Nice post, @nippy818 .

Very cool stuff.

Just a couple things from me...

I thought I had a draft that was ready to be read, but it wasn't, not by a long shot. Next time, I won't rush into this phase. (and BTW, it was the fifth draft)

If I get an idea and the next day I can remember it without writing it down, it's worth considering... but not always worth putting into the story. Perhaps for the next story?

It's good advice. Not sure I can follow it to the letter but I'll be keeping it in my mind. Thank you.

First of all, thanks for sharing! especially the part about 'notebooks ' everywhere. I always fall into the trap of searching for a napkin, an old train ticket, and end up asking the random passerby for a pen because I tend to think that This time I will be too busy to think of my story surely!

Not sure about your last point though. Since starting seriously on my story I have not taken a book to hand. And I do think that is by far the longest stretch in my life I have done that. Up till starting in I usually read a book a day. Now.. even on holiday for a week I didn't read a single line. The start of my story lies now one-and-a-half-months behind me in time guys!
I think I am afraid that my voice will get influenced by all these other styles. I am new to writing, just getting confidence in my writing style and I don't want to take the chance that what comes out of my brain is another's paraphrasing style. Could be that I am afraid of shadows and ghosts but that is what I fear.

Not a deal on paper but a little bit of interest, enough that i will continue to pursue the dream of getting published.

I would like to add to it if I may....

• Understand that you get out of it what you put into it. If you don't have the fortitude to push through even when you hate every word, even when you think that the whole thing is pointless and you will never be published, then it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

• Listen to criticism, and then pause to think. It is our gut reaction to reject any form of criticism. These words are a very vulnerable part of us and we instinctively protect them. But if you can't respect criticism for what it is, then you will never grow. Not all (constructive) criticism should be followed. But a least take the time to think about it before you decide what to do with it.

Notebooks, notebooks, notebooks! I adore notebooks. I'm quite a visual person, to the extent of occasional "attacks" of synaesthesia, so I tend to draw and create mixed-media collages in my notebooks to inspire my work. In a way, the "art" is my work in itself, but it's primarily complex blueprints leading the way towards written work.

The inner critic is especially caustic at times, true. I've been having the feeling that all my writing is trash
for about three years now. Can not for the life of me come up with something the readers would like and ejoy.
Or if so, I can't seem to bring it to completion. Though, I'd really love to see some of my work completed.
Ideas are cheap but the way you tackle them has to be original.

Great points to absorb. Thanks for sharing. (everyone)

I didn't force myself to write my novel, I wrote because I wanted to. I really really wanted to. I absolutely HATED it if something happened and it interrupted my writing time. However, I didn't care how many words I wrote either. I just wrote till my time was up, or the chapter was finished, or whatever.

We all work different ways. I would grow to hate writing if I forced myself to write x number of words per day.

However, since I finished my first draft and got into the editing phase, I don't write every day at all. In fact, I only work on it intermittently. This is partly due to personal circumstances, which have changed. But also because ideas need time to cook. I'm also working on my second novel, which is a sequel to the first, but set in an entirely different location which requires constant research. So researching, editing, planning ...that's what I'm doing at the moment. I've got several chapters of my new novel 'written,' but again, just first draft. I'm more focused now on formatting my first novel for publication on Kindle.

Although many authors do write a certain number of words every day, and it works for them, I think the problem with forced writing is that some people may never achieve the kind of distance from it that they need, in order to do a good editing job. And editing is at least half of the job.

@jannert I think all that stuff you mentioned does qualify as writing. Rewriting, editing, research, 'baking' the idea during incubation periods.

Cheers, mate!

Yes, I totally agree. But it doesn't mean you have to produce a certain number of words per day. In fact, when you're editing, doing research or just thinking, you might not produce any words at all that day. However, you are still 'writing.' I think if a writer focuses only on 'production' of words, they'll get lots of words, but might miss out on the stuff that pulls it all together.

Yes that's what I meant.

Meant to quote you the first time. Again, great post.

This is how I feel. I write every day but don't have a set number of words, I think that would frustrate me. Some days I'll just edit one paragraph and that's fine, other days I'll write 5,000 words. Having the story, or stories, on my mind every single day is what is important to me. Some of my "best" days consist of little writing and a lot of brainstorming or perhaps reorganizing scenes, ideas, actions and, while no new words are being written or the word count is not going up, the work is still being improved (or at least that's the plan).

I also put certain stories aside for a time but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about them, just not opening the document and working on it. I usually have 4-5 projects going on all the time so it's easy and enjoyable to bounce around sometimes. It's nice when those projects are in different phases too. Sometimes I want to outline, sometimes I want to write prose, sometimes I want to edit.

You sound very enthusiastic. That's great. Writing is a lot of fun, isn't it?

It is! I'm not sure what I would do otherwise. I need to write and have been my whole life. After completing several full length screenplays, I jumped into my first novel this year and finished (the first draft) in 8 months

So what do you think? Is novel writing different from screenplay writing, in terms of satisfaction? Which did you enjoy most?

I'm not sure if one is more satisfying than the other. Although, the concept of the written words being the final product as opposed to a movie where 500+ people are involved and the story getting changed every step of the way is certainly a large pro. Besides the outlining, the processes are also very different. There is so much more freedom in prose than screenwriting which is very cut and dry in my opinion. You have action and dialogue and that's it. You cannot enter a character's thoughts like you can in a novel.

I think it may have worked as an advantage starting with screenwriting as it is just the bare bones of a story, action and dialogue. It allowed me to become more acquainted with developing complex stories in a more simple form. I would admit that this novel is the most satisfied I've ever been with my writing but I think that has more to do with my constant developing and growing as a writer over time and this novel just happens to be the last major project I've worked on. I still love the style of screenwriting and definitely plan on writing more. It's storytelling that I'm in love with and think it's awesome how many different mediums I could tackle if I wish to. Video games, comics, etc.

If there was one thing I always love seeing repeated is Notebooks.

Notebooks, and notebooks... Notebooks.

... and post-it's. They are everywhere

I have dozens of notebooks hahaha

Impressive! I thought I was the only one who took the laptop along on vacations and business trips so I didn't lose writing time! Good job!

Good on silencing the inner critic while writing. It's best to keep visualizing how great the story is, how everyone will love it, while getting it down. Keep it in its box until the WIP is done. Then let it out to tear your work up during the editing phase. Plenty of time to get discouraged then, the writing is over.

OMG. I wrote the first draft of my novel between 1996 and 2001. And DAMN. I wanted a laptop to take on vacation SO bad, but couldn't afford one then. I HATED being away from my writing, and didn't look forward to my holidays at all. Now that I'm retired and home most of the time and don't really go on holiday any more (my choice), my husband and I have a MacBook Air in addition to our two desktop Macs. It sits there and hardly ever gets used. Go figure....