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

Haha. Finally a way to fund my writing!

Just did a whole read through and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I don't think it's the absolute worst thing I have ever read. Which is nice. There are bits that could do with some minor writing improvement and proofreading, but I think it's pretty much there. I might see if I can summon the courage to give it to someone to read and get started on part 2.

I've put it all together in one doc and final wordcount is 81543. Which is perfectly respectable for a novel, but really very small for epic fantasy. Still, I'd quite like to attach the next part in the same book, as I think it would work better than ending a book at this point, so would be quite a bit longer when I'm done done..

Hi all. So had to write my smutty chapter for my fic and now finishing the next one so I have something to share with writing club.. ..my little fic is 45k and probably another 20 to go.

Good work bigly. It's a nice feeling to read something back and think, Actually this doesn't suck. I got that with the book I'm working on now. Though of course now I'm editing it again I'm back to being hyper critical.

Good work too honeyboo. I'm jealous of everyone's productivity. I've spent all evening making Blue Mountain Quarry in cake form for my son's birthday. I suppose it's being creative at least...

I've just started writing what is my longest piece yet. I'm just worried that the feedback I'm getting is too biased, if that makes any sense? Two writing groups I belong too & family day they really like it but I'm worried they're just being nice to my face.

I've finished posting my WIP to Scribe, and have lots of critiques which is really helpful.
Only thing is that I'm trying to edit and discovering I am seriously bad at it. The thing I am best at with editing is procrastinating and doing something else (like MN).

ikl I know what you mean about getting feedback. I do think scrib is a good place to get less biased feedback as they don't know you or owe you anything, but still tend to be jolly nice about it in my experience. I put a few of my early chapters up before I did my massive rewrite and found the feedback really, really helpful. Would definitely recommend if you are looking for critique. Also the discussion boards are good and helped me firm up a few ideas and things.

I did have to stop putting things up though while I rewrote, as I realised I was starting to write by committee and losing my own voice a bit. Also I found as I got to later chapters people were critiquing who hadn't read the first ones so complain they didn't understand stuff that was explained the previous chapter. I'm a bit undecided about whether to put anymore of this part up now or whether it will just get me tied in knots again when I feel like I am pretty much done. Once you get to the point where half the people want more backstory and half of them want less, all the different opinions sort of cancel each other out.

In the fanfic world you can ask for a beta to read and comment. Found someone who said they'd read and give me feedback. All I got was "it's amazing and addictive" wjich is nice but not useful. Need concrete advice but scrib doesnt really do fanfic...

Hah! Yes, that is lovely feedback, but frustrating when you have girded your loins ready for some actual criticism. Agree, scrib doesn't seem to do fanfic, not sure why.

Personally I think scrib is amazing from short stories, great for running early drafts of early chapters past people, but otherwise not great for full finished novels unless you find someone who will read the whole thing for you and I haven't built the networks on there enough for that and I'm not sure I have the time of energy at the moment.

I've just started my part two! So exciting to have a blank page again and no idea where I'm going. Love a bit of pantsing.

Bigly I don't know if you've done this, but I was advised to put my first couple of chapters on Scribe on the main spotlight, then join (and be active) in a number of groups and post the rest of the chapters to a personal spotlight.
You also get 6 critiques in personal spotlight rather than 3
It's worked well for me, and most of my chapters have been reviewed by the same people now, which is more helpful.
I did have one chapter which spent the entire chapter saying "you haven't told us about ...." which I'd told about in a previous one or "I know I haven't read the previous chapters but I want to know more about..." more stuff I'd already told. And ended with saying every chapter should be readable on it's own as a short story.
I checked her other reviews and she writes almost the same on everyone's so I thought I could probably safely ignore her.

There is fan fiction as a genre, but I don't think it's used much at all, but it might be worth looking for groups as they would presumably be more interested.

I think it's the time investment that's proving an issue for me doing that witch. I've just got so much going on at the moment that I haven't the energy to keep up the profile and do the crits on scrib as well. I'm currently considering dropping some of my other commitments, so I might get back on scrib again properly in the future. It is a really nice community.

I've dropped a message to a friend who previously said he would like to read it and is also an epic fantasy fan. I think I'd really like someone to read it and just be nice right now, even if I know they are completely biased and would never come out and tell me it was crap. Need a bit of a confidence boost before I let it out into the world for people to properly crit. My poor little storybaby!

I belong to a few fanfiction sites on Facebook which are fun but there doesn't seem to be a real appetite for receiving constructive criticism

What's nice about when people come back to your chapters then the bits which they don't like is mitigated by the fact they've liked earlier chapters enough to come back again. You can also believe chapters they love because they also tell you when they don't!

I've also tended to stick with a story for critiquing, with about 7-8 on the go, and I'll critique when they put a new chapter up. If you need 5 karma (max you can give) then ask as I'm building it up at present and not using it currently.

That is a good point Witch. Just that someone has bothered to come back and read more is a big compliment.

I've done about 2.5k words today. Rather pleased with myself and very much enjoying moving my storylines into a new stage.

I just sent my Part One to a friend and now I think I'm going to die

Think I'm going to just have to throw myself into part two and pretend the last bit never happened.

Every time I get an email telling me I have a critique I spend the next few hours pretending I haven't seen it.

Ha! Yes, I used to do the same. And then sneakily peak at it on my phone with my fingers over my eyes like I was watching a horror movie. Seriously, my mental health can't take the strain of too much scrib.

I have them set up so I can read the end comments. I do a sneaky peek at those usually before I can get up the courage to look at the inline comments. Same thing really.

Ho hum. I was churning along quite nicely and I just hit one of those blocks. I know where I need to get the characters to go and what they have to do on the way, but currently they are standing on the top of a hill looking sceptically at me. I think one of the might be tapping his footz he probably has his arms crossed.

I think they might be trying to tell me I need to rethink this chapter a bit.

Maybe take a short break. I find I can write a certain amount, maybe 7k-ish then I get tapped out and need to mentally recharge for a bit. Watch a couple of movies, go for a walk, take a day trip somewhere etc.

I haven't been on here for a while! I'm hovering around the 57k mark with my fiction at the moment and I'm merging it with another, smaller, fiction. The end is nowhere near! Help!!!

I think you are right Tippety. Not helped but he fact that I am also writing an assignment for uni at the same time.

Oooo...that sounds interesting yawning. How long do you expect it to be in the end?

Just popping in to cheer you all on sounds like you're doing great! I've done sod all