Looking back on 2008 I was wondering how it was for y'all on the writing front? Me? Well...I'm glad you asked... On the plus side I finished the 7th draft of the play I've been writing for 2 years - it opens in Feb. I have also decided that next year I will start writing a book. I have LOTS of ideas I just have to make a decision. How about you?
Into second draft of novel, and wrote a heap of short stories... The biggest achievement in my eyes though was creating a 13000 word novellete for a competition, getting over the extraordinarily complex story line was awesomely challenging... loved it. So yeah rave over...
Wrote 30,000 words in two months, but then gave up which was a bad decision, but now I'm starting up again in the new year!
I took notes on my serials to try to get them sorted out. Took me over a year. ;_; I got some decent work done on my current serial. I generated lots of ideas for my next serial, and hope to start it sometime next year, if I manage to finish the current one first! Still haven't hooked and kept any readers.
Got a serious case of writers block which caused me to drop a year long project. At the last minute, about 3 weeks ago, and up until last night I've begun development of a new character. This character became the catalyst to get me writing again. Also finding this forum, which has been a tremendous help. And at this point I've used some of the ideas from my previous failed idea and combined it with one had had years ago and never worked on (probably because i was in the fourth grade).
Too many lessons to list here, but one of the ones that really hit home for me: The NaNoWriMo "fire hose" approach to writing just doesn't work for me. But I'm glad I took a shot at it anyway.
Finished (and wrote most of) my first novel. August 5th 6:42p.m., first draft was finished. Now working on revisions. Did a few short stories, and got the start on some other story ideas, but other than that nothing big.
Lessons learned? Two spoonfuls of curry paste is enough to make a good Thai red curry. Any more and the dish is a loss.
Well, best thing making 2008 worthwhile for me was my joining "WritingForums". I just love being here and I've learned so much about writing, especially, reviewing! Keep it up
I wrote a 110,000 word rough draft of my novel in the period of time between the end of September and the 2nd week of December, which I was really proud of. I also wrote six or so short stories and came up with the basic outlines for another 8 or so novels in the same series. My lesson of 2008?: Don't spend your whole summer vacation performing needless research, creating multiple outlines of the same storyline, creating multiple character profiles, and constantly revising and rewriting the first chapter rather than actually writing. And, if you're going to procrastinate a little, definately don't wait until the end of September to begin a novel you want to finish by Christmas unless you want your head to feel like it's about to explode for the weeks leading up to Christmas.
Where I'm at with my writing, I was published and have another piece due for release soon. I have countless pieces out waiting for responses and spend 7 months writing one poem in particular. Lesson learnt, horror poetry is hard to write, and evern harder to get published. But selling out just isn't worth it and I love a damn good challenge. I also learnt that a rejection is a blessing in disquise! (I prolly just spelt that wrong but I didn't get much sleep! hehe!)
Well recently I've been building my "slow down" skills and improving how I introduce characters and places into my work. Before this forum all of my stories were cluttered and integral information was left out. I'm just really excited for NaNoWriMo next year. I'm already preparing...lol. Z
2008 I've been quite unproductive in regard to writing, but that was not completely unexpected. Between selling our old farm (and cleaning out heaps of unnecessary things collected over four generations), starting a new job, moving to a new town and helping my mother with her new house, there was hardly any time left. If there was a lesson, it was "there are definitely times in life when you simply can't make more time for writing."
The lesson I learned was never write when in the depths of depression. It just results in getting more depressed, no matter how good the writing is. On the other hand, writing when in a state of high emotion can be good, when the scene I'm writing is a scene of similar high emotion, can lead to the scene getting the edginess to it that it needs, and it is a good idea to be in that state when writing similar scenes. For people in general, a lesson we learned was that people don't learn from their lessons.
Lesson of 2008... Probably that my instincts are pretty good - I should trust them more! On the writing front, I've been doing a lot more than I have in previous years, so that's all good - I've even just built a web site focused around one of my major projects, so that's fun and frustrating in equal parts.
For me they are the same as 2007. Persistence, Patience, and Progress. Just keep at it no matter what. That is the biggest lesson for me to remember each year.
