Any other writers want to complain about writing?

I really want to work on the novel I have outlined, especially during the coming NaNoWriMo, but I have bills to pay and things to do, so I dunno how much of my own writing I can get done on top of work and my seasonal depression. I want to just give up and also really don't want to give up. I do stuff to take care of my mental health and stress that I am not getting better fast enough.

 

I had all but the ending of a novel about my favorite characters. I kept racking my brain for what comes next and recently I realized that the reason I couldn't continue is that it was actually finished. Just a bit of touch up and it's done. What a realization. I've never been here before...

 

I have been stuck with this polyamorous romantic novel I'm writing for like three years. I'm halfway there though, or at least I was, because last week I discovered the way I had designed the chapters was awfully wrong and it was making me try to squeeze more and more things in a smaller number of chapters and the result was pretty confusing... so now I kind of have to start all over T_T

@Osquary, don't give up, but always take care of yourself first. I think writing helps me cope with my own seasonal depression but I'm always worried if the things I write may be affected by that xD

 

Thank you.
I fear my depression is clear in my writing sometimes, but maybe that is not all bad.

The novel I have outlined is an asexual romance novel! I love that you are doing a poly-amorous one!

 

I’m starting nano next month for the first time in a couple of years. Also got work, hospitals & a big bjd project though.

 

I... actually just got a deal for publication two days ago. :U

But now I'm trying to do more on my new book and I can't seem to get this one chapter right but I.... can't really talk about it too much on DoA because I'm a gay erotic novelist. Heyooooo

 

I'm always ready to complain about my nonexistent writing. I haven't written anything in agesssss, though I really want to get back on the bandwagon with a sci-fi story soon. (Based on my cute little Polynian that wasn't going to have a story until my dog chewed him up and I decided he was gonna actually have a character. ) I've just been having a really difficult time getting back into the swing of things, y'know? And I have an awful time finishing things. I don't think I've ever finished anything longer than a oneshot, and I rarely finish those. (Thanks, dumb autistic [literally] brain that can't focus on anything other than special interests...) Anyway, moral of the story is that writing is hard and I am in awe of anyone that can do it consistently.

 

I am actually in a NaNo group, but they all live so far from me, so that isn't really an option. I have them on a discord server though, so I have a lot of encouragement etc through there, but unfortunately no write-ins I can go to.

 

Having people to talk to always helps.

 

I'm not certain if I qualify as a writer, or an aspiring-to-be writer. I've done a couple short stories (mostly for creative writing classes), have several fanfictions I've completed (or have turned into long, ongoing monstrosities of their own), and have some novel ideas with detailed story-lines planned out partially in my head, partially in written outlines I've jotted down in several notebooks, and some character sketches/art tie-ins (also, a good portion of my bjd crew is made up of characters for one of my original novel concepts in the works, I just need to get the proper motivation to write it).

I had to put all writing prospects off the past several semesters due to college, and now that I've graduated (as of last spring)....I'm in need of doing some mental healing. I struggle with anxiety and depression, and it puts a lot of pressure on me when writing. I'm hoping to take advantage of the upcoming nasty weather this winter to hole up and get something done—especially this one particular fanfiction for Legend of Korra that just won't let me abandon it (and I admittedly don't want to either).

I've...never attempted a NaNo. To be honest, I don't know much about them, or how to go about participating in them. I'm admittedly not the most social person, and I have so many interests—I only have so much time to look into so much. Anyone able to give me some details on how NaNo works?

 

I can at least give you a link! NaNoWriMo

Basically you write a 50,000 word novel in a month.


Edit: On topic for the thread, I have lots of little ideas but nothing fleshed out enough for a novel, at least none that I'm extremely passionate about. I was hoping to maybe do NaNo in November but at this point I think it's unlikely I do it this year.

 

Oh wow. Once again NaNo crept right up on me.

The book I was working on has been shelved all summer. Though I was happy with the rough draft and read it a few times and passed it around to some good feedback, something was bothering me. I felt as though my antihero MC would be irredeemable in the eyes of the reader after certain Very Bad Decisions were made- even though he pays for them in the end. I spent a while thinking too deeply about human nature, the question of universal morality and what makes a likeable villain, then started chopping the whole thing up into pieces. When I realized how much I’d have to cut and that there were about a dozen too many ways I could piece it back together, I became stuck and have been letting it simmer since. I have a shaky idea where I’m headed when I dive back into it, (and as a happy accident a few of my secondary characters have gained more depth and purpose than I would have thought possible, and certain generic fantasy elements have found their voice and become more tuned to the overall theme) but I now worry scaling down the wanton self-gratification will have neutered my protagonist entirely.

Tl;dr, my book will never be perfect, but it’s hard to stop working on it when I look even one hack-n-slice session previous and wonder what on earth made me think the thing was ‘almost there.’

 

You write = you are a writer.
Your writing has been published = you are a published writer.
Of course you qualify.

 

Oh, I didn't even know NaNo existed but it seems a pretty interesting challenge. I'm too bad at being consisten at writing but I'm considering trying it to focus on my Wizarding World fanfiction while I let my main novel and my own mind take a breath.

 

Openly blogging "The many word thing I have been trying to find a beta reader for is all over the stuff many of y'all have been wanting to read about."

Even just finding someone to give me feedback to let me know if a story is working. Are there any questions I should answer?

 

Thanks @Chehime but it's not a kids book. I have a social media place with lots of readers and fandoms where I can find someone with a shared interest for anything and getting feedback on fan fiction is nothing. Short answer it is being read and redlined but...

It'll all work out. Once you've chosen to be a writer you have to be prepared to go along a lonely road for a very long time.

 

I swore I would finally finish editing and get published the big fantasy novel I completed way back in 2015...last year. Come nearly the end of this year and I'm still not done editing. I've just been struggling hard to find any writing inspiration these past two years...gone is the me who could work on multiple stories simultaneously and get them all finished. I only have a few chapters left to go but somehow that just makes it seem even more difficult and daunting. =/ Doesn't help that I've kind of lost touch with a lot of my old readers, so I feel a bit demoralized, like I'm going at this alone....

Argh, didn't mean to whine so much. It's frustrating though because I'm so near the end, and I'm really proud of how I've changed the story and how much better it has become. It's such a marked improvement over the first draft (which is still available for free n the Internet) that I want people to see it! But I gotta finish it first.

 

I recently finished a book, Freedom Run, that I'd originally intended to be "a short background piece" of how Kai-Wen and Belial met. Yeah.... It's 127,046 words and it ate about 2 months of my writing time. Once I finished that, I wanted to get back to The Dire Heart, but due to the themes in Freedom Run, I needed to take a break from bdsm themes (TDH has bdsm themes but nowhere near as heavy as Freedom Run). So I started a brand new story instead of working on one of the literal dozens of WIP's I have on my HD *head desk*. The new story is a thruple mpreg.

I started the story 4 days ago (and one of those days was entirely gone to playing Starfinder) and I've still managed to bang out 15K so I'm pretty pleased with myself. But... I didn't intend for the book to be too big but because of how certain things have worked out timeline wise, it's likely going to get big and my idea of big and everybody else's idea of big is very different. I'm going to be surprised if it's only 150K. My largest completed and published novel is a tic over 366K. An average 250 page paperback novel is 70K.

waves at @ashbelEro I write erotic gay fiction as well under the name ID Locke. My previous publisher went kaboom! in a rather messy way (I'm still owed money but I'm certain I'll never see it *sigh*). I've been too lazy to start schlepping my stuff around so I've been posting things on Ao3. Some of the topics in my stories would also make publishers back away slowly and not make eye contact. But, I tell the story that wants to be told *shrugs*.

 

I don’t know if this really fits here but I write in a forum RP regularly. Lately with all the construction going on in my house and such, I haven’t been able to catch up with my writing partners. Feel like I’m letting them down, even if they probably are totally fine and just writing there other characters.

 

This is a complaint about permanence of written things. I got a nonfiction article sold to an industry publication and...the thing I'm trying to encourage people to do by writing about it, I learned some stuff and it turned out to be immediately obsolete.

Now I want to write a follow-up, but I need actual industry things to happen first, and...aaaah! I'm annoyed mostly because I literally JUST got that done, and then the whole landscape shifted.

Whyyy is writing.

 

@Chehime I'll look in to a group or two.

As for rewriting after one rejection you can do it if you want BUT the person who reject it might not be the audience you're looking for. If you feel the story is good as it is keep sending it out. How many people rejected Stephen King? There's also places like Blurb. Several of the Amazon books I've bought started there. I used a another similar publisher to sell a few crafting books awhile back.

 

I agree with @DollyKim One rejection might just mean your story isn't a good fit with that particular company. I had one company reject my first foray into publishing but the 2nd company I sent it to took it as is (there were, of course, edits to be done but it was pretty minor stuff like switching from Canadian to US spellings and a few tweaks for overall flow).

@Chehime if you feel the story needs to be told as it is, then stick to your guns and keep it as it is. Minor changes are expected but giant re-writes (unless you want to do that yourself) change the story that wanted to be told. You can self-publish, too. I'd recommend having a good grammar editor (if you haven't used one already) take a run at your novel before hitting the publish button so that you're putting out a reasonably polished piece as a self-pub.

 

Yeah, edits are work but I actually don't mind doing them. I'm probably weird that way.

 

I am writing a novel. Just finished the first draft. My complaint is that my book is told from multiple view points and there is one character whose thought processes gives me a headache. I cant change him tho cuz he is based off someone I know. This person also gives me a headache lol. So now I have to do edits. Really get in deep with this person I do not like. Oof.

 

I'm amazed of how many of you manage to get your stories published for real, that's awesome!

If I'm guilty of one thing, is never thinking my stuff would be good enough to be published. I started writing when I was 12 (I'm 26 now. Oh, god, I feel old xD) and I've never felt like I've finished something, like really finished. I guess it's just the way I am but I would love to look at one of my novels and think: 'Wow, I did a good job, it deserves being read'.
I'm somehow starting to feel different about the polyamorous novel though, not sure how I'll feel when I finally end it.

 

I've done rewrites based on casting changes. Person C gave one of my characters the life he needed around the turn of the century but now I've realized person A is a better fit. I also have to write out one offspring so the family only has a single child. Other stories have had gender changes and characters un-described so the reader can decide what they look like to enable more representation.

 

I went to community college, got a general fine arts degree, and aside from basic English classes which were discouraging to me had 2 maybe 3 days of a creative writing class but couldn't do that semester because my book money didn't come in. Although I toyed around with graphic novels and short bursts of stuff I didn't get in to writing writing until fan fiction in my late 20s. And most of that was awful in execution because I wasn't very experienced.

I generally stay away from "how to write" books, unless you have to read it for school/work, unless it's by an author I already like. I don't use any apps outside of basic spell check. Another thing to think about is garbage in-garbage out. If you aren't reading well written things, no matter what they're about, you won't have any idea what a well written thing looks like.

With the rejections are you getting any feedback about what part(s) aren't working? Is it the pacing? The prose? The characters?

 

I find it hard to stop tweaking the story. I set a limit on how many times I can do it and then need to leave it alone. An over-worked story is like over-worked dough; it becomes tough, doesn't rise like it should and is hard to swallow.

One of the rejections that I got annoyed me because it was just a flat no. I don't need a word-by-word dissertation on why it was rejected but a few sentences about why it was rejected would've been helpful.

 

Rejections are frustrating, but at least they tend to be kindly worded. The magazine that I was rejected from this time around actually provided a discount on subscriptions for submitters. Which is nice news, since I was planning on picking up a sub anyways

And I got accepted for another magazine - admittedly not a very prestigious position (paid fanzine), but it still makes me smile.

I’d like to study more seriously and possibly even pursue an MFA, but that’s difficult, since my references aren’t great. Someday!

 

It's kind of funny.... I'm a published comic artist (through a magazine that has sadly gone under...) but I much prefer writing. I studied Illustration in college, but I don't work in that either.

Currently I want to make a short story collective, but I've only written 3 stories so far... I haven't gotten past the outline for the fourth in about a year. I actually won an original writing contest held by another writer, so that was nice! But I somehow lack the energy to get back into writing on my stories. I also have several worlds and characters, but do they give me a cohesive story to write?
No.
Of course not...

 

Just write what they give you. Some of HP Lovecraft's stuff is just bits and pieces. From Beyond would be over in five minutes if they stuck to just what was written. The Lottery has only what it has.

 

You never know quite where a story will take you. Freedom Run was supposed to be a short background piece. 127K later and it's a full on novel that ties back into 2 other stories. And it prompted me to start another story with one of the characters from that (which I'm writing now). Balancing Karma spawned 3 other novels all within that one family. Writer Brain works in wild and weird ways.

And because of those stories, my doll collection has grown like an aggressive fungus. Karma started it all, really, as Moswen (one of the mains of Karma) was my first doll. I never intended to own 63 dolls but.... Thank the gods not all my characters demand resin shells or I'd be even more overrun with dolls than I currently am.

 

Oh I do write down the tidbits that they give me. At some point I'd love to write down the story from which Jolene and Valentine originate, even if vampire stories are sooooo overdone. Though nothing is forcing me to try and publish it, so I could just write it for myself!

 

Always write for yourself first and tell the story that demands to be told. If others happen to enjoy what you write, that's gravy. You'll be a lot less frustrated as a story-teller if you do that. Your wallet may not agree when it comes to having things pro-published but there's also nothing stopping you from going the self-pub route if you want to try to make some money off your writing. Self-pub takes more work as you're responsible for everything from getting it edited/polished/formatted/cover art to promoting your work where a publisher will usually handle those pesky details for you.

I'm too lazy and utterly suck at self-promotion to really give the self-pub route a fair run. I also don't feel like I'd have enough time to devote to that with all the other stuff I have commitments to. I post my stuff for free online and that, for the most part, feeds my needs to get my stuff out there into the wilds.

 

Yeah... I wouldn't really want to self publish, but I haven't decided yet. I've posted two of my short stories on Webnovel, but my genre (surreal/horror) is not exactly the thing people go for on there. But I've had a lot of positive feedback on the stories from beta readers, so that's a plus for me!

Trust me, I know the run around of self publishing. I self published ages ago a face up book, but I've pulled it at this point as the style and work method is outdated to my current one. I need to update info anyway in it, but once that is done, I'm thinking of self publishing it again. My wife's been trying to get an agent for years now for her stories. She's an amazing writer, her target group is middle grade to YA.

But yeah, I mostly started writing my short stories to get my nightmares out of my head.

 

I own books that started on Blurb and got picked up by Amazon so that form of self publishing works. Before all this internet stuff word of mouth about a good book got them sold so if you feel something is ready to share nothing is stopping you.

 

Hello! Im not sure if this belongs here, but I was wondering if any of you could recommend a free writing program? It doesnt have to be fancy, I just use one to keep track of all my doll plans, and write the occasional story about my OCs. I was using Kingsoft Office suite, but it wont download onto my new laptop. Any ideas?

 

I tend to write in chunks or scenes, so I rarely finish anything. My earlier fiction was sword and sorcery fantasy. I'm now working on modern fantasy based on my doll's characters. Its written as a series of scenes that don't really connect or follow a story. I'm good at writing people talking to each other, not compete stories.
And I'm building a world with inspiration from 5 existing ones.

 

To connect scenes you ask and then answer why are they at that location and having that conversation or doing that activity. Even if it's just a few words it's the start of something.

As for garbage books how many copies and movie adaptations of garbage can you name?

 

I was on an unplanned hiatus from this site for NaNo, but I'm back! Didn't win, but I do have another finished draft under my belt. Now for the dreaded editing...

 

I haven't written in a while again... I should fix that...

 

Same. x_x

 

I just replotted the entirety of my series, because my protagonist (who was created entirely to RP with my ex, so I did this to me) was just not working for me.

it’s a relief that I know the trajectory, but it means that my entire 132k manuscript is functionally a complete au. I like this version better but it doesn’t feel great that I put that much into something I’m not using anymore.

at least my Gf now gets that I can’t insert her/our rp into my series at all, and is cool with listening to me ramble and reading this stuff as I work on it.

I’m just exhausted and irrationally mad. /end whinging

 

All drafts and versions that are currently not in use count as rehearsals.

 

I want to maybe minor in creative writing and get some short stories published one day, 6-10k words maybe. I did well in my advanced creative writing class but haven't written anything original since.

I'm currently working on a fanfiction! It's by far the longest fic I've ever written, at nearly 12.5k words, and i have plans that could likely go on for at least 30k more. It's a crossover of my two favorite j-dramas and I'm honestly really proud of the work I've done. I've explored a genre I usually don't touch (fanfic and mystery/supernatural/detective type stuff). I've also improved a bit through revising the chapters and getting consistent feedback from people. I try to write around a chapter every two weeks.