Hi everyone! I am new here, but I really like the forum so far. Btw, sorry for my english, I am from Brazil. I have been writting fantasy since I was a kid (around 10 or 11 years old), and I have a huge imagination. Sometimes I spend hours just sitting on the couch and thinking of my stories. There is this personal story I have been developing for 4 years now, but I am having a really hard time to write it down. It seems so easy in my head, it all appears like a movie, but I find it really hard to simply sit down and write. I get lost in the words and can't describe the scenes very well. It is weird, because when I was young I wrote books so easily, without this problem... Does anyone know what this is? Or how to fix it? I don't know if it is a writers block, it looks much more like lazyness, or lack of a functional working method Anyway, what software do you guys use to write? I am using Google Drive Writer but I am not liking it very much. What is the best software in your opinion? Any tips? Thanks in advance!
Honestly, I think you might just be coming to realize that daydreaming is easy, and writing is hard. Probably when you were young you weren't worrying about quality? And were you writing full books, at that age? Like, how many words? Seriously, it's a lot of work. There's software that may or may not help (Scrivener seems to be the gold standard, for those who want more than a simple word processor), but it doesn't make writing effortless. Writing is HARD. If you're stuck, I'd recommend finding a source for feedback. Writing a full-length book is a hard slog all by yourself. Either find a critique partner who will read your work chapter-by-chapter, or write short stories for a while and get feedback on them, or find some other way to break things down so you don't have to go too long without getting attention for your work. And be patient with yourself. Maybe you only write a paragraph a day, but if it's a good paragraph, a beautiful, true paragraph - you've achieved something. Enjoy!
I'm also new to this forum. Welcome! Not only am I new here, I'm new to writing as a dedicated endeavor. Recent weeks have been difficult for me. I've been sitting on more ideas than I can manage to type. Little of what I've composed has turned out as I've envisioned, which is a frustration shared by many writers. My focus right now is my set of work habits. Discipline is important. Removing distractions is crucial. Setting goals is helpful, but also can be dangerous if they are too lofty. I've been trying to approach writing with the seriousness I would approach work. I hope to convince myself something depends on on efforts without making myself feel I'm writing because I have an obligation. Though I've never tried it, I've spoken with some people who have used DragonSpeak for composing. It is expensive (usually over $200) and requires the most up-to-date version of whatever operating system is used. I don't know how buggy it is or how well it works for revising. The idea of talking out a story versus typing could appeal to some. Has anyone used DragonSpeak with success? Thank you BayView for mentioning Scrivener. I knew nothing about it, and now I'm quite intrigued.
The best thing you can do is practice. Google "creative writing exercises." That should give you a good list of things you can use to improve your writing. You can also do "Free writing" where you sit and observe a scene or some scenery and just write as much as you can about it. The only way you are going to get better is through practice, practice, practice. Welcome to the forum!
Thank you for replying. I agree with you, it is pretty hard. As you said, maybe when I was little I didn't worry much about quality. I never counted the words, but I two books of 70 ~ 80 pages on Microsoft Word. I have aways been a fan of fantasy writting, I think it is in my blood. Right now I am trying Scrivener, and it seems quite hard to get into it. But since everyone speaks so high of it, I think its worth to give it a try
NaNoWriMo is a good way to start. Take one or more of those ideas and just write it. Don't worry about how it reads. Instead, just free write the story that is in your head. When you're done you will hopefully have a very rough draft and you'll have broken the barrier of putting those day dreams into words. Then the work starts, taking that draft and crafting it into decent writing. Welcome to the forum.
I've used it, but not with success. For me, the technology worked fine (accurately transcribed my words) but I found it didn't suit my style of writing. It was, really, too fast. I'm a reasonably fast typist AND a reasonably fast thinker - I usually write about a thousand words an hour when I'm writing well. But that is SLOW compared to speaking. Dragon was good for me to get a few ideas down, but in terms of actually WRITING - getting the right words down, in the right order - it didn't work. I wanted to be able to scan over what I'd written the paragraph before, check back and see who was speaking, etc. Dragon was just too linear for me and the way I write. Which is a shame, because it was really convenient. And possibly I could have trained my brain to it, if I'd kept trying. But my instinct is that it wouldn't have worked.
My personal suggestions is to use Scrivener (as has been suggested by several others). Though, if you want a slightly wider perspective of what the community uses you should check out the "What word processor do you use?"-thread. 17 pages of word processor discussion.
Thank you guys, I'll try NaNoWriMo and Scrivener. I hope they help me to get my ideas down to the papers
Well, I am using Scrivener right now, and I am finding it very good. I'll test it in new campaign I am making for Tabletop RPG. The problem is that I am from Brazil, and write in portuguese. So, the software automatically subline everything I write thinking it is a typo (because it is original for english) and detects every portuguese word as an error. Is there a way to disable Auto- Correction in the program? Thanks in advance!
You should be able to set the program to use a Portuguese dictionary (Tools -> Options -> Corrections -> Dictionary, on the Windows versions). If the dictionary is not in the list (I think only English is there by default) you can choose "Download..." and hopefully find one. In the same menu you also have the option "Check spelling as you type", in case you don't find a dictionary.
