Starting my very first rewrite of my first novel after a delay due to lack of motivation and need for a break. I am sitting at around 20k words out of what I hope will be around 100k. My first draft ended at 97k. I am also 20,000 words into a new project. A longgggg way to go , but I love it so I can't complain.
I've written about 300,000 words of a historical fiction set in early colonial South Carolina. I'm about a 10th into the rewrite/edit. I know... that's way too long to be marketable. I'm tightening and I'll decide what to do if it's still stupidly long when I'm done. I'm having a lot of fun with it though, weaving the mystical, magical in because the main characters are Indian, Highland Scott and African-- tribal people. I'm at the point where I want to move faster but I can't because it's nit picky as hell. Seems like it's gonna take forever. Today I read. I use software that breaks my novel into scenes. That makes it easy to drop in and out. I did most of the first draft in the early mornings and I didn't read back through much so I actually don't remember writing some of it. You could read it to me and I wouldn't know it was from my novel. That's refreshing because I've read and diddle with the first twenty chapters so much in the past few months that I could recite some of it.
Finally set myself a deadline for finishing the book. I've been too absorbed in anxiety to do anything... holding myself to a misguided perfectionism. There will be other books. They will be better than this one. This book will not be perfect, and that's OKAY! The world will not end. I will finish this book and then write the next one. I am excited.
I just managed to get three (THREE!) short stories finished, all of which are being submitted to professional markets this week. The decks are clear for starting on a couple of novellas I've had kicking around in my head for a year or so now ...
Okay, suddenly I don't feel so guilty about my 175k of The Traveller, which has just entered the first and most brutal editing phase. I'm 75k into my second novel and more than 15k up in the opening chapters of five others. Each story's plot and characters are inextricably linked, so I have to work on them in tandem, the events of one driving the plot of another. I weave a tight web when I write, so a project takes me a while to finish, but there are no gaping holes when I'm done. - Darkkin
I just finished my first rewrite - meaning I have my first complete coherent draft for my first ever novel - and now I'm taking a break and also waiting for my editor to come back to me with comments before I do my second rewrite. It feels really strange, like I'm missing something... I have an itch to write but I have nothing to write about suddenly, no project. It feels so weird.
I'm nearing the end of the short novel I'm writing for my friends, but I keep finding myself getting distracted over the past couple of days. To make things worse, I rather stupidly set a release date so now I'm worried I won't finish it in time, or it'll end rather pathetically. I can't change it either because it's acting as a birthday present for someone... Never again shall I set a release date! Plus I've written this in three months, so the quality might only be average anyway... Oh well, it's lucky your friends are the worst critics!
Still writing the first draft (It's almost been a year!) ...I'm kind of demotivated now (once again /aggravated sigh) I set a target to myself to write a whole arc this summer, I don't know if that will happen. ;A; I just don't know why I'm so slowwwwwww.
Demotivation is a killer. I read something a while ago which said something along the lines of, "If you write just one page every day, by the end of the year you'll have 365 pages," evidently hinting that small targets are important in keeping your motivation high. I'm exactly the same with my story - I've set myself the target of completing the whole thing by July 26th, and true, I have only a few chapters left to write, but that still equates to about 8,000 words and I work during the day so I might end up pulling my hair out before I reach the release date. Never set targets - you will only regard writing as a chore from it. Writing is fun! Targets make it seem like work
I'm thinking of resurrecting a story I started, but never finished. Working title Cecilia Kendall. It's set in 1930s Boston.
I'm currently at the most difficult part for me, which is actually starting to write the first draft. Since planning, I've already changed what the first chapter will be about and the information found in the original first chapter will be revealed much later, since I felt it was too distracting. I open up my word document, look at the blank page put my hands near the keyboard, sigh and then close the word document. I'm hoping to start today, but it's a massive hurdle for me to begin. I should probably start before I feel the need to make another major change, which sets the whole thing back another week or so.