Hi, I'm working on my first book, and maybe last. I deceded recently, that at 55 years old and disabled, not to mention 159kg in weight, that without any practice, I would have a bicycle build and delivered, load it up with all the gear I thought I might need, then start riding that bicycle from Cheshire, to as far and for as long as I wanted, or could. 12 countries and 12000 km's later, after 16 months, I stood in flood water in Southern Thailand, and decided I would go home. I covered all the costs myself with no sponsorship, no support network, and solo. Not bad for a first time bicyle tourer, but I had the most amazing time. I saw things nobody should see or even that I could repeat, and I saw things that were so wonderful, I doubt I would have been able to see them any other way. It's a story about a working class man with a tough childhood, who has worked hard and physical all his life and had nothing from anyone. A father and husband, with a list of health conditions as long as your arm, but a man that always managed to crack a smile, and has lived an amazing life regardless. One big adventure was needed, to top all of my previous crazy adventures, and now it's time to put it down on paper so that I can leave it for my grandchildren and family. I'm no writer, as you can see here, but I can type like the wind and have a real interest in doing this. I'm only at chapter 3, and that's if I understand what makes a chapter, and I really have no idea how many words or pages, or pictures, should the book make, so I'm looking for advice please. I've passed on the intro and first chapter to a couple of people who said they were interested in helping, but never heard of it again I know, it doesn't make me feel too good, unless they simply meant well and couldn't be bothered. Any advice welcome. Thanks
IDK about pics, but a book is as long as the story it takes to fill it. Could be 80,000, or it could be 500,000 words. You never know until you make it to the end. I started with a short story, and am almost done with a sequel novel, so the story kinda dictates how long or short it is if you let it flow naturally and takes it's course to it's natural conclusion. So write it until it's done.
There's plenty of good advice and helpful people around on these here forums, you'll definitely get writing advice you need and writing advice you didn't even know you needed. When you're ready, post an excerpt in the workshop to get some feedback. I'm writing a memoir too, a little different to yours but with similarities also. Hope to see you around the forums and best of luck with the book! NC
The best way to approach writing is to just lock yourself in a quiet room every day for an hour or so, and write what comes to you. Don't worry if it's good or not. You will edit later. For now, get all the thoughts you have in your head down. Brainstorm what you want to write about and it's sequence of events.
So should I just put every little thing down that i'm thinking, then edit the 1m words into about 100k Should I edit and get each chapter right before going on to the next, I just don't know you see.
Thanks, so if I added my first chapter or intro to the Workshop forums I might get plenty of responses? Is it a forum like the one I have just entered this post into, or something structured differently. Finding this forum section was a minefield, and I can't find it again
Thanks, I was thinking along those lines, and as I already know how this story goes and what happened along the way, I don't have to imagine or create much, I thought. Then as I started writing, I kept coming up with wanting to explain how I got to that point or way of thinking, and relating things to my past and why I took on such a challenge. It was no longer simply writing down what actually happened, but now included why it happened and where it goes from here. It's all very strange, and much much harder than I thought. As with other things I've found hard though, the rewards have been huge, and I guess that's why I keep pushing on with my book. Steve
Take a browse through the workshop sections and you’ll see plenty of work posted there, usually with lots of excellent, constructive feedback. My own work has had good and bad responses both of which are constructive and invaluable to me. There’s a requirement to post in that section, I believe it’s at least 14 days membership, 20 posts on the forums (anywhere) and 2 critiques on others work. Can learn a lot doing that. Look forward to reading more of your story!
From my bit of experience, it depends on how you write. Some edit while writing, some edit once the first draft is done. Typically you will find parts that you can refine down to a more to the point, or cut out parts that are just filler. Try and focus on the most relevant parts, and that should help cut the word count down to something a bit more manageable. I never finished Angelmass, cause I got so bored when Timothy Zahn spent a good 200+pages in the middle to simply talk about the politics of the fictional universe, which really pulled away from the story moving forward. Sure it added in getting the novel 544 pages long, but I don't think it adds much, given the first 200 pages set up and give you all the information you need about the story and how things work. So it really falls down to style and choices on what to keep in, and what to cut out.
1. Read few books about writing and screenwriting. 2. Think what is your main message. Put it in one sentence. Your story - it's most important core element - in one sentence. 3. Think what made you do it. What was the inciting incident that launched that idea and acting it out. 4. It is possible that best timeframe for your story is from a bit before that incident to the resolution of your physical and mental trip. 5. If it so, put all earlier things in as flashbacks and latter - if and only if you need them - as flashforwards. 6. If you are telling about yourself you better be both hero but also antihero of that story. Or hero can be someone else. 7. Do you have a mentor - someone in your life who have helped you build that kind of spirit? 8. Who or what has been the main force that has been trying to prevent your trip or succeeding in cycling? You? Someone else? Some inner belief? Problems with health? 9. Read Pirzigs Zen and Motorcycle Maintenance. 10 Writing is rewriting. Get the SFD (Shitty First Draft) done. It's not your book. It's your raw material. Then you start to rewrite it. 11. If you are not a writer (in your mind), then do some structural work first. Tell the most important plot twists in few words. What were the turning points in that story? What made things possible - or impossible? What was the main thing you learned? 12. Use as much time to learning more about writing as you use to writing. Do it every day. 13. Write what you know emotionally. 14. Don't try to alter your writing voice or use anybody else's voice. Tell things with your own voice and words. 15. Do it.
Well, first @John Peel, congratulations on a stupendous journey of a lifetime! I bet you don't weigh 350 lbs (159kg) anymore, either. I also am a biker, but I don't consider myself in your category at all! Given you've started the book, just basically write and let the story take you where you are going. Make it interesting, fun and amusing, and you probably have few hair-raising adventures to relate as well. You could read books or take courses in writing, but if you do, you will probably not get around to writing the story. Just write it, and edit when you are done. Pay attention to spelling and grammar but then just move on. People were a lot less attentive to editing when writing was done in long hand or on a typewriter. Word processors have made it easy for us to constantly second-guess ourselves.
I would encourage you to find those moments that would add tension to the conclusion and space them out in your chapters. Writing an autobiography (at least that’s what I’m thinking) there is a tendency to write it in a chronological order. And that’s not a bad thing, but you still need to keep the reader’s interest, and you can do that by reflecting on something dramatic that happened in the past, or a teaser for the future. In the end, we still need to have a main character and see growth in him as a person. He needs to have a goal that is difficult to reach as we read along, hoping he’ll make it. There also needs to be setbacks and conflict that pushes him to his limit. A saying I once heard, if your main character can walk away with no worries, the reader will leave the book there as well. (or something like that) When I wrote my autobiography, I just stuck to the timeline and the facts. It is a boring book about an ADHD person that couldn’t keep a job. You can do better. Write on....
Wow. Even your first post has me hooked. I've never written a memoir, but I would say (and echo some of the above) that you should get it all down on paper first. If your mind works that way (mine does) do it chronologically, but either put each week or month or whatever in a separate doc or get a good writing app/software that allows you to move chapters about easily. There's one that I'm using, but a) I don't know a lot about software options, and b) I'm staff, so I don't want to be seen as 'endorsing' one product or another. But I'm sure hints will be dropped as to software that has worked for other members But anyway, I'd say get it down, warts and all, don't worry about whether something is phrased right. Since you're not doing "creative" writing, but rather writing about what you really did and know about, make sure you have everything down on paper (computer file), then you can start to decide if you want to do it straight chronological, by order of importance, reverse chronological, or something else, like interspersing the past (you didn't give any details as to the nature or cause of your disability or initial weight situation) with the journey to the present (for an example of what I'm describing, you could check out What is the What, by Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng. Simply as an example of the threading of the past and present). Once you have all the facts set down, you can decide the best way to pace the narrative, including what needs to be (honestly) left out as insignificant. But keep us posted, this sounds cool.
Or... There have been two great adventures: 1. Geographical journey - from place to place. It might be easier to organise story among places than time. 2. Personal growth - from past you to present you. And these two are tied together. Tell us how in your book.
