Writing Weaknesses
One of the things I've been struggling with for a while now is how to keep the momentum going on stories that go over the 10,000 word mark. This is a real issue for me, as the stories I want to tell most are novel-length inside my head, but I can think them up so much faster than I can write them down, and once I've resolved the tension in the planning stage, it's hard to keep slogging away at the writing.
I'm wondering how the rest of you keep going when the first blush of passion wears off? Do you have a group of readers you send updates to? Do you make yourself keep writing a certain number of words, until you get past the slump? Do you have secret method for keeping your plots fresh?
I currently have 3 SGA stories sitting between 15,000 and 20,000 words, and I've been picking away at them for months. Thanks to the writers' retreat over the weekend, I'm now within spitting distance of finishing one. There's going to be a lot of re-writes, so being near the finish line is a mixed blessing, but it's still a huge relief to be so close!
Now that I am so close, it's suddenly made me realise that I'm going to miss having this story in my life, even if it has been a monster to finish. It makes me wonder if part of the problem with finishing is actually a reluctance to let go of these longer works.
It's also made me wonder what it's going to be like to put these longer stories out into the world. I've lived with these epics all year, privately: thinking about them, adding to them, editing them. They seem so real to me, much more so than the short stories I've published. And yet no one else really knows that much about them.
Writing is such a solitary pursuit a lot of the time, I've always been aware of that, but these long works have a whole different feel and flow to them than shorter pieces. I really don't think I've successfully come to grips with the differences yet.
Tell me what it's been like for you, when you've worked for a long time on a single piece. Has it been hard to keep going? Was it difficult to post it? Did you miss it once it was done?
Talk to me.
I'm wondering how the rest of you keep going when the first blush of passion wears off? Do you have a group of readers you send updates to? Do you make yourself keep writing a certain number of words, until you get past the slump? Do you have secret method for keeping your plots fresh?
I currently have 3 SGA stories sitting between 15,000 and 20,000 words, and I've been picking away at them for months. Thanks to the writers' retreat over the weekend, I'm now within spitting distance of finishing one. There's going to be a lot of re-writes, so being near the finish line is a mixed blessing, but it's still a huge relief to be so close!
Now that I am so close, it's suddenly made me realise that I'm going to miss having this story in my life, even if it has been a monster to finish. It makes me wonder if part of the problem with finishing is actually a reluctance to let go of these longer works.
It's also made me wonder what it's going to be like to put these longer stories out into the world. I've lived with these epics all year, privately: thinking about them, adding to them, editing them. They seem so real to me, much more so than the short stories I've published. And yet no one else really knows that much about them.
Writing is such a solitary pursuit a lot of the time, I've always been aware of that, but these long works have a whole different feel and flow to them than shorter pieces. I really don't think I've successfully come to grips with the differences yet.
Tell me what it's been like for you, when you've worked for a long time on a single piece. Has it been hard to keep going? Was it difficult to post it? Did you miss it once it was done?
Talk to me.