Southern US. Not Australia, sorry to burst bubbles. Anyway. I'm working on finishing up Draft One (or Zero) of my current Work In Progress. It's untitled at the moment, due to... well, I have the hardest times with titles. I joined because I'm having problems with motivation and finishing and am looking for some... well, let's say accountability partners. Other writers to talk to when I'm having a hard time, and to send me encouragement every few days to a week. On the other hand I'd just really like to make some other writer friends, I don't have many. So! I'm glad to be here, y'all. -Cheyenne
Hi, @Cheyenne, and welcome to the forum! Please check out our New Member Quick Start Guide - it'll get you going around here. A lot of us struggle sometimes with motivation. I think you'll find lots of support on this forum. Participate and have fun!
Thank you so much~ Honestly, though, the only thing I gained from that was a link to the rules, which I will go through and read thoroughly. I am quite familiar with forum layouts and what not. Unfortunately, I have been members to many, though some are so busy that the newbie gets overlooked, others are so dead that only half-a-dozen people are ever active. Hoping this one is a nice medium! Thanks again.
This site is pretty decent. You got your regulars and what not. Is your motivation problem due to anything? Like a plot inconsistency you just can't seem to fix?
I think.... it's because I have favorite characters, and I have almost all of their scenes written, but there's more characters and stuff going on in the background that I have to show or the end of the book is too Deus Ex Machina. It's not that I don't like the characters, or the scenes, it's just.... a block of some kind. The other possibility could be because I'm having issues with depression again. That, I believe, was my problem through highschool and why I never finished anything then, either. But I have no proof of this. Trying to work through it just isn't working at the moment, so I'm hoping talking through it might dislodge something or kick my ass into gear. (I do have a deadline to get this WIP finished.) And thanks~ Nice to see the site is fairly active.
Oh before I forget. Greeting and welcome. Now that you have joined you will find there are no exits (evil grin.) lol. Wait, seem Deus Ex Machina? Always sort of figured it is or isn't. Not sure how it rests in the middle. Talking always helps me. So hopefully it will help. Never had to do this with a deadline. That just sucks. :/. Normally I advise to take a break when you are overly stressed. Seems that isn't an option for you.
Ah. Well, it would SEEM Deus Ex, because if I didn't include the scenes the reader couldn't know what was going on "behind the scenes" as it were. So I HAVE to include the scenes. I work well under pressure. Fiction assignments in my English classes were always fun for me. My teachers had to give me a MAX amount of pages/words, otherwise I would go way over board. I wouldn't say that I'm stressed, per se, (well, not about my writing. Maybe about my 54 hour/week work schedule, but that's something else entirely) but then again I've never been very good at gauging my stress level until I'm blowing up at somebody over something small.
I may be weird but seems to me these background scenes should have originally been on the front ground. lol. Are you having trouble working them in? Yeah I was the opposite. Heck I don't think I have even read a book that had 300 pages. So English wasn't exactly my best subject. I am improving now though. Then again my work in progress is less than half the length of yours. 54 work week? That is a lot. Is it hard work?
Probably. But I wanted to work on the scenes that I was excited to write because they boosted my word count quickly. xD Working them in isn't a problem (though plotting it out before hand would have rEALLY helped. Oh well, notes for the next book). Heh. I've always been an avid reader/writer. Since I was really young. If I recall correctly I read the LoTR books when I was in... grade 5? It was middle school sometime. Or.... no. Grade school. It's not really hard work, but it's two jobs. I'm a cashier at Wal-Mart Monday thru Wednesday. 10pm-7am. And I'm assistant manager at Subway on the weekends. 4:30-11:30pm on Friday. 1:30-11:30pm on Saturday and Sunday. It's not hard, just time consuming.
Well it is like dinner. You got to eat your veggie's before your ice cream. Me personally? I like taking a shot of ice cream to get that nasty carrot taste out of my mouth. Point being, if you eat all the ice cream first, the motive to eat the vegi's disappears really fast. LoTR? What is that? I see. I am lucky in that aspect. I work security. So I write at work since it is a empty lot. lol.
Lord of the Rings. Also, sorry for the time delay. Was trying to find a small coffee shop or cafe or something. Settled for Ihop because I'm hoping a change of scenery will help.
Aww. I see. Was it any good? I saw the first movie, thought it was horrible, so never watched the other movies. Did the books do it better? Good luck
Considering your earlier comment about books over 300 pages, I wouldn't recommend them. I love the story, but Tolkien can sometimes be a bit dry in his writing. He wasn't told "Show don't Tell" back then.
How to put this? He get's.... Preachy. Tolkien created this immense, diverse world with so much backstory.... and put as much of that into the books as he could. There are pages upon pages of backstory, description, etc, that if he had tried to get it published nowadays, it probably would not have happened. It's slow reading comparatively.
And I have had trouble getting though 4k stories in the writer workshop here. Yeah sounds like something I would want avoid. lol. Is it weird that I have probably written more than I have ever read?
That is a little strange, I'll admit. You are definitely an outlier. If you are ever looking to improve your writing, my first suggestion would be to read more. If you write short fiction, read more short fiction. But I would suggest you also branch out, don't just read what you write, read it all. Though that may be tough for you, considering what you've told me, it would be my first recommendation. The more you read, the faster you become at reading (in my humble experience). The more you read, the more your knowledge of the English language expands, and the more your inherent knowledge of story-telling advances.
Funny enough I have found that it isn't a one way street. Writing has helped me become a better reader. Still lazy though. Currently I am looking at a two books, at a pace to which a snail can outpace. One is the strange case of dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. the other is called Ties That Binds
Hm. I haven't read either of them. Oh it also works that way as well, definitely! Reading and writing go hand in hand in almost every way. Just wait til you're watching a movie and you can literally see the plot arc before it happens. That's... trippy. (I saw that when I watch Big Hero Six the first time.)
I know that feel. I been able to do that for a while. I over think EVERYTHING! It is part of my writing process. I walk around for about 3 hours thinking. Then I write. Then I fear the dreaded editing stage for about 30 years. lol
Lol. I don't dread editing, in fact, I'm looking forward to it! My hardest part is the first draft. I overthink as well, and I want to edit, edit, edit, right now so that it's RIGHT. But I can't. I need to finish. (it's why I haven't finished in the past. ) Well, I take that back, I've finished one MS, but that one is scrapped as I'm reworking the story, and the world, and the characters, and it's practically a brand new story.
I personally found rewriting easy than editing but that doesn't get the work to the next level of quality. Probably going back to my bad reader background. MS? Yeah my main story I have been working on since 2008. So revising is a thing I am familiar with. My current WIP is a spin off of a villain that died in my main story. Yeah it is important to reach the end before you edit.
Ah. Sorry. I'm distracted by the scene I'm writing. I hate scenes with only one MC in them. She's not really interacting with anyone, either. But I *need* the scene. It's quite frustrating.
In my experience with enough time and thought there is a way to make the scene the way you want it and still achieve what you need. I suppose you do lack time though. Can't really make suggestion with no context though
