Very good point. I've written quite a few words today, and feel optimistic enough about them. I guess the point of making progress is enough, in terms of closing the gaps. When writing in chunks rather than as a whole it can definitely feel like a whole project will never feel completed. But this advice puts things into perspective and means a lot!
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Writing-GAF: Writing, Publishing, Selling |OT|
- Thread starter AngmarsKing701
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Very good point. I've written quite a few words today, and feel optimistic enough about them. I guess the point of making progress is enough, in terms of closing the gaps. When writing in chunks rather than as a whole it can definitely feel like a whole project will never feel completed. But this advice puts things into perspective and means a lot!
yay I increased my word count for the year by 900% tonight.
im almost at 1.5k for the year >.<:
I could write more, but my brain isn't sure if i am making sense anymore, and I need my wife to read it to make sure things make sense.
I am working on the world conflict and why things are the way they are in steps, and I need to make sure this makes sense before I dig deeper into the details lol.
though i suppose I could delve into tech advancement tonight still, maybe I will do that.
*does a quick version gets up to 1.7k+ for the year*
eh it's not much, but it's at least something.
now.... it's 3am.. do I sleep, or do I write on the other project I am working on.
im almost at 1.5k for the year >.<:
I could write more, but my brain isn't sure if i am making sense anymore, and I need my wife to read it to make sure things make sense.
I am working on the world conflict and why things are the way they are in steps, and I need to make sure this makes sense before I dig deeper into the details lol.
though i suppose I could delve into tech advancement tonight still, maybe I will do that.
*does a quick version gets up to 1.7k+ for the year*
eh it's not much, but it's at least something.
now.... it's 3am.. do I sleep, or do I write on the other project I am working on.
FlowersisBritish
fleurs n'est pas britannique
4 am for me mother trucker
Anyways, I forced out the first completed short story of the year and it felt good. Felt like a much-needed breath of fresh air. I feel a lot better about the world. Even submitted something, first time in what feels like months. And also edited a story, and boy oh boy, the feeling of "Shit, this might not be actually good," is kind of scary considering the time I put into it. I dunno, literary fiction is weird to tell sometimes.4 am for me mother trucker
fine fine...
1598 words on the other project it is.
I really need to come up with names for characters in this. I really can't seek referring to characters as Seer, Seer's Daughter, Ice Girl, Puppet Boy, ect forever lol.
actually I gave one of them a name (ice girl = Tahki) but alas, I don't know if it will stick, though it does fit for the design.
up to 3200 words for the year between both projects for the night.. that isn't a horrible night I suppose.
Spent the last week trying the Snowflake method for my current project (a series of several short novels). Great results. I tried other forms of outlining before, but this is the one that finally clicked for me. In my previous novel editing and revising took a thousand years and this will help a lot in reducing that.
In my case I didn't feel like it affected the discovery process in any way, it just made it organized. Since the method makes you keep switching between plot and characters and going back and forth while expanding you're still having characters lead the way if you allow them to.
In my case I didn't feel like it affected the discovery process in any way, it just made it organized. Since the method makes you keep switching between plot and characters and going back and forth while expanding you're still having characters lead the way if you allow them to.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
If it's okay to ask: how did you start anyway? I mean, I know the bits and pieces you've said about it, but if I recall you said you already wrote (unsuccessful) zombie fiction before, and getting into deep shit was what made you consider erotica. So you were already writing stuff before you made that change, right?
Put differently: was that change a game changer in terms of the work needed for it (going to 5000 words a day is pretty tough), or did you already have some writing work habits before that? Aside from actual work on animation, that is.
(and no, I'm not a stalker - couldn't care less about that-, I just remember stuff. Sorry if that's creepy)
Also, in case people missed the book Red placed in Afrocious's thread:
Conkersbadfurday
Member
Gotta love them rejections that follow up with, "but if you have other manuscripts, I'd be happy to check them out."
I do! I do have other manuscripts!
Grimoire Library hasn't found a home, but this is like the third person who's now requested The Ninth Life by proxy because of it. I think that puts me up to around 10 bites on that book and four on Grim, which tbh is way lower than I thought :[ Youd' think YA urban fantasy would have more people champing for it.
I do! I do have other manuscripts!
Grimoire Library hasn't found a home, but this is like the third person who's now requested The Ninth Life by proxy because of it. I think that puts me up to around 10 bites on that book and four on Grim, which tbh is way lower than I thought :[ Youd' think YA urban fantasy would have more people champing for it.
Nappuccino
Member
I don't know, that sounds like a good number of bites to me lol.
Conkersbadfurday
Member
It's 4/110
Oh god, my career as the "next" Max Brooks ended as a spectacular flop. I couldn't even hang with Bobby Adair. At that point in time I was still working full-time at my animation/vfx company, so writing was something I did to pass the time while waiting for renders to complete. I probably averaged around 200-300 words a day back then.
It wasn't until I shifted to erotica that I started working on my discipline. The redditor who inspired me to make the jump published a short every two days, and I figured I had to be at least twice as fast to catch up with everyone else. I had no capital for ads, so I opted for a brute-force approach for visibility. If I wrote 10k a day, I could publish two shorts daily and flood the "Hot New Releases" section with my name.
AngmarsKing701
Member
Which one?
AngmarsKing701
Member
Always a tough pill to swallow, but also great to take input and, when you agree with it, see it from their perspective and work out a solution that makes the material better.
But yeah, sometimes you need that extra dram of scotch on critique night before you can dive back in.
Good luck!
FlowersisBritish
fleurs n'est pas britannique
I've always thought the idea of "thick skin" kinda silly. If they were brutal, then it sucks and its okay to say it sucks. Nothing wrong with taking a day or so to be sad about it before you try to fix things up.
Nappuccino
Member
It's 4/110
It's still 4
I mean, maybe that doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's basically 1/25, yeah? That average is pretty damn solid for this kinda thing.And it'll only get better after you have your first bite.
The one about earnings I think
Conkersbadfurday
Member
Yeah. It's a good average based on some of the figures I've read, but it's disheartening to know that--since I only send out about five queries a week--it's a bite every five weeks.It's still 4
And it'll only get better after you have your first bite.
Though really it's not quite that good. I got two bites my first database and zero my second. Third is proving a bit better. Still have half the alphabet left to go
toddhunter
Member
Well I guess you didn't write Final Fantasy 15.
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
I'd kill to have someone tear apart the bad parts of my novel right now. I know they're there, but I love my baby too much to see some of them.
I killed a character last night and cried while doing it.
my story is a mess right now... tons of bad parts (though I am personally looking forward to getting to the point where I get to kill another character. well in this tense I am talking about a perm death of a main character... before that there will be a temp death that I am also really looking forward to because the whole situation is really screwed up and I really enjoy writing the character that is introduced there, but haven't been able to write yet since he isn't in the story yet
)that being said, the part i am working on seems to be slowly coming together.
I am basically doing it piece by piece and sleeping on it and seeing if I like what I did or hate it.
so far... I have like 6 different versions of how one character came to power, but as I also said it's slowly... so slowly coming together.
I keep asking myself "why doesn't X happen." and as I keep figuring out those, it slowly corrects the things I have problems with.
the plus side... while the world is getting way more complex... that is all for me. the reader doesn't need to know about most of it, and a lot of the more complex stuff that isn't directly related to my main story is actually with the setting I am using for the kids show I am doing with my wife lol. As I have that set in my fantasy world, just in part of it that the area my main story is in never interacts with.
anyways at least I added another 1.2k words tonight. i am up at 4.6k for jan now... below my goal of 300 words per day... but I knew this was gonna stall me out for a while as I really can't put off designing the world much longer, I mean I am already on book 3 lol I should likely know stuff like where my characters are, and what direction they are heading
Vincent Alexander
Member
I just started writing a novel after having spent the last 7 years doing nothing but screenplays. It feels so damn odd not writing in present tense. And the funny thing is when I started screenplays, I felt odd not writing in past tense.
I have done no writing this week and I only feel a tiny bit bad about that (still no baby so my only excuse is I'm over 40 weeks pregnant and miserable). I did at least create a goodreads accounts and an email address. I also came up with a title for the second book, which is amusing since I don't even have an idea for it. Cozies tend to have themed or similar titles which is why I already have a title.
I'm being induced tomorrow night, hopefully, so I have no idea when I'll return to writing, but I look forward to seeing everyone else's progress on the challenge. Good luck!
I'm being induced tomorrow night, hopefully, so I have no idea when I'll return to writing, but I look forward to seeing everyone else's progress on the challenge. Good luck!
I'm noticing that I always get hung up in the most trivial details. Like, I've been mulling for over a month over whether my story should be set in a real city, or in a fictional city within a real country, or if it should be completely fictional. It's supposed to take place in a modern society and is pretty much an Evangelion meets Lovecraft rip-off so it makes sense for it to be set in the real world but it makes me feel kinda restricted (not to mention it requires quite a bit of research).
I'm also terribad with names. I dread introducing new characters because I know I'll have to name them lol
Anyone else ever had similar issues or is it just me? Maybe I should just stick with fantastical settings/narratives.
I'm also terribad with names. I dread introducing new characters because I know I'll have to name them lol
Anyone else ever had similar issues or is it just me? Maybe I should just stick with fantastical settings/narratives.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
You can still write books in present tense.
you can... though it drives my wife crazy when I do lol.
I will likely change it to past tense in editing, but my writing flows much faster from my head to the computer when I write in present tense.
Conkersbadfurday
Member
You can, but as someone who reads a lot of books, a novel in present tense drives me batshit in a bad way.
Nappuccino
Member
Writing in present is great for thrillers, but makes it harder to draw in reflection and interiority.
For me, it's all about what the story needs to be (though I always prioritize character)
This is the worst fucking thing ever as a reader.
I'll take just about any other style mistake and poor writing over this.
I'll fix it when I get around to fixing my floating head syndrome as well >.>
note: I have actually made decent progress on fixing my floating head syndrome problem, but alas, i still write much slower in past tense then present thus why I am just going to save it for editing lol.
Valdfellgar
Banned
I feel you. I started film school in 2009-2010 and since have been writing Screenplays. Sadly with the way the industry seems to be going (It's getting to the point where it's as bad as anime: Little more than adaptations of existing work) I decided to jump ship to Novels, at least you can self-publish if a publisher doesn't have any interest in you.
And yeah, I ended up writing parts of my novel's first draft in present tense just out of habit. Had to go through on the 1.5 draft to correct all of them.
Yeah, of course there's stuff that works just fine with present tense (though i don't think journals are a place for it, people usually write them afterwards, not while something's going on). But generally speaking narrative text in present tense is... just wrong. I find it difficult to follow, distracting and just pointless.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
Maybe I'm just weird.
I already had this made, might change the title to just Finders Keepers, might change some fonts, we'll see.
FlowersisBritish
fleurs n'est pas britannique
Nah, Present has its uses. I've been meaning to use it for some short stories recently just for the experimentation, but I'm also super pretentious.
Looks super good. Maybe ditch the comma?
Vincent Alexander
Member
Same boat a bit. After I graduated, I discovered Scriptnotes podcast, which really helped me quite a bit. But as helpful as they are, they're also severely depressing in their outlook on how hard it is to get into Hollywood. 30+ revisions to my scrip later...I just stopped. Think I might have kept going and trying, but they killed my drive with their bleak outlook on breaking into the industry. And as you said, at least we can self-publish if it comes to that. Not that I'm blaming them or anything. If anything, I suppose I should be thankful because now I can shift my focus back to what I've always really wanted to do, which is write novels.
Valdfellgar
Banned
in some ways I look at this refocus as a blessing. Hollywood is near to the point where all the films coming out are either Super Hero Action Flicks based off existing comics or adaptations of hugely successful novels. If there are any original films, they're either dramas, which I don't write, or Director's babies. Either way it means most of the time I'd be writing other people's stuff. I'd never see my own creations made. Knowing that it won't change any time soon I just felt I had to jump ship, especially now that I'm married and I need a more likely path for income than hoping I somehow find my way into the industry.
My passion has actually been to write for anime, and film was just sort of a stepping stone towards that (hopefully anyway.) I figure at this point I have a better shot of getting a novel adapted into anime than finding connections to the industry through film. And hey, if that dream never comes true, at least people will read my work through print.
speaking of the difference between visual mediums and writing it's kind of absurd the extent to which i think of stories visually instead of through description. I find myself writing what are essentially script directions instead of actual substantive descriptions of scenes sometimes.
i'm also , once again, super depressed that people are good at things and i at the moment am not
i'm also , once again, super depressed that people are good at things and i at the moment am not
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
I had someone give me this exact criticism when I first started my last book. "You're writing a script, not a novel." I also think visually. My advice would be to write your psuedo-script, and then in subsequent drafts, go back and flower it up to be up to novel standards.
I know it's frustrating not to have that 1:1 imagination to page ratio. Think of it like art. People imagine landscapes or characters in their head but need the right amount of skill with their craft to transfer it properly onto paper. That skill can be honed through practice and revision.
so how do you guys deal with the real world depressing the crap out of you?
I meant to write a bit more tonight, but with all the political stuff going on, and the fact that it will be president trump in like 12 hours....
I am just lacking any real focus as none of the feelings I feel right now is usable in any story I am working on lol.
I meant to write a bit more tonight, but with all the political stuff going on, and the fact that it will be president trump in like 12 hours....
I am just lacking any real focus as none of the feelings I feel right now is usable in any story I am working on lol.
Conkersbadfurday
Member
When the nation was tallying up the votes, I tried to write but couldn't. I was too anxious. So I didn't.
No harm in taking a day off, especially if your head space is not conducive to writing.
Emerson
May contain jokes =>
I've had some similar issues recently. The night of the election I wasn't even attempting to write, since I wanted to watch. If you have interest in watching events like that you should just accept ahead of time you won't be writing.
This week has been tough though. I've been constantly driven to watch the confirmation hearings, reading news, etc. It's been hard to keep my focus.
Vincent Alexander
Member
Well, I'll be cheering you on I really hope it works out. Honestly, I would love to write something that was adapted into anime. I have one idea scribbled in a notebook that was originally for a novel, and the more I looked at it the more I thought it'd make a great anime, simply because of how large and fantastical it was in nature. Maybe one day I'll get lucky and something will happen, but for now I decided time to stop worrying about luck and time to get to writing.
Valdfellgar
Banned
Thanks! I hope your dreams work out too =) Right now I barely have the time to revise. Between trouble with my Wife and I's anime review website and one of our cats' eyes getting injured and requiring vet visits and treatment, things have been crazy stressful. But, hopefully, I can get back on track. I only really have about an hour in the morning to write/revise every day and right now not even that =/
Been spending a good while writing that time just flew by. :O
Anyway I realised that chapter 3 was getting too long in the words count so I decided to split it, which means when I go back to edit it I will need to make sure that Chapter 1-3 are good enough to engage the reader's attention as I heard that publishers won't publish your book if they don't find the first 3 chapter interesting.
Anyway I realised that chapter 3 was getting too long in the words count so I decided to split it, which means when I go back to edit it I will need to make sure that Chapter 1-3 are good enough to engage the reader's attention as I heard that publishers won't publish your book if they don't find the first 3 chapter interesting.
Conkersbadfurday
Member
I mean, ideally your book is interesting from like page one
But most agents/publishing houses ask for the first three chapters as a sample before requesting more, so those should def be in the best condition you can make them.
Though really, a lot of agents just want the first ten pages. The dreaded yes or no off of ten pages ._.
I mean, ideally your book is interesting from like page one
But most agents/publishing houses ask for the first three chapters as a sample before requesting more, so those should def be in the best condition you can make them.
Though really, a lot of agents just want the first ten pages. The dreaded yes or no off of ten pages ._.
I'd say ideally your first sentence is interesting.
I mean to be fair, as a first time (or unknown) author, unless it's a book everyone is talking about, most readers buy books after going through a mental checklist similar to this (always exceptions to the rule though):
- Genre (Typically you know what you're interests are)
- Cover
- Blurb
- First Line
- First Paragraph
- First Page
- First 5-10 (that's why Amazon allows Samples)
I've gone from "Oh! Cover looks interesting!" to blurb and passed.
I've passed after reading the first line and it was a clunker. If you can't write a single good line to hook me... Just 1 single line. I doubt you've anything really interesting to share.
Then after that, for me, 1-3 pages is usually enough to say "This seems fun, let's dive in!
Unless it's highly recommended from a friend (viral), then I don't really care... it must be good! I became a huge Walter Moers fan due to friends loving his stuff.
For me, "Wool" was a good example of this test. It had a good opening line.
"The children were playing while Holston climbed to his death;"
and a good blurb
"In a ruined and toxic future, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep."
So right away you can see it's about people living in an underground missile bunker after Fallout-style nuclear winter, but this person is literally climbing up to leave its safety... knowing he's going to die. Why? I wanna know!
Then he spends the next few pages simultaneously describing the silo, his past and world building simply through the guy walking up the stairs.
AngmarsKing701
Member
How's everyone doing on the challenge? I'm at 26K words and expect to finish book 1 (of 12, at least that's my plan anyway) this weekend. No idea if I can keep up this ridiculous pace. Hard to believe I've written as many words in a single month as I had written in the two years previous on book 2 in my Ahvarra series.
Bizarre.
I'm even tempted to toss the notion of a pen name and just go with my name.
Also, what is everyone doing for a cover? Canva? Do you do one time use of your design for $1 or do you need to buy the $10 use?
Bizarre.
I'm even tempted to toss the notion of a pen name and just go with my name.
Also, what is everyone doing for a cover? Canva? Do you do one time use of your design for $1 or do you need to buy the $10 use?
AngmarsKing701
Member
ack dup