This year, in an effort to make myself write the story going wild in my head, I joined NaNoWriMo. As it sometimes happens, despite my enthusiasm and my willingness to write about 2000 words each day, I got only a little over 14,000 words written throughout November. Luck was not really on my side, although my muse was, and I found myself wanting to write and unable to. Client work, personal issues that got me into an emotional roller coaster, everything that wasn’t supposed to happen, did so.
But the truth is that although I wished to use NaNoWriMo to write 50,000 words, that was just a dream. I could tell client work will pile over me in November, but I had a different expectation – get the story started, write a nice chunck of it, see what needs tweaking in story line and characters, and then keep on going. I did keep on going, although at a slow rate, but I managed to create a habit that will get me to the end of my novel. Read more…
Most writers I know, of which I know myself best, are still occasionally or permanently haunted by the myth of the “Published Book”. We sometimes tend not to see ourselves as “real” writers and instead give us names such as “wannabe” writer unless we have published a book. And it’s often not any book, but the book, the one we picture ourselves selling into thousands of copies. And if we’re really dreamy, also see ourselves signing the book deal. With a certain pen, not a cheap one, one that is precious to us. We type a lot, but we still fantasize about the touch of the pen on the paper when we sing those deals, the first one for the book, the second one for the movie.
Why we fear to call ourselves writers escapes me. Maybe we think that once we do so, we need to live up to the name of our profession. And I believe we are not really sure how to achieve that. What we get from not considering ourselves “real” writers? We look down on ourselves, we drop books because we believe them not to be very good, we see this part of what we are as a hobby, a pass-time and not the real deal. Read more…
The worst thing a wannabe writer can do is to keep changing the story. I have been doing that for a while. I kept twisting and turning Alexa’s life around as mine did and never could get to a point where the novel was as I liked it. A few weeks ago, I got a smashing idea and weeks later I still believe it is doable. Therefor I decided to lock this storyline and keep writing, no more changes. I have to believe in it first, so that other people can believe in it later, when it’s written.
The story will have three parts. Depending on how it develops, it will be three different books or a novel with three parts… For now, the general idea is that there will be three separate books. And I will start writing right in the middle! There is a Romanian saying about starting in the middle and a comparison with hens that are in the habit to jump in the middle of any pile of anything, from food to dirt, but I will ignore it for now.
So here is the main sketch I’m working on: Read more…
There are stories we take pleasure in sharing and there are those topics that we have to cover every day, write on a schedule that’s tight, demanding and sometimes repetitive. A lot of people, myself included, believe that the passion and interest of a writer for the topic they write about is paramount in what quality of the finished piece is concerned. If you find the subject dull, not the least bit interesting and just a burden, it’s extremely hard to convey a different feeling to your readers.
No matter how much a topic attracts you, routine, similarity of stories and your own lack of passion for your work are bound to eat at your initial writing pleasure. What can we do to keep our passion’s light burning and give our best in every story? Here are a few ideas:
Concentrate on the stories that most inspire you
Having to stick to a topic is in itself a limit. But all topics come with different angles, new developing stories, funny events etc. No one is stopping you from choosing to write about what inspires you. Read more…
One of the major setbacks I’ve encountered in completing a novel was not the time, nor the right story to tell, but making sure the story keeps up with how I think and how I see life and what’s going on around me. I have started numerous stories that people actually liked a lot and after reding bits and parts of them, they kept nagging me to write some more. At a certain point, I’d stop, as the words I had written were no longer connected to me. Something had changed, the story did not interest me anymore, so why should it interest others.
When it comes to fiction, it’s not as it is with non-fiction pieces, that I write regardless of a personal connection. I don’t have to be in sync with a software product (OK, my computer might need to 
) to be able to write a description, a tag line or a story about the problem it solves. Yet fiction is somehow more demanding. You have to believe in the story you’re asking others to experience.
What’s the way out of this cycle of starting and abandoning stories when life seems to be going faster than my writing?
- stick to parts of the original story and use it in a different scenario. The lore behind the characters making the stories might very well be the same, it needs no changing and can definitely be recycled
- try writing short stories instead or write extremely fast???
- start writing in calm periods of my life, which lack entirely
- get over it, it’s just self-destructing and my inner critic should definitely take a break from time to time
- value more what others (the intended readers) think about the story over my momentary whims which leads to the prior point of getting over it
Have you ever outgrown one of your stories in the maken or felt like it was no longer worth being told? How did you get back to it or did you abandon it completely and started fresh?