Pretty much never.
I find occasional sentences in each novel I'm not too unhappy with.
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WritersEra |OT| Publish before you die, writing writer writes
- Thread starter weemadarthur
- Start date
- OT
I find occasional sentences in each novel I'm not too unhappy with.
I never felt this at all with my first novel. I was mad confident with that first one. My 2nd and third were struggles and I knew what I writing was poor because my first novel showed I could do better and plus with my 2nd one I was rushing so I knew what I was writing wasn't good and for my third I was years out of practice and I had to force myself to write which didn't bring out good shit to me. It's when I'm in the zone when I feel good about my writing which was how I felt majority of the time with my first book.
Yeah. I used to feel the same but there are lots of parts in my stories I really genuinely enjoy/think are pretty clever. It takes a mix of getting better over time and varied reading. Seeing stories and prose you feel is at about your level really helps.
Damn! >.>
When I write the first version of a book I know that it stinks and I'm okay with it, even though when I'm writing, I'm thinking "this is cool, this is clever", but I know that when I come back to read it, it will be shit. I understand that writing is rewriting. I know that it gets better with every pass.
So I have this book called 'Nova Ex Nihilo'. I'm working on it since the end of 2012 with some pauses here and there. I finished the first draft early in 2016 and since then I've been working to make it readable. By the end of 2017 I couldn't stand to look at it, and I was about to give up on this writing thing. Life has been really shitty. As some kind of last desperate breath I decided to publish it on Sweek for free because of the Sweek Stars contest, which is the biggest contest they run, and surprisingly, even though my book still had a number of problems, it was listed as one of the five best sci-fi works in Portuguese. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it. Some might remember how crazy I was acting here a few months ago. I was so fucking happy! Like, oh my God, I'm not that bad! Then I decided to come back to my book and try to find what was still wrong with it, to fix it further. Yesterday I started reading it again what was supposed to be the final version, and oh my God, there's still tons of problems, and really really don't enjoy reading my voice.
A few days ago I was thinking "yeah, this is finally shaping up to be good, and I'll have the courage to send it to some publishers". Well, now I wanna die. Sorry if I sound like a bitch, but it's awful to realize how far you still are from your goal just a few days after thinking you'd almost done, after years of work.
I sent it to a few friends, and even though they sent me some feedback, they never finished the book. I think they've read only the first few chapters. One of them called me prolix, and that's fucking true. I do have this problem of over-explaining, and the fact that they never finished reading the book might mean that they hated it. I could ask other people to read it, but I feel bad bothering people with it, and almost no one I know read books (one of the problems of this country, honestly). Hell, even I only started reading when I was... what, 27?
From the first draft?!
Can you do this in Portugal if you've already put the book out? In North America, if you've "self-published" by putting a book out already, for free, online, you drastically reduce the odds of a publisher being willing to pick it up, unless it's one of the outliers, like Andy Weir's The Martian. In the majority of cases for English fiction, if the traditional publishers see that a book has already been published, and if they look up the readership/sales numbers, they usually won't invest in the book and publish it themselves if the initial figures they find aren't exceptional. But that's North America. It might be different for the Portuguese market, which I don't know much about.
I'm from Brazil, actually. To be honest, I don't think that that's a thing here. What I've seen, though, is people finding a publisher and having to delete the book from Wattpad, Sweek and other places. Maybe because e-books/e-readers never got traction here.
Welp! All done. I've submitted my script for about 5 competitions total over the last 2 months, and I've listed on The Black List. I'm kind of eager to put a pin in this script and hammer away at one of my other ideas now.
I guess I can see why YA Fantasy is struggling. The genre has yet to put out a notable hit and there isn't much currently to bring new readers in. Most YA Fantasy's are just romance books with a fantasy setting.
Combined with the fact YA has a bit of a male reader problem, there's not much opportunity for growth.
Combined with the fact YA has a bit of a male reader problem, there's not much opportunity for growth.
It is, but that's also a few years back. There hasn't been an equivalent to Twilight or the Hunger Games recently.
Did I miss an article that said YA is struggling? Just looking at their kindle numbers and they're one of the most profitable genres. The Selection series and the Lunar Chronicles have both been fairly large sellers, though, they don't have any movies made from them. Right now it seems like The Gender Game series is dominating, but then Bella Forrest dominates any genre she publishes in.
Considering the success of Ready Player One maybe the problem isn't much opportunity for growth, but that the male YA audience is underserved.
Uh......
You did not read my post right. First, look above and see what I said was struggling. Secondly, my comment about YA male readership was about the fact so few males read YA. I referred to this to show why YA Fantasy doesn't have much growth, not the YA genre as a whole. That's why I used the word "combined".
Also, Ready Player One was marketed as a SFF book and that's where it got most of it's success. Which makes sense. Not a lot of YA males can connect with a book that's all about fapping to a time period they never lived in.
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It's mostly just industry scuttlebutt, I'm not sure how long it will take to see the effect on the market. I just know that many YA genre writers who work in SFF have actually been told by their agents to consider switching over to Middle Grade. The YA genre market is cooling off, and acquiring editors are now telling agents they're less interested in YA fantasy or science fiction, but the market for that stuff in Middle Grade seems to be growing. So now if you're a trend chaser, or your agent is, the New Hotness is genre MG, not genre YA. Or at least, if you want to submit something that has a higher chance of garnering interest from acquiring editors in the trade publishing sector, then that's currently what they're looking for.
On the YA fantasy front, isn't Sarah J Maas selling pretty well at present, or did I read that wrong?
Leigh Bardugo, Maggie Stiefvater, and Frances Hardinge seem like they aren't doing badly either.
Leigh Bardugo, Maggie Stiefvater, and Frances Hardinge seem like they aren't doing badly either.
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I just hope all these YA writers moving to MG don't saturate the market before my book goes on submission. X_X
They spent so long focused on young adults that all the young adults grew up, but the books didn't grow with them.
I'm still waiting for a version of The Thick of It set in the Ministry of Magic...
I'm still waiting for a version of The Thick of It set in the Ministry of Magic...
Fun story about my girlfriend. She sent out a story to several literary journal contests. Hear back from one "While your story didn't win, we would like to publish the story in our next issue." Excited, she accepts. About thirty minutes later, she got an email from another contest, "Congratulations, your story is a finalist and may win. Regardless if it wins, we're going to publish it." Of course, only one place can get it thanks to first-print rights.
Sometimes being the belle of the ball is a little frustrating XD
Sometimes being the belle of the ball is a little frustrating XD
Congrats to your GF. More than a little jelly at her success but that's why God invented rum. Also, moral of the story: Wait a few days before acceptance emails unless they mention they have a strict deadline for responding (which they sometimes do). Again, congrats to your GF!
Well, I thought now was a time to rest since I've been writing nonstop and finally finished submitting my screenplay all over....but I'm 30 years old and that young, naive, passionate writing spirit has really come back to me recently. I feel like shit for not writing more, and for not having published something yet. I have so many full fleshed out, fully outlined ideas on paper, yet I've only taken 2 and written them beginning to end. Now is the time to get crackin, especially with this gorgeous weather to motivate me. So today....I put away the games, whip out the notebooks, and jump back into life. Let's do this!
I watch Family Guy with my fiance, and it kills me every time Stewie rips into Brian about his writing. It's so damn true with myself half the time. I love it.
I watch Family Guy with my fiance, and it kills me every time Stewie rips into Brian about his writing. It's so damn true with myself half the time. I love it.
It's all about writing and submitting. (And having a first reader you trust who help you spot issues with your piece when your story is just a blur to you doesn't hurt).
I found this pretty funny and accurate:
So many shows, books, games, and TV shows get the "strong" female protagonist wrong by basically turning her into "one of the boys," unemotional, views other women with contempt, promiscuous just for the sake of it, etc.
There's nothing wrong with a character like that, but I wish they'd stop defaulting to that and instead try to make complex female leads instead of generic ones like in that video.
So many shows, books, games, and TV shows get the "strong" female protagonist wrong by basically turning her into "one of the boys," unemotional, views other women with contempt, promiscuous just for the sake of it, etc.
There's nothing wrong with a character like that, but I wish they'd stop defaulting to that and instead try to make complex female leads instead of generic ones like in that video.
Finally had my publisher tell me they're interested in a second one of my manuscripts.
(Because I had grave doubts about how weird/experimental/long it was)
Now to worry about the blurb!
(Because I had grave doubts about how weird/experimental/long it was)
Now to worry about the blurb!
congrats.
my big deal today is I am trying to take a day off.
It will be the first day since the middle of sept I haven't written at least 300 words
and the first day since the beginning of oct that I haven't written at least 900 words lol
I take days off rather more often than that! But probably shouldn't.
(Yesterday was one, for instance)
(Yesterday was one, for instance)
I make Sunday my day off though while I don't do any writing on Sunday, my brain still thinker away in the background over my novel or come up with new ideas.
I wrote 558 words on my day off.
so didn't fully go day off, but I did at least break my 900+ word streak :P
It's been ages since I posted, but the baby is a few months old now which means I get my 2 hours of freedom once a week to write again. Thanks to that I was finally able to finish another chapter of Dead Leads and send it off to my editor and illustrator for the magazine. Wahey~ Hope to post here more from now on.
How's everyone doing? Status updates? :D
Never. It's always embarrassing to read your own stuff afterwards, and then you think of others reading it and get more embarrassed, and then you think of others reading it that you know in real life and drink yourself into a stupor.
How's everyone doing? Status updates? :D
Never. It's always embarrassing to read your own stuff afterwards, and then you think of others reading it and get more embarrassed, and then you think of others reading it that you know in real life and drink yourself into a stupor.
Welcome back, and I'm just planning for Nano as usual.
congrats on getting some freedom back :P
As for me I am just chugging along on my story like usual. I'm at a point where I know I should just move on (I intended for this part of the story to be 10k words and I am nearing 30k lol), but since I also tend to only do world building when I need it I am likely just going to keep the scene I'm in going for a while to continue world building and worry about trimming it down quite a bit in editing later. I'd much rather write to much in the draft then realize I didn't write enough later.
Either way I expect to reach the end of book 6 next month, at which point I will likely shift focus to doing a new draft of book 1 for a while as book 7 is an odd one and I want to take the time to actually write some songs for it before I get to it. I have rough demos of some of the songs I want to do, but I would like to polish them up and fully lock down the feel of them as well as the new main character in book 7 before I really get into it. He's the last main character I have to still introduce from my original draft (in fact this arc is the last arc I did in my original draft, not that I have followed my original draft for a while lol), and he also happens to be my favorite character from that draft, but since I stole aspects of him and gave them to a different character that I introduced much earlier I have been having to rework him for a while now. That being said I think I am pretty close on that front (thus the songs lol).
On the plus side I am only 30-40 days away from beating last year's total word count, and my story overall has passed the 550k word count. Yay.
Nope, you just learn to live with knowledge that it will never 100% be like how you have it in your head but you can try settling for 99%. The worse thing that you do is give up because you hated what you have written, something that I very nearly did because I physically hated the first chapter of my previous project that I decided that give up on writing I would switch to a project that I felt comfortable writing in and right now I am making great progress with it.
Hey you're back! Welcome. :D
As for my status update? Well progress on my book is going great, though it's still the first draft, as I just wrapped up chapter 50 and I am close to hitting 100,000 words. Plus over June I am planing to go to Scotland for research trip for my novel.
I have also connected with fellow writers on twitter so I feel really deep in the writing world, though I am currently cut off from them due to my phone getting into a fight with a chair and losing. ;_;
I got close to 41,000 words so far. My goal is still 50,000.
I'm so jealous right now. I wish I had the money to do this.
It's people like this that makes me keep pushing.
My agent got back to say she read my manuscript and is just going through it again to make more thorough notes. She said she loved the main character, but since that's all she mentioned, I'm now in a state of panic that she hates everything else. X_X
So that's where my mind is gonna be at today.
So that's where my mind is gonna be at today.
Best of luck! Sounds like it could be a good sign.
That's great, you don't have much left to then.
Well, it depends on my budget as I had to buy a new phone and train ticket can be pretty expensive, so I will have take my mum's car which is totally fine with me as that is also part of my research as the car is also in my book.
You're a machine, Timu. A goddamned machine.
Thanks yo. It felt good this weekend, anyway. Now that we're back to the week, though, I'm only getting ~4hrs a night in <1hr chunks again and it feels like my head is going to shatter into a million pieces. If I write anything it'll be a note explaining why I threw my child into the sun...
And holy shit at that word count. It'll be a stretch for my second book to even hit 60k. What are you writing, War and Peace the extended-extended version? O_O
Hey-hey~ That sounds super exciting. What part of Scotland? What's the book about? Please say ghosts.
You can do it! Embrace the shame and alcoholism! :D
Ooooo. That's fantastic. Any more news yet?
My work is decently inspired by comic books like the Xmen, as well as Japanese series such as One Piece and Naruto. (aka works with a long overall story and multiple story arcs)
Though, I don't feel like long drawn out battles are very interesting in writing so there is far more of a focus on the adventure than there is combat. (That being said I do have a major chunk of combat coming up, so here's hoping I can do that in an interesting way)
I got my first evaluation back from The Black List for my screenplay. I have to sit patiently for a few months before I make edits though because I have this submitted in so many places. I would hate to change something because one guy didn't think it was clear, then the next evaluation says, "that was amazing!!!"
Since we're all sharing, I recently wrapped up editing on what I'd consider my first "professional" quality short story I guess? But who knows if anyone will actually buy it. Anyways, I'm trying to will up the energy to start up massive editing in earnest on another short story but ehhhh. Also chipping away at a novel. I want to get it done before Nano so I can say I've written a novel outside of Nano, but it's hard and its a comedy and I am not a cheery person.
work on dark humor. it cheers me up when I am down :P
*digs out location list*
- Falkirk,
- Glasgow,
- Coatbridge,
- Old inns café,
- Sterling,
- Dundee,
- Aberdeen,
- Cairngorms National Park,
- Fort William,
- Loch Ness,
- Inverness,
- Rogie Falls,
- Helmdales,
- John O' Groats
- Edinburgh
It's about a guy who's down on his luck, his life is going nowhere so he lacked confident to anything but his life changes one day when he heads up to Glasgow for his cousin's wedding and due to a mishap he ends up going to the wrong wedding and before he could sneak out unnoticed he gets summoned by the bride who kidnaps him and together they embark on a road trip through Scotland while trying to avoid, a policeman, three crazy mechanic and a bald burly goon sent by the bride's jilted ex.
Been working on it for nearly two years now and I can't wait to finish it and share it to the world as I just love the characters.
Ha ha sorry disappoint you but there's no ghosts, unless you count metaphorical ghost.
I wrote a new blog post about the experience of writing a first book. It's partly to promote my own new novel, but I thought some of it might strike a chord here: