"I'm going to finish my damn story!": a support thread

[StillStunned]

I'm no further with the plot decisions, but I just wrote 650 words that will get the party closer. They've found the demon's lair, and it's a bit more "normal creepy pit of doom" than I originally envisioned. That will make it easier to write a gripping encounter, I think, than if the setup is so weird that it distracts or confuses the reader.

I'd better get cracking with this if I'm to finish it by Monday. No time to write tomorrow, or Sunday evening.

 

[Erozetta]

I'd guess this is gonna end up in the 22k range by the time I'm done.

Currently there are three scenes that involve sex in some way and within those scenes are character studies.

 

[StillStunned]

I'd guess this is gonna end up in the 22k range by the time I'm done.

Currently there are three scenes that involve sex in some way and within those scenes are character studies.

 

[Erozetta]

View attachment 2590519

My characters right now.

 

[Soixenta]

I have been unable to write the final chapter of my story "Mage & Moonshadow". It began quite easily, but after two and a half thousand words it stalled. I was unable to move the story forward towards the right climax. And then life and work came along, and now I have not written anything for nearly a month.

But next week I intend to start writing again. I will join this thread then for encouragement!

 

[StillStunned]

The party find the demon!

Halting on opposite sides of the lair, the companions shared a look. Then Arivor stepped forward and called out, “Show yourself, demon! Prepare to die or flee back to the Pits!”

The words were barely out of his mouth when two points of red light appeared in the blackness. They grew, and the oppressive fear grew with them. Xunaxa found herself shrinking against the knight's back, and a handful of paces away she could hear Lurrock muttering and cursing.

An icy chill swept over them, a chill so cold it burned. The torches flared again, and a deep moan echoed around the chamber, as if a thousand tortured souls were releasing their anguish. The blackness bulged forward, the twin red lights now appearing as eyes that glowed with a hellish fire.

Suddenly a portion of the shadow tore free and stepped forward onto the floor of the cave. Eyes it already had, and a dark form took shape between the torches: arms, legs, torso, head, tail. A maw opened, and the air shimmered with a burning heat over two tongues and rows of teeth.

The demon Blackshadow had come.

 

[CalBishForNow]

Just hit Publish on the Part 12 mentioned above, and I'm 3500 words into Part 13, and I have an outline I'm happy with for the rest of the series, and more confident of than I was of the previous one. Yay.

I'm only a tiny bit worried about finishing Part 13 by the deadline I've set for myself. I'm more worried about doing that and also finishing the Valentine's Day story I'm thinking about doing after it. And if I manage both of those, I assume I'll have to worry about burning myself out again.

 

[old_prof]

Just hit publish on my NYE party story. It's not perfect, far from it, but it's close to as good as my current skill can take it. Maybe I will look at rewriting it in a year or something.

 

[StillStunned]

The party find the demon!

I should perhaps add that this comes at the end of the 1235 words I've written today. No time to write tomorrow, but I'll try and plot out how I want the confrontation to go so I can write it on Sunday when the wife is out.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Okay! I'm gonna do it! I'm going to put my fingers to the keys, with the document open, and actually write! I can do this! Right?

 

[ADirtyPerv]

I have a submission for Valentine's, though it wasn't intended as such when I wrote it. But I think I need a revision phase to make it really good, and work is killing me. Late night revision party let's gooo!

I just hit publish on this shit. It's one of those ones where you don't know how it'll be received. I like it, though, and I think that's all I care about.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Okay! I'm gonna do it! I'm going to put my fingers to the keys, with the document open, and actually write! I can do this! Right?

I managed 219 words last night.

 

[Statius]

I managed 219 words last night.

Sounds like me progress

 

[stickygirl]

I think I've found a trick to get past my writing log-jams. In the past I've stuck rigidly to writing in chronological order - certainly I go back to edit and refine, but I'd never leap-frogged to a future scene. It seems obvious now, but I've now realised I am 'allowed' to jump, after watching an interview of an author in which he mentioned jumping ahead to scenes too. I felt a bit guilty when I first did it - it felt like cheating!

I'm in the middle of writing a very long tale and one future scene has been in my head, eating up brain space. I've now written a first draft, so I'm free to write the 'infill' scenes .

tldr - Rules, especially you're own, imaginary ones, are there to be broken.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I had a dream two nights ago, which I wrote up to describe to someone. It's now turned into the start of a story with a completely new character, and I have absolutely no idea where it's going to go. This is the bit I love about writing, the discovery!

 

[old_prof]

I think I've found a trick to get past my writing log-jams. In the past I've stuck rigidly to writing in chronological order - certainly I go back to edit and refine, but I'd never leap-frogged to a future scene. It seems obvious now, but I've now realised I am 'allowed' to jump, after watching an interview of an author in which he mentioned jumping ahead to scenes too. I felt a bit guilty when I first did it - it felt like cheating!

I'm in the middle of writing a very long tale and one future scene has been in my head, eating up brain space. I've now written a first draft, so I'm free to write the 'infill' scenes .

tldr - Rules, especially you're own, imaginary ones, are there to be broken.

I haven't written out of order yet in general, but I have taken to skipping scenes that I don't know how to/want to write at the moment. I leave a very short description like sex scene, maybe adding a particular activity (I skipped one as sex scene with spanking) and add notes about what the take away for the scene is, plot-wise. And no it's not just sex-scene. I have a Q&A scene and a trial scene to write in my SciFi novel in progress. The rest of the draft is done.

 

[stickygirl]

I haven't written out of order yet in general, but I have taken to skipping scenes that I don't know how to/want to write at the moment. I leave a very short description like sex scene, maybe adding a particular activity (I skipped one as sex scene with spanking) and add notes about what the take away for the scene is, plot-wise. And no it's not just sex-scene. I have a Q&A scene and a trial scene to write in my SciFi novel in progress. The rest of the draft is done.

Fair enoughs. Another trick I now employ is to write a short sentence to describe what is going to happen NEXT when you've put your pen down at the end of a day.

There's plenty of advice to authors to write something everyday, but that could simply be jotted notes. I don't find compelling myself to compose each day is helpful.... plus I object to having me stand over myself giving orders.

 

[old_prof]

Fair enoughs. Another trick I now employ is to write a short sentence to describe what is going to happen NEXT when you've put your pen down at the end of a day.

There's plenty of advice to authors to write something everyday, but that could simply be jotted notes. I don't find compelling myself to compose each day is helpful.... plus I object to having me stand over myself giving orders.

This could go in the word count thread, but I think it's important to count these meta words as part of your productivity. I does then slow down your productivity later as you replace them, but, for me, at least, if I'm replacing lots of meta-text with text, I'm feeling good about my progress anyway.

 

[crookedletter]

There's plenty of advice to authors to write something everyday, but that could simply be jotted notes. I don't find compelling myself to compose each day is helpful.... plus I object to having me stand over myself giving orders.

This is where a weekly page goal works for me. The goal I have is easily attainable if I write every day, or at least Monday-Thursday (weekends come with variable routines/free time, and Fridays are a non-starter for getting myself to write). But then if I want to give myself a day or two off, that's fine, I'm allowed, but then I have to pick up the slack on other days.

 

[stickygirl]

This is where a weekly page goal works for me. The goal I have is easily attainable if I write every day, or at least Monday-Thursday (weekends come with variable routines/free time, and Fridays are a non-starter for getting myself to write). But then if I want to give myself a day or two off, that's fine, I'm allowed, but then I have to pick up the slack on other days.

Interesting. I've only recently looked at my word count. It's not numbers I see as goals, but scenes. I have a fairly comprehensive plot worked out ( although remaining open to ideas along the way ) so in this case, I'm filling in blanks, almost like a jigsaw.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

• Chapter I - 874
• Chapter II - 1500
• Chapter III - 1057
• Chapter IV - 868
• Chapter V - 819
• Chapter VI - 939
• Chapter VII - 1063
• Chapter VIII - 1083
• Chapter IX - 1429
• Chapter X - 1528
• Chapter XI - 1321
• Chapter XII - 1074
• Chapter XIII - 0
• Chapter XIV - 0
• Chapter XV - 0
• Chapter XVI - 0
• Chapter XVII - 0
• Chapter XVIII - 0
• Chapter XIX - 0
• Chapter XX - 0

The thing that's getting out of hand is that I want to write less than 750 words as a minimum, but at the same time, I somehow managed to pick it up without dragging the story down.

Still my writing speed improved. Lately I'm doing between 850 and 1100 words in 30 minutes. Last week I wrote 1303 on Friday in 30 minutes, so...

I may do a coulpe more chapters tonight if I'm in the mood for it. I have other stuff to attend.

 

[Statius]

I think I've found a trick to get past my writing log-jams. In the past I've stuck rigidly to writing in chronological order - certainly I go back to edit and refine, but I'd never leap-frogged to a future scene. It seems obvious now, but I've now realised I am 'allowed' to jump, after watching an interview of an author in which he mentioned jumping ahead to scenes too. I felt a bit guilty when I first did it - it felt like cheating!

I'm in the middle of writing a very long tale and one future scene has been in my head, eating up brain space. I've now written a first draft, so I'm free to write the 'infill' scenes .

tldr - Rules, especially you're own, imaginary ones, are there to be broken.

I have done this. My current rewrite has 4 chapters completed even if the beginning isn't complete and I'm not quite sure where they fit yet, including the last chapter and epilogue. I have found it can help guide you along for earlier chapters, since you have very specific writing targets to reach, as long as you're willing to rewrite sections of them as your story changes. Good luck!

 

[NuclearFairy]

I managed 219 words last night.

I got out 226 words tonight. I'm slowly gaining steam on this thing.

 

[anthrodisiac]

It's crazy how the more I write, the longer this thing gets.

Wait...

At least I'm in the last stretch. I thought maybe I'd get it finished tonight but the strip tease took up more real estate than I intended. Which is good, because it was originally supposed to be bad strip tease, rips lingerie, emotional meltdown. And now it's bad strip tease, boyfriend encourages, actually decent strip tease, rips lingerie, emotional meltdown. Builds the tension a lot better now. It went from, "Oh, she doesn't have this," to "Oh, maybe she has- uh-oh."

I also just realized I've never written a rom-com before, and THAT'S why it's felt so weird.

But 3k today, almost at 18.5k. RD final is probably looking to be around 22.5k, final draft, a lot less. Maybe 16k, 17k. There's a lot of repetition to trim from her internalization.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Still my writing speed improved. Lately I'm doing between 850 and 1100 words in 30 minutes. Last week I wrote 1303 on Friday in 30 minutes, so...

Don't you just love when that happens? I've had it happen once since I started writing again, but I used to routinely hit those numbers back in my prime. Maybe someday, I'll get back there.

Great work, keep it up!