Hi everyone I'm 30. I started a novel when I was 16. It still isn't finished!! Aarrrgghhh. I wrote an initial draft that was 90,000 words. Then rewrote to 210,000 words and turned it into a trio. I've written other pieces but this novel always come back to haunt me. Though I guess haunt is the wrong word, because I love it. I think I've just not commited proper time to it. I'm off university for 3 months now and I really want to get it done, at least to the point I can leave it alone when term starts again until the Christmas break, where I can do final editing. It is currently at 30,000 words, hit a stumbling and moved to a new section. How do people deal with the problem of letting go and letting the story be finished? At one point, about 8 years ago, the plot became so convoluted I managed to cut out enough to build the bones of an entirely new novel! Any tips on being disciplined in this short period of time are appreciated! Happy writing all Daniel
Write a set number of words a day. 500, 400, 300, whatever. If you are pressed for time, keep the numbers low. Don't try to just bang it out and think you will abandon it for a season, your mind will still be reworking it. Instead, set an achievable goal that you can bang out easily and still let your mind feel you accomplished something.
Thanks Empty Soul. I was thinking of setting weekly rather than daily targets, as some days I leave the house at 7am and don't get home til 9pm lol
Do you have a smart phone? I do most of my 500 words a day on that and just email it to myself. 5 mins here, 15 there and before I know it, it's done.
Might give that a go! Typing on this phone bugs me though lol I like a full keyboard! I am quite pleased that the whole thing is old and dusty, because its managed to steer clear of a lot of modern trends. While I have read a lot of these modern things, I wanted to avoid writing them where possible. I think I would be horribly clichéd with it
Would it make you feel better to know I am most comfortable writing with a sharpened pencil in a old, fashioned composition notebook.
Lol I tried that but its too slow haha I couldn't get away with it. Which irritates me as I find writing by hand for other things quite relaxing
I wrote my first novel when I was 12, rewrote it 5 times and tinkered with it until age 20, when I finally decided to put it away. By that point, it was this huge bloated thing, over-thought, and over-edited. I had reworked it to death. It was terribly hard for me to let it go, because my childhood dreams had been filled with getting this thing published. I'm 26 now, and I still go back and reread some of it with nostalgia (and lots of cringing) but I'm not tempted to go back to work on it. As you might imagine, a 12 year old's head is full of cliche's, and so is the story. Despite numerous rewrites and attempts to mature the story, the bones of it still remain as juvenile as the first draft. It taught me a lot though, and so in that way the novel is still invaluable to me. I guess I do have a notion that perhaps someday I will take it and pull out the essence of the story to perhaps work it into a middle grade book. Maybe. Anyway, I guess my point with that is that at some point, the steak overcooks and you get a blackened piece of inedible charcoal instead of something tasty. Be careful with all these rewrites and edits. It's so hard to just let a story be. My advice would be to give it this one last chance, and then let it go. Either do something with it, or don't, but let it rest after. (I may be totally wrong, you might have the greatest novel ever written and all these years of tinkering have aged it to the perfect sharpness, but I also know of many authors who killed a story by obsessing too much over it for too long.)
