New Post Your Progress Thread

[N. E. White]

somewhat lame self-imposed deadlines will have to do!

That works for me.

I'm working on the third (and final) book of my Draghi Chronicle trilogy. I'm about 17k in. All is going well, but I'm struggling with whether I should kill off my main character. Not so soon, but at the end.

At the moment, the trajectory is going in that direction. She'll still accomplish her goal for this book (and the series), but the cost of achieving that goal may be her life.

I'm trying to write her out of that, but we shall see.

 

[Alan L]

That works for me.

I'm hoping it works for me too, but somehow real life keeps trying to get in the way!

At the moment, the trajectory is going in that direction. She'll still accomplish her goal for this book (and the series), but the cost of achieving that goal may be her life.

I'm still thinking about that for my antagonist. One of the things I need to do is raise him from a caricature of a villain to something deeper, but after I do that, I'll be less inclined to kill him off (as much as he richly deserves it.) At the moment his fate is arrest, imprisonment, and financial ruin. I have/had no intention of making this story part of a series, but I have a decent back-story for one of my characters that's been fermenting through the whole process of writing this story. I may have to write that at some point. She's a bit of an antihero; maybe if I do keep exploring these characters further, having an old nemesis around could be useful. Or I could go for ambiguity. Just one distant gunshot would leave things hanging.

If you're at the end of the series it's a different problem though. Your readers are going to want some closure one way or the other. I do not envy you and your dilemma.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

After the Restoration, they only ran Nate's version of King Lear, which like the source Shakespeare used, he doesn't die.
Shakespeare turned many traditional stories into Greek Tragedies.

 

[N. E. White]

Not much progress to report. I feel like the story is dragging. I might try to re-write the beginning. Maybe see if things go in a different direction. I was having trouble getting the start to work for me, so maybe I'll go back and try to revamp it a bit. Maybe. Writing is hard.

 

[EricJ]

I too am struggling. I think I've reached a point in my writing career that I don';t want to do. I do an episode for a serial fiction that I am writing (once every week), so that's writing, but not the novel I want to write. I'm translating books into Spanish with somebody who I pay, and that's been like the focus on "writing" right now. I just don't have the interest right now to write on my book, and I think as I write the post, that it's just how I should feel at the moment, than trying to force something I'm right now not interested in doing.

 

[Alan L]

Over the weekend I attended WisCon (online) and while it was full of fantastic sessions and useful information (a review of my experience is up on my blog if anyone's interested), what I really took away from the event was how much effort and how much of a struggle it will be to get the novel I'm nowhere near finishing after several years out there and in the hands of readers. This left me in a slightly depressed state of "what the f*ck is the point" for a couple of days, but I'm a persistent SOB (or a hard core masochist, or both, you decide) and I'm back on plan again. I see lots of advice from other authors that boil down to "just write and have fun" and although my definition of "fun" seems to have a much higher threshold than the average person, there's little fun in this. There will be a reward in seeing this beast come together, even though it's doing so far too slowly for my liking, but what I'm looking for is accomplishment, not fun. I want to accomplish getting this thing in print, at a level of quality I'm happy with. From there "accomplishment" will mean that people read it and enjoyed it. If maybe 150 people do that, it will be a win.

 

[N. E. White]

I too am struggling. I think I've reached a point in my writing career that I don';t want to do. I do an episode for a serial fiction that I am writing (once every week), so that's writing, but not the novel I want to write. I'm translating books into Spanish with somebody who I pay, and that's been like the focus on "writing" right now. I just don't have the interest right now to write on my book, and I think as I write the post, that it's just how I should feel at the moment, than trying to force something I'm right now not interested in doing.

It sounds like you're overwhelmed. Maybe take a break? Come back to your own writing when things settle down? You're essentially already doing that, but this way you give yourself permission to to set it aside.

 

[N. E. White]

I want to accomplish getting this thing in print, at a level of quality I'm happy with. From there "accomplishment" will mean that people read it and enjoyed it. If maybe 150 people do that, it will be a win.

That's all you can hope for.

And you're right. It is a monumental task to self-publish (or traditionally publish) a book. Don't diminish all that effort. Celebrate the progress achievements when you can.

 

[NickeeCoco]

I finished the first draft a week ago.

I started the first round of editing yesterday. Woot!

 

[Jonas Stark]

20k words into Lyetuna. I zigged a bit when I should have zagged about 10k words in, but it's paying off with a really nice piece of action and character building.

I am pushing on, despite realizing that this book series is probably not as commercially viable as the other one for which I finished the manuscripts years ago.

The vibe with Lyetuna is too good and I'm sprinting for an August finish on the manuscript's first draft.

 

[N. E. White]

I finished the first draft a week ago.

I started the first round of editing yesterday. Woot!

Congrats! Glad to see the progress.

The vibe with Lyetuna is too good and I'm sprinting for an August finish on the manuscript's first draft.

Yay! Glad to see you moving forward with the story, despite "commercial viability".

My progress: slowly getting through WIP. Feels like pulling teeth, but my characters are still into the story, I just need to propel myself over the finish line. August 15th or bust!

 

[djv124]

I just released my second horror fiction novel, POA, and am diving right into the third fiction horror novel I want to write, as yet untitled. But struggling with finding the middle to this story, as I have the beginning and definitely the ending parts all figured out. The middle is where nothing seems to connect quite properly. First time I've actually had this problem with writing a story too. Any advice is appreciated.

Also, for all of you on this board struggling with your own writing, feel free to bounce ideas off me. I'm happy to listen without judgment.

For all of you who are wondering what is the point of writing and feel like it's hard to get people to notice your work, that's really something I deal with on an everyday level. I used to be in a somewhat popular band, I guess, and got to play to thousands of people regularly. But... that was 20 years ago. Now, I am lucky if five people can actually take an interest in my books unless I post them for free on Amazon, in which case they can hit the top of the charts, but still... no engagement or feedback from that happening. It makes you wonder... did I write a compelling enough story? Was what I wrote something people can connect with?

I think for me, I'm learning that knowing your audience and appealing to them is, basic as this information point is, the really most important part of writing any story. If you want to get rich and have people care about your work, go see what's trending on amazon and write a copy of that. But if you want to write a story that means something to you, ask yourself if you are really the only audience for that story? Because more often than not, that's usually the case, isn't it?

The other idea is to find like-minded writers who can support you. I feel though in this sense it's kind of like playing music to a room full of the other performers playing on the lineup with you, and maybe a few stragglers who came to the live house just for the drinks. But maybe that's okay? Maybe supporting your writing peers and getting support back from them is good enough? I think I feel the most honored when another writer looks at my work and compliments it... because they know the struggle, the late nights writing, the waiting painfully for the light bulb to turn on and the ideas to start making sense, which sometimes they never do. They know the pain of not having anybody except friends and family buy your books. But still... is it enough?

I often struggle with this question too. So, for now, the only thing I take comfort in is, you guessed it... writing. And I think I'll go do that now.

Good luck to all of you!

 

[Jonas Stark]

Congrats! Glad to see the progress.

Yay! Glad to see you moving forward with the story, despite "commercial viability".

My progress: slowly getting through WIP. Feels like pulling teeth, but my characters are still into the story, I just need to propel myself over the finish line. August 15th or bust!

Ohh, it's the eleventh hour. How's it going??

I'm 186k words into the "book", which is realistically going to be two books at this point. The pace is wild and I'm on a similar trajectory where I need to get this over the line by September 1.

Back to the writing mines!

 

[Alan L]

Man, there's a lot of cussing I'm not going to put into this post. Three months since my last update... I was working through an edit of my not-quite complete story at a pace that borders on glacial. Somewhere in there, I figured out how to end the story. Deleted my old, lame ending and dropped in something that I think is going to withstand the next edit, and called it a "substantially complete" first draft. There's going to be some changes but the basics are there.

Oddly enough both my progress partner and I had a real lull, struggling with our work from late May through June. I'm pretty sure our podcast updates from that period are painful, but we both agree having someone else to moan about it probably helped us get back on track more quickly.

I finally got the edits in a few days ago, which ranged from tweaking a word to spending a week trying to figure out how to handle seemingly benign notes like "too much exposition." [There was too much exposition because something was seriously broken and I glossed over it... turns out it wasn't a minor problem!]

Now I'm filling in some gaps, some scenes that are just outlines because I knew they had to happen but I wasn't sure exactly how they were going to go down. I have six scenes like that. Once they're written, I'll have a complete second draft. Then I'll do a final edit (which had better not take eight months) and I'll have something I'm ready to hand to a small set of beta readers before letting a professional editor tear it apart.

I'm only four years behind my original babe-in-the-woods timeline!

I've also put out a monthly newsletter more-or-less on time for five consecutive months, which frankly surprises me. In the non-writing sphere, I got my website set up so that it will email new blog posts to subscribers, thus eliminating Substack from the mix, and I made it so newsletter subscribers can access restricted content on my site (where I have the first in a series of short stories up) as an alternative to Patreon.

Summer's over, time to get some real work done.