From First to Final Draft - The New Creative Writing Thread.

[CharCharGabor]

Everybody's welcome, if you want to share ideas, techniques, publishing info or just chat about writing. Come on in!

Try entering competitions - you never know you might even win!

Wow, I didn't know there was a subject on this.
I started writing about 2 years ago after DD was born. Never had a class, though. I live abroad and there are no writers groups so this topic is ideal for me.

I entered that Fish short story comp last year and got published in their anthology. I tried the Bridport this summer but no luck there, so I've re-edited it and I'm sending it off again to Fish, today probably because the deadline is soon.

I would love to write my novel to the end. I've started one, but I recently gave birth to DS so I've lost my groove and just cannot get a time slot in every day to write.　I feel very stressed when I think about it TBH. I'm a perfectionist and I'm scared to ever finish it, I think.

I'd also love to take an online course.I noticed that most of the Bridport winners all have masters degrees in creative writing.
Anyone ever done something like that and found it useful?

Sakura - I did an evening class which was good in so much as it made me get into the habit of writing and gave me some good ideas for finding inspiration but not much more. I'd love to do one of those fancy MA's if I had the time or money - I currently have neither! If your DS is very little, try not to stress - use the inevitable walks to come up with ideas and work through your stories. I found that once DS started napping for longer, I had a regular time slot each day to actually write - so maybe when he's a bit older it will start to happen more?

Soozeedol - if you're finding it hard with a blank screen/sheet, just start writing anything to get into the habit of writing. Don't stop and think about what you are doing. You might be surprised at what comes out that you can then think about and develop. Or find a photo from a newspaper/website of a person (that you don't know anything about), have a good look at them and then start writing about who they are, where they live, their family, their job, their strange habits, a crisis they are currently having. I did this once and came up with a great character and a whole story - my novel is there waiting for me should I ever have the guts to crack on with it!

Oh - and I haven't managed much the last couple of days as these are the days I work - but I have managed to sit down and write something that I'm pleased with so that's the main thing.

artifarti, Thank you for the reassurance about finding time with kids.
I've got a feeling this thread will help someone like me. It seems so much more "real" than the threads I've come accross in the online writers forums. I felt a bit inspired to carry on after skimming through it yesterday, so I will pop in here now and again to hear how everyones getting on.
I mailed off my edited short story to fish yesterday. I read over it again in the bath afterwards and of course found loads of places where it could have been improved, but oh well. they have a critique service, so if the story flops I could pay to get it critiqued to find out where I went wrong. Actually I quite like the thought of learning by sending my work off to be critiqued, rather than being give coursework by a proffessor. I have a masters in another subject and it did disillusion me to notice that, while some lecturers are very good at their job, the main aim of the uni is to promote their course for profit. So I do wonder whether an MA would be worth it. If money and time were no object, I'd definitely go for it though!

professor (!) A major problem I have is that because I live abroad my english is regressing!!! I'll really have to keep it up by reading widely.

Just because you're a writer doesn't mean your mnet posts have to be perfect

I must confess, with shame, that my DS is the only one who has been scribbling for me in my notebook recently. It's a relief that he hasn't written anything I want to keep, or I'd be more pissed off.

I've been too distracted to collect myself and write over the last few days, but have discovered something which ought to frighten us all a bit, given that - as we write - we are susceptible to stories. This is the Schererezade effect of internet surfing, particularly MN.

You log on and click on something that sounds interesting, and think, "Well, I will read it to the end.... and maybe reply...." ... but if it's a very active thread, you have to keep coming back to it (I have been sucked into one on swearing, in particular), to see if anyone else has written anything, or if the OP has come back with some extra detail to assimilate. So to give it a bit more time, you start reading another thread... Suddenly, you realise you have been clicking back and forth between threads, and the execution of Schererezade (turning off the computer) has been stayed for HOURS. I did once read a novel set in a chatroom (Aisles, by Paul Magrs), but sadly, it was a bit rubbish. I'm not saying I only like drama (e.g. AIBU), as at the other end of the spectrum, Chrekhov's everyday life and stifling of drama is also very compelling.

Anyway: the Scheherezade effect. Maybe a good framework for a new story, anyone? this form could be the epistolary novel for the 2010s.

Scheherezade effect - sounds v familiar. Is there a name for how frustrated you feel when the OP never comes back and you are left wondering how the story ended?

When I am looking for inspiration I often look back at things that have happened to me or stories that my friends have told me - then elaborate them into a story.

Who was it that bought the slow cooker? How are you getting on with it?

Winter stews are good for writing. I put one on before DD goes to bed. Then write while it bubbles away for a couple of hours. DH falls asleep on sofa waiting for tea. By 9.30pm stew is lovely and chapter is finished. Wake DH up with stew and make him proof read chapter.

Just checking back in with a progress report. It's been a good week for me - so thanks again for giving me the kick up the backside I needed. I nearly have a first draft of a story I have been kicking about aimlessly since the summer . I still have to get the end down and then there will be a world of re-editing but I am pleased with it and have my eye on a competition deadline (I never expect to win anything but the deadlines force me to finish things!)

The slow cooker is a good idea - but I have to sacrifice half an hour of writing time during DS's nap to then get the time back later! Much better is when DP works late and I have an excuse to just eat beans on toast.

Hope you have all had productive weeks too. Now I just have to keep it up...

Hi, all. I'm confessing again that I've been unproductive (I don't want to only appear here when I have good news, though well done for the other writing going on!), AND have lost my notebook .

I might have got some done at the start of this week, as we were packing to take DS back to the hospital (he went in on Sunday morning with a wheeze, and when we tried using the inhaler at home, he wasn't lasting till the next puff). However, I couldn't find the blasted notebook!

I hope that doesn't make me sound heartless; I just know that being in hospital is very boring. We spent from Sunday evening to Tuesday morning in the ward, and there was only one cot in our cubicle, so DH and I were taking turns sleeping on it, while waking up to do an inhaler puff every 4 hours. With the remains of a Saturday newspaper, it was rather dull, and I really wished I had my notebook to do some writing, rather than just thinking stories round and round in circles and being blank! During the day, of course, there was the Blessing of CBeebies, which is my favourite sort of daytime television, but still rather less stimulation than I had been hoping for! However, there was also some physical activity, as DS ran up to the curtain, ran in place with excitement while bumping the curtain with his forehead, then plunged for it and tried to make it out in to the corridor! Without his mask, of course. (Because we presented with respitory symptoms and a fever, we were treated as a possible swine 'flu case!).

DS's wheeze seems better now, and "puffs" are now at intervals of every 6 hours There's been no fever since Monday, so DH and I are pretty sure it couldn't be swine 'flu.

Now to find my notebook...

Found the notebook, and wrote several pages during today's lunchtime sleep. I was fed up with "catching up" on sleep from the hospital, and it felt good to be writing. This story is nearing its end (thank goodness....).

Yet I hope I have not caught up to anyone else, and you all are powering ahead?

Hi, all.

I was wondering whether the pressure to say how much writing one has done has made this thread lose momentum. That is, it's not tempting to visit when one doesn't have a word count to display! I know I have been forcing myself to come onto the thread and "confess"!

This can only get worse in the run-up to Christmas. Shall we change tack and have an "omerta" about word counts, just talk about writing and reading instead?

Here's a question: what to do when you realise there is a big, fat cliche in the middle of your work, but you can't do without it or the plot would fall apart (or require major bypass and reconstruction surgery)? I have a high-level political schemer (male) in my fantasy novel, and was very embarassed to read in a discussion of the genre the rather disparaging observation that this was a "common trope". I did realise that it was, but it was a bit of a shock to see it named and shamed in this way.

But as I can't do without him, can I rely on the existence of such schemers, in real life and history, to make people overlook his predictability? For example, Elizabeth I had her share of smoothly-circling scheming men around her. Or just ignore its status of cliche and get on with it? I do love writing politics, and it would be hard to generate the same sinister encirclement without him. Perhaps I'll have to make him a puppet of his wife....

Hello

Hope your DS is feeling better now, WingedVictory.

I have been plodding along, despite DS and his illnesses/night-time partying. First draft is completed and now lots of polishing to be done, including a bit of research, which is fun. I have Wednesday off work and so will sleep forge ahead hopefully!

Hmmm...cliches...was it VS Naipaul who said (in his customarily lovely way) that all new writing was crap because it's all been written about before (or somesuch)? I think if the story is compelling and the writing good enough, most readers don't give a rat's ass TBH. Why else do we all often choose the same kind of books with the same kind of characters? If you feel that it's integral to your plot then I would just crack on with it. Personally I sometimes read a book and think 'Yawn, not this plot again' but I rarely find myself thinking about a character in that way.

Hi, there. Thanks for the reply and for engaging with the question. I have been sort of hoping that if the "cliche" is necessary, and is used well, it is not simply standing there as an I-can't-be-arsed-to-think-of-something-original plot device.

Well done on your first draft; that's great! What sort of length is it now? Do you think the research and polishing will expand it or condense it? When I wrote my M.A. dissertation (only a part of the course, so not a biggie), I stripped out literally thousands of words from the count (1st draft about 15,000) in the first edit, just by taking out all the repetitions, "infelicities of grammar" and so on. It's horrifying, how much rubbish ends up on the page, but I suppose rivers don't flow purely, either (that is: there's loads of silt and debris).

DS seems well enough, though just crying in bed, so might be time for a little visit...

Hi there. Well, I am practically there now. It's 3,000 words, down from about 3,300. Still a bit of fine tuning to be done but then I shall stop before I start over-editing! I am going to ask DP to read it to see if he can make sense of what is supposed to be happening - I have been with DP for 9 years and he has never read anything of mine so it's a bit scarey! Do you let others read your work? And what do you do with it when it's finished? I was going to send this to the Mslexia Short Story comp but their word limit is 2,200 and there's no way I can lose a third of this one.

Hope writing is going well.

Cutting words is hard work, but if you want some practice, try editing other people's writing, as their mistakes are less likely to be your mistakes, meaning you can spot them more easily. In a former job, an online news service, we had appallingly overspent the budget before the end of one year, so had a word limit of 500-600 words a day from freelance contributors in December. Cuts could be made to most contributors' work, but there were exceptions at both ends of the scale, with a few whose writing could scarcely be cut, it was so tight and well-done... and at the other end, one particular contributor whose work could be quite easily cut in half. As for myself (and I was a staffer, so there was no need to cut my work for budgetary reasons), I found that one of my consistent problems was bits of grammar left over from previous versions of a sentence, for example I had changed to a plural noun but still had a singular verb.

DH has not read anything of mine, but I have just joined two writing websites to get and give feedback from/to people who are more interested in how things are written than DH (though he reads and speaks English very well, he's not a native speaker, and is more interested in programming languages than literary language).

What deadline are you working to for the comp? Don't worry, I'm not planning to compete , but am interested to hear whether it is before or after Christmas.

i find it hard to write every day. some days are spent just thinking about it. i have decided that this is part of the writing process and congratulate myself for the last 40 minutes of thoughtful contemplation while eating a kinder bar...........

this may be why my various novels never get finished

but its lovely to read about others being so much more productive. it makes me feel almost productive by association!

I have to edit other people?s writing at work too and never have any problem cutting down theirs! I think this story though is about as low as it will go now without losing any coherent sense of plot! The deadline for the comp is about 19 January but although I have another story brewing, I don?t think I could realistically get it written by then with Christmas and New Year smack-bang in the middle. Never mind, I was only writing for that so that I had a deadline to aim for for the story I have just finished, so it doesn?t really matter. Can I ask which websites you are subscribing too and if they are any good?

Hello vulpes, I find that large quantities of Green and Blacks are integral to the creative process?

Nearly there with my short story.... doing multitasking scribbling along with typing (keeps me from getting RSI, doncha know).

vulpes, your thinking periods reminded me of that film (I know it was a book, only I never read it) The Firm (John Grisham), in which te young lawyer is told how to bill clients for evrry stray thought which crossed a lawyer's mind while moving the lawn (or some other non-menial household activity - heaven forbid these men might do housework). But of course housework works for creativity, as who wants to have her senses too engaged with the loobowl or nappy bucket?! Long live your working-while-apparently-idle process! I used to plan essays while cycling to lectures, so this sort of thing has a place in hallowed acadaemia as well, haha.

artifarti, I was amused that you don't have trouble with editing others' work either. Strange, that, but heartening, isn't it? In answer to your question, I've got onto WriteWords and YouWriteOn, but have not yet taken up any crit work (which I suppose I ought to do first, in order to show willing to the community and earn my own pasting in return - joke).

ooohhh, green and blacks......now that would be lovely.

this is the first time i have ever been on a site about writing, although obviously its not really a writers site.....

but its a start!

(goes off to eat congratulatory cupcake)

Well, this week has been very unproductive. . This is partly because I have been up to my ears in Christmas and partly because I finished my story and now can't decide what to focus on and keep flitting about; I have three ideas but can't stick to one. I hate this bit! Everytime I try and crack on with one, I go away and think about one of the other ones. Result: three half-arsed diluted scribblings.

Hope someone else has had more focus and space than me this week...perhaps I should just stop for a week and then make my New Year's resolutions and start afresh...

[it's artifarti, BTW, with a dodgy Christmas namechange]

Ooohh, can I join you?

I really need some tips- I have problems focusing and finding the time to write at all.

Welcome to our confessional tethersjinglebellend You have to come on and tell us how much/little you've been writing!

Regarding focus, I am a deadline person and so I find that helps my focus. Before I had DS I did a course and having to produce something each week really helped me to 'just get on with it'. Now, I find writing competitions to enter or publications that accept submissions and this gives me a date to focus on. At the moment I don't have a deadline, hence why I am all over the shop!

My DS is 16 months old and I work part-time so time is limited and precious. I used to be someone who could only sit down and write if conditions were perfect - a nice long time slot, perfect notebook, undisturbed. Haha! Now, I just grab half an hour at a time whenever I can - nap-time, lunchtime, commuting time and the time between DS going to bed and DP arriving home. If I am in a focused state, it works really well - all the half hours soon start to add up. But you have to get used to just sitting down and starting to write - I make a cup of tea, grab some chocolate and away I go. Of course, half of it is crap - it took me a long time to realise that it's not meant to be perfect the first time around!

Good luck and come back and let us know how you're getting on.

My first rejection letter. But it said I had been shortlisted so that's a start!