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Post by heroicmuse on May 28, 2021 8:03:11 GMT -5
heroicmuse , to me that is the hardest part, working on multiple projects at the same time. It's natural to have more enthusiasm for one than the other, and keeping up with both (or more) is a challenge! I know the challenge of working on multiple projects at the same time too. For the last several years, I have been in this pattern of editing one book while I write another. It can be challenging, but I keep to it because on days when I don't have time to write, I can try to do some editing instead. I do have unfinished projects though. Since my book series takes up so much time, it's hard to find time to complete other writing projects I've started and gotten stuck on. Right now, I have a TV script and another moralistic tale sitting and waiting for my attention because I got really bad writer's block on both and have just been stuck on how to continue for a really long time. I also have some Passions fan fiction I was posting on another site that I should get back to eventually. That's the problem with being a writer. So many ideas but not enough time to write them all! I started my third novel while editing the second but then my editing turned into a major rewrite so I put the other novel on hold for a bit. I like to have one project in reserve so that I'm never without anything to write. Do you write full time at this point or are you still working at another job as well? |
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Post by Kpatch on May 28, 2021 8:03:50 GMT -5
Here's what I worry about (not to the point of losing sleep, but worry nonetheless). Do you ever run out of ideas for a story? And if so, what do you do about it?
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Post by heroicmuse on May 28, 2021 8:15:56 GMT -5
Here's what I worry about (not to the point of losing sleep, but worry nonetheless). Do you ever run out of ideas for a story? And if so, what do you do about it? I have a file in Evernote (a notetaking app that I really like -- I use the free version) called Writer's Block. If I get totally stuck or feel like I have no ideas I free write about my writer's block and how frustrating it is and usually that gets me unstuck. With my fanfiction in particular, if I get stuck sometimes it's because I went in a wrong direction with a story, which is challenging because I have such little time to fix it, but if it's necessary I will go back and rewrite an earlier chapter (if it hasn't aired yet) to help me get unstuck. |
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Post by Kpatch on May 28, 2021 8:22:38 GMT -5
Those are great ideas heroicmuse. I'm not sure if I'm talking about writer's block, per se. Rather about running out of ideas within a story. Up to now, I've always had the "luxury" of moving from one story to another. When one story came to a natural conclusion, I always had another one in the hopper. But as I embark on my new ongoing venturing (launch Monday), I get concerned that it will fizzle at some point. Hope that makes sense. |
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Post by booksoapwriter81 on May 28, 2021 22:55:45 GMT -5
Do you write full time at this point or are you still working at another job as well? I wish I was writing full time, heroicmuse! I still have a full-time job though. I don't have much success with book sales because I still have a terrible time trying to get my work noticed despite having book trailers, a website, a facebook business page, etc. I considered trying something called self-publishing hero to see if I could get some more information on how to successfully market my work, but I then I learned that it would cost me close to $3,000 to participate in that course. I probably should take some sort of course though. Even when people express interest in my work, I don't know how to give them that extra nudge they need to actually buy it. |
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Post by booksoapwriter81 on May 28, 2021 23:10:45 GMT -5
Here's what I worry about (not to the point of losing sleep, but worry nonetheless). Do you ever run out of ideas for a story? And if so, what do you do about it? , I look for openings in previous storylines that haven't been worked in a while if I am short on ideas for a new book. For example, in the book I am editing right now, there is a woman who has been mad at her mother for two months because her mother exposed the truth about her boyfriend, which then led to them breaking up. It was something that I knew needed to be resolved eventually, so several books later when the theme of a new book was revolving around family, I brought it up again. It fit in perfectly because Lorraine (my character) finds out that the mother of someone she knows has cancer and becomes worried that the same thing could happen to her own mother, who had a cancer scare in the past. As a result, she decides to work on repairing their relationship because she doesn't want to lose anymore time with her. I also think about characters whose last storylines wrapped up awhile ago and try to see if there is a way to bring them back into the spotlight with whatever theme I am working on next. For instance, in my next new book, I am going to bring back a character who has been on the backburner for about ten books. |
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Post by Kpatch on May 29, 2021 9:39:05 GMT -5
Thanks for the advice, heroicmuse and booksoapwriter81. I like the idea of going back and seeing what threads you can pick up from dropped/unfinished arcs, and fleshing them out. I will have to remember to refer to these posts down the line if/when I get stuck. |
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Post by Kpatch on Jun 4, 2021 21:38:27 GMT -5
If the ideas are flowing, I can knock out two chapters a night, no problem. I usually write between 9 and 11 each night. But there are some chapters that require more attention, more details, more research, and those could take days to get right. It's like a big ole speed bump.
Is this common, fellow writers?
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Post by heroicmuse on Jun 4, 2021 21:54:20 GMT -5
If the ideas are flowing, I can knock out two chapters a night, no problem. I usually write between 9 and 11 each night. But there are some chapters that require more attention, more details, and those could take days to get right. It's like a big ole speed bump. Is this common, fellow writers? That happens to me all the time! For example, the day before yesterday I wrote a chapter of my fanfiction in an hour and was thrilled that I was able to get it done so quickly. Tonight it took me several hours to write the same length chapter. Also, sometimes with my new novel I can write 2 - 3 chapters in one sitting and other times I am writing and rewriting the same scene for days to get it right. |
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Post by booksoapwriter81 on Jun 4, 2021 23:05:02 GMT -5
If the ideas are flowing, I can knock out two chapters a night, no problem. I usually write between 9 and 11 each night. But there are some chapters that require more attention, more details, and those could take days to get right. It's like a big ole speed bump. Is this common, fellow writers? That happens to me all the time! For example, the day before yesterday I wrote a chapter of my fanfiction in an hour and was thrilled that I was able to get it done so quickly. Tonight it took me several hours to write the same length chapter. Also, sometimes with my new novel I can write 2 - 3 chapters in one sitting and other times I am writing and rewriting the same scene for days to get it right. This happens to me too. I find that scenes that involve lots of action tend to develop quickly for me. For example, I once wrote a chapter that took place at a homecoming game, and the writing process moved along pretty quickly because I was feeling the same adrenaline that the characters were. It is the same thing with scenes where characters are having heated arguments. Somehow, I feel the intensity of their anger, and it causes the scene to develop faster. Scenes that involve serious conversations take me longer because I have to be sure that the conversation is progressing in a way that is realistic to the characters involved. Sometimes they are talking, and I know that what they are trying to say isn't coming out right, so I have to keep going back and trying again. A lot of times, it seems like they just keep repeating themselves and take forever to actually get to the point. I am actually in the middle of one of those kinds of scenes right now. A father has come to find out why his daughter snuck out of dinner with him and his new girlfriend the night before, and I haven't fully figured out how to make her explain her actions yet. This scene has been sitting unfinished all week! I also get slowed down when I have to go back and review character history and storylines that are being referenced. And there are definitely rewrites! I have one scene in my current book that I already rewrote once (involving the same storyline referenced above; I guess I really am struggling with that one!), and I think I'm going to have to do it again before it is considered finished based on the way the storyline has progressed since then. |
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Post by heroicmuse on Jun 5, 2021 8:01:45 GMT -5
booksoapwriter81 I am having the same issue with a scene right now in my current novel. My protagonist's husband is ready to talk to her about the future of their marriage after she confessed to cheating on him and it's hard to get it just right. I think the painful scenes are the hardest ones to write, or the ones where we know more than some of the characters do and we don't know how much the one with the secret wants to reveal or how they want to reveal it.
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Post by Kpatch on Jun 5, 2021 21:03:07 GMT -5
Thanks for your thoughtful answers to my questions, guys. It's good to know that as authors, we experience the same kinds of things.
New question, and this one has to do with content.
How do you handle timelines in your stories. Is each day in your story the very next day, or do you skip a few days, i.e., it was a few days later or it was a week later. I don't mean that each chapter is a new day. But when a new day dawns in your story, is it the next day? Or does it vary?
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Post by booksoapwriter81 on Jun 5, 2021 21:34:26 GMT -5
booksoapwriter81 I am having the same issue with a scene right now in my current novel. My protagonist's husband is ready to talk to her about the future of their marriage after she confessed to cheating on him and it's hard to get it just right. I think the painful scenes are the hardest ones to write, or the ones where we know more than some of the characters do and we don't know how much the one with the secret wants to reveal or how they want to reveal it. , yes, painful scenes are absolutely the hardest to write! Maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe it's because we kind of have to experience the pain along with the characters while we're writing it, and pain is never pleasant. I finished the scene I was struggling with today, but it took all afternoon and then some. I'm still not sure I'm satisfied with it. It might need to be revamped once I start editing the book and seeing how it ultimately fits in with everything that happens before and after it. I have another storyline in the same book that's similar to yours. One of my characters has an aunt who is after her husband, but the husband is refusing to acknowledge that the aunt wants more than a friendship with him. It has been a tough storyline to work with because the husband and wife keep ending up in a stalemate over the aunt. Even though he loves his wife and has no intention of cheating on her, the husband also doesn't want to give up his friendship with the aunt either! Both characters have been advised by their parents to focus on their marriage and what they want for the future of their relationship, but the aunt is still there lurking in the background. |
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Post by André DiMera on Jun 5, 2021 21:50:41 GMT -5
How do you handle timelines in your stories. Is each day in your story the very next day, or do you skip a few days, i.e., it was a few days later or it was a week later. I don't mean that each chapter is a new day. But when a new day dawns in your story, is it the next day? Or does it vary? For me, at least, it’s very situational. It depends on what’s happening in the story at the time. Typically, though, I’ll write “the next day” or “a few days later”, depending on how the story’s going. In my story, a day will usually last several chapters and, in order to hit special yearly events, I’ll sometimes speed up time a bit. I try not to overthink it. You could say I sometimes play fast and loose with the timeline, but I usually try to stick to a somewhat reasonable timeline. |
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Post by booksoapwriter81 on Jun 5, 2021 21:57:48 GMT -5
Thanks for your thoughtful answers to my questions, guys. It's good to know that as authors, we experience the same kinds of things. New question, and this one has to do with content. How do you handle timelines in your stories. Is each day in your story the very next day, or do you skip a few days, i.e., it was a few days later or it was a week later. I don't mean that each chapter is a new day. But when a new day dawns in your story, is it the next day? Or does it vary? In the early books of my series, I would usually skip days or maybe jump ahead a week after a certain event occurred. I have one book from that part of the series that actually covers pretty much a whole month, but several days and weeks of that month are skipped over. But then I realized that I had covered four months in five books, and I didn't want my characters to age that quickly! So now I pretty much just go day to day with their lives. Each of my books covers anywhere from one day to a full week. Most books now cover at least three days. It works for me because it allows everyone to stay at a certain age for quite awhile before I have to worry about them moving on to the next year of their lives. It really all depends on how long you want to work with the characters. If it's meant to be a stand-alone book, then I might cover much more time than just a few days depending on how long it takes the main events of the book to play out. I try to keep my timelines realistic too. For example, I know a lot of the series books that I enjoyed growing up would keep the characters the same age for an unrealistic amount of time. And then there would be several special edition books, so the characters would ultimately have five Christmases, five summers, and so on all during that one year of their lives. I work in holidays and special events, but they only occur once per year as they should for my characters. I actually have an outline of each week in the year for my characters, and I type up the titles of the books that will occur during that week and bullet points of what storylines will occur in them. It is a working document because I usually only know what books are due to happen a week or two after the point where I currently am in my writing. |
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