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

I used to meet up with some writing buddies on Gmail chat once a week to catch up and do chat without critiquing and it was really helpful. But that was when I worked from home and had a lot more opportunity to be free at specific times!

That's great, Fermats!

I've actually managed two chapters of my current epic, only a month apart!

What sort of stuff do you write, Generic?

Welcome back Fermats. Sometimes you need to give a chapter time to mellow, like a fine wine.

I just get put off Facebook groups because I am naturally secretive and even when they are locked I feel oddly exposed....which could possibly have something to do with my paranoia now I mention it.

Well done Fermats!

I go through phases with chapters. Very on and off.

I am secretive too but like to think it's more Protective 😅

I'm also a secretive one, especially when it comes to sharing my writing! I know a group that uses a Google group. Have to admit I'm clueless about it as have never used it, so not much help as a suggestion, sorry!

Welcome back fermats, good work on the chapter! And well done on the submissions bigly. Super productive! I just feel like I'm drowning in ideas and no time to do anything. Feels a bit like my mum life. All these little voices demanding my attention and no time to do any of it! I am making (slow) progress with the editing though. About half way through this set of revisions. Though I now have several scenes in Scriv with stars and things like 'this needs something about his mum' or 'do this better'. So still a long way to go...

I do scribe and it's very addictive. It isn't too difficult to build up a network, and the critiques are generally pretty useful. I had I think 2 critiques (out of just over 100) that I didn't find helpful.

I'm feeling a bit frustrated. Am away for a couple of days and I bought a chrome book with me to write on.
I wrote some last night, saved it to usb (no internet). DS wasn't well today so I stayed at home and wrote. Cannot get it to save. I save it to usb, it says "last saved" 2 minutes ago. Open it again, and it hasn't saved any of the new stuff. I now don't dare shut it down in case I lose the changes.

Oh no witch, this is like some terrible nightmare. Did you get your usb sorted in the end?

Would it work if you copied and pasted it to a new document? Or saved as with a new file name. Or could you print it or even take a photo of it or write it out! I hate hate hate losing work.

Eek... witch - worst nightmare time. Tippety's suggestions are worth a try.

I tried saving it onto the Chromebook directly, to usb in several different files with different names . Text only etc. Each one looked saved and then I opened it to find that it had saved as the previous version.
I tried PDF but it only did the first page for some reason.

I'd have kind of understood if it hadn't saved at all off line, but it saved fine the first day.

What I did was fully charged it, then just didn't switch it off, so it was still there when I arrived back this afternoon. I have now copied and pasted the text into an email, so I don't think I have lost anything.

I now have 7 different copies of a previous version, 5 on usb and 2 on the Chromebook. Borrowed Chromebook and borrowed usb, so I hope I can manage to delete them now I am back and have it back on one drive.

What a hoo hah witch. I'm off on holiday tomorrow, you've just reminded me to make sure I have all my bits saved so I can access them off line on my tablet or everything will be terrible!

Have a lovely holiday bigly.

Glad you didn't lose anything witchend! Think the computer gremlins must be around. Scrivener just refused to open and my laptop (which is ancient) started making unhealthy scratchy clicky sounds. Really hope it doesn't die on me.

Hello. I'm new here, working on my first novel

Welcome dragon! What sort of book are you writing?

Hey dragoncat welcome to the thread. How's the novel going? What sort of stage are you at?

I'm having a lovely holiday with lots of bracing walks along the beach, but I haven't done any writing except for a few small poems. I have, however, been bringing Agatha Christie novels, so that's been nice.

Hope your laptop is holding out for you Tippety

Laptop still alive, though I've just been reading the book on my kindle the last few days to get a feel for where I'm at. Egads though, having awful crisis of confidence about it. Just don't think the writing is up to scratch at all. Keep reminding myself this is a structural edit and there's time to polish the actual words later ...

And having been sure about which book I want to write next (after this one and the .5 draft I've got waiting...) I've suddenly got a really strong urge to write a totally different one I had an idea for ages ago. Probably the change in weather. It's a more autumnal/mournful book than the other, which is set in the summer. I have 5 different books all vying for time in my head. I actually get quite stressed that I don't have time to write them which is stupid given there's no one waiting to read them and I'll hopefully have decades of writing ahead of me. It's strange these self-imposed deadlines we put on ourselves to write - this absolute urge to create these stories.

Hello Dragon! Welcome to our chat!

I have usually several things drifting about my head. I wish I had time to write, time to edit, which I am terrible about finding time to do, and a bit of spare time to do things like cleaning the house.

My current one seems very slow to me at present. I'm going to finish it and see if I'm right. The adventure part is just really warming up now and I think there might be far more to write than I need, so the first part may get thoroughly cut.

I keep wondering if it's worth continuing, and then I do anyway.

Tippety, I have felt like this in the past- so many ideas. Have you read Patricia Highsmith's book on plotting and writing suspense fiction? She wrote loads of short stories. I write some of my ideas as simple short stories. Then there is always the option to either develop them or put them in an anthology!

If you haven't read the book, I would highly recommend it. You don't have to be a suspense writer.

Anyone else find the characters take the story where you don't expect it?

I introduced a secondary character that was meant to be in to the end of the story. He's just gone back to have a shower and I've just discovered that the car she's waiting in is about to be nicked.

I'm not sure what to do about this. Do I go back and write him out? Does he follow somehow or end up with them? Or is it okay to have a character play quite a large role for about 1/3 the book then disappear for the end section? Aaagghh!

Help I have no control over them!!

Is it wrong I'm feeling really cross with him for going to take a shower?

My character do this all the time Witch. I just go with it and see what happens, you can always delete or rewrite later, but often it turns out to be just what's needed. Of course, this is why I'm so incapable of planning anything.

I've just bought that Patricia Highsmith book on the basis I could probably do with a bit of suspense in my noir.

So glad you have bought the book! It's so easy to read but so so useful. The way she explains how her story ideas evolved etc

Thanks for book recommendation. Will check it out.

I think part of my stress comes from this feeling that I need to have had made some tangible progress with my writing by the time I go back to work, which will probably be in about 2 years when my youngest turns 3. I feel like I have this window to prove myself. Not that I'm imagining becoming a published author by then, but I feel I need to have some small token of success so that the day job I return to is just a day job and not my life ... I can't really explain it. Just feel like these years away from work being 'mum' are a time to figure out what I'm going to be doing with the rest of my life. And if I had something published, or even just interest from an agent, something other than form rejections, I'd feel like I could (at least internally) say, yes, I'm a writer, writing is what I do with my life, even if it's not how I pay the bills. But really it doesn't matter because I can't imagine ever not writing. It's not like I'm going to stop if I haven't got anywhere in two years. I just want to write something good ...

I've got a bit stricter recently with wandering characters. If it doesn't serve the plot, it's out. Though it's less clear cut I suppose with character driven stuff. I try to remember which character the story is about. Secondary characters need to be real and robust because they're the fabric of the main character's world, but it's not their story I'm telling.