think about what the market is for your work (assuming you write with the aim of being published) and you learn to distill that into a concise summary, to convey the essence and the heart of the story. And altogether it's terrifying, it's good practice because if you get published you will have to give talks and so on. I possibly found it a bit easier because I've done public speaking in the past, although mostly about bookselling not my own literary efforts.

Last year, I helped out the person who went on to win the event I took part in two years earlier - coaching him I felt like Michael Caine in Miss Congeniality!

The thing about the pitching competitions is that it encourages you to think about what the market is for your work

Ah, well...not sure there is a market for my work to be honest.

Luckily I am generally writing for my own amusement, so that's fine. The more I hear about getting an agent and published the more I am seriously put off by the whole process.

The more I hear about getting an agent and published the more I am seriously put off by the whole process.

Me too.
I love the idea of getting published. Not sure I would actually like it. It is probably best as a fantasy in my head

... and it most likely will stay as a fantasy in my head too.

and it most likely will stay as a fantasy in my head too

Same here! I realise I don't actually want to do any of the stuff involved in the job of being a published writer other than the actual writing. I have no desire to go galavanting about to events or pitch stuff or all that negotiating palaver. I am just happy writing my stuff. Unless I could be a mysterious hermit writer who remains anonymous and doesn't have to speak to anyone about it I'm not sure the idea appeals.

See, I like staying in my pyjamas all day alone with my laptop and my characters but can only justify doing that if it earns a living of sorts. Or has the prospect of doing so. So I have to do the rest because it enables the pyjamas/writing/being antisocial thing.

And every so often I do like to get out and see the world. I had a trip to London a few months ago where I had lunch with a friend, a meeting with my agent, a wander round the National Gallery, a party at the literary agency, dinner with a friend and the sleeper train home, and it was lovely. But did me for a while. And I do go to the odd bookish networking thing and meet writer friends for coffee.

99problems: you've been a pro for a while, how do you balance all of this?

As much as I'd love to be a professional, legit, real proper author, I've always imagined that doing it full time would be the death of creativity, and my sanity. Or I'd just write books in which all my characters are authors writing books or struggling to write books (it's already hard to avoid making all my protagonists bookish). That said, it's still the dream!

I can see why the pitching etc would focus the mind (nothing like fear...). It's all too easy at the moment to gloss over the crap bits or give up on the tricky bits and avoid confronting any difficult questions when I can just tell myself I'm only writing for myself. Even the idea of sending it out to a faceless agent where it'll just sit unread on a slush pile doesn't quite give the same motivation. Problem is I'm fairly convinced there isn't much of a market for the things I've written so far. There's just nothing grabby enough about the premises or characters. I can't for the life of me come up with those one sentence elevator pitches. 'Erm, well, it's about a woman, and she just sort of does some stuff, nothing major, and thinks some things, um, and that's it...'.

Well, one of my stories has been rejected. The feedback said not enough happened, there wasno payofffor the reader. They thought it needed dialogue too.

Oh well. TBH it's nice to have it back in the fold. I'll kiss it better and dress it up a bit.

Onwards and upwards.

Rejection is poo, but it's nice that bothered to give you feedback and not just send it back with a big red "NO!" on it.

Hmm...I had to pay for it

Sorry about the rejection, but the feedback sounds useful. Not that it feels any better I guess. I've only ever submitted a few things years ago. Got a couple of form rejections and one that said they liked it but some aspects weren't clear. What I should have done was to take that on board, revise and submit elsewhere. Instead I sulked. For about five years. (There used to be a funny article on The Toast about dealing with rejection, but trying to look it up I've just learnt The Toast has closed. Boo.).

Did you have to pay for the submission or the feedback? I've not heard of that before.

Paid for submission, and a bit extra for feedback. It's Writers Forum magazine.

I'm trying hard not to sulk

Well, Writer's Forum's website is a big pile of crap. Completely non-responsive so a disaster on my tablet, also terminally slow to load. I wouldn't take the opinion of anyone who makes such an awful website too seriously tbh.

hello. I'm struggling, but still here!

The life of an artist is one of constant struggle, Honey

What's up?

Found a video version of that Toast article I was thinking of. It's actually about criticism not rejection but I interpret them the same way...

m.youtube.com/watch?v=MJNXNIPlsSY

Toss don't sulk. I think you're brave to do that! Keep going.

I know we have spoken quite a bit on here about wordcount, pov and such like, so thought you might find this interesting. If nothing else is demonstrates that a lot of the guidelines around these subjects really are only guidelines. The Wheel of Time books were all best sellers and hugely successful, but on paper they break a lot of the guidelines about work count, chapter lengths and pov.

Also has some lovely graphs.

A Statistical Analysis of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time
www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/statistical-analysis-wheel-time/

Ooh I do love a nice graph. Almost makes me want to reread WoT and continue to the end this time, but might have to wait until I have a liiitle bit more spare time. And can I just say, 4 million words! Holy hell.

I have a question that I was pondering in the early hours while my 2 year old refused to sleep... Imagine you're sitting down to work on your book or story (first draft) and you're about a third or more of the way through so you've got a pretty good idea of where it's going. You sit down with your laptop, tablet, notepad, whatever, and you're about to start a new scene or chapter.... what happens? What's on your mind? Do you know the words you're going to write? Do you know exactly how the scene will go (beginning, middle and end)? Or is it much more vague? I seem to be writing without any clue at all right now and it feels like I'm just producing stuff rather than story. I'm wondering if it means the story has run out of steam.

Hmm... that's an interesting question Tippety because I would say sometimes I do each of those things. I rarely know exactly what a scene will include, but on occasion with a very significant point it does happen. It is also rare for me to have absolutely no idea at all what will happen in a scene once I come to write it, but again, it does happen. Most of the time I have a vague idea of something, whether it is knowing I need to get a character to a certain place or that they are starting from a particular point so I am jumping of from there.

I do think each scene has to have some sort of purpose in the story, but that doesn't mean just because you are floundering a bit your story has run out of steam, you have just lost sight of your purpose. The other aspect is that sometimes I do write stuff that later comes out, but was helpful for me to work out narrative, timelines or get a feel of a character. Also sometimes I just have to start stuff a few times to get the write direction.

In my view about a third of the way through is a really hard place. It is where you are starting to freak out about the middle, but you're not far along to feel secure its all going to work out. It all feels a bit amorphous at that point with everything flying outwards and nothing coming together.

You say you have a pretty good idea of where it is going, so maybe focus on that and write consciously towards it (if that makes sense) or work backwards form the end point to find an earlier significant event to write towards. Then either write a scene that moves your characters towards the goal or chuck in an event to shake things up a bit. Maybe your characters have got a bit comfortable?

Not sure if any of that is helpful. Don't give up on your story now! It needs you!

Talk about a timely post for me! I'm struggling and although it's painful now i know this is what I'm going to face on the big novel. Am writing one more fanfic, but this one is 14 planned chapters, multiple 3rd person POV and although it is a romance, unlike other stories I've attempted it goes beyond those two people with even plot development, showing not telling and all those things that mean i seem to be struggling. I know what each scene should do but I'm struggling with motivation and when my two main characters do end up in the same room i cant find the romance between them.... Argh