Struggling to finish the story

[AchtungNight]

Pause and write a separate “calm down” story to try and help yourself along. When I wrote Passion Ch. 5, I needed to paused several times to reconcile various plot holes. Rekindled, Running Down a Dream, and Busy on the Creek were my calm down stories that filled in the holes.

 

[RoperTrace]

Pause and write a separate “calm down” story to try and help yourself along. When I wrote Passion Ch. 5, I needed to paused several times to reconcile various plot holes. Rekindled, Running Down a Dream, and Busy on the Creek were my calm down stories that filled in the holes.

That sounds like a great 'calm down' pause; three new stories.

 

[AchtungNight]

That sounds like a great 'calm down' pause; three new stories.

The craziest thing is they weren’t all together. And they were just the ones I wrote during the story writing process of Passion 5. Other calm down stories came before, and others came after. Each of my stories is supposed to depict a relationship and also to reconcile an emotion in me. Can I do x? What about y? Then when I’m satisfied with y, can I go back to x?

I also had to take regular breaks to focus on real life. Writing a story there, metaphorically, is important also.

If you’re having a problem with a story, put it aside and write another, is my point. Sometimes the story may need to be an unpublished one. And then, if your original story is still alive in some form, and you want to write it, go back.

 

[MargotPayge]

I'm stuck right now. So I am reading this thread with interest. I started posting stories with the idea to make myself publish something, even if it was bad because getting feedback on my bad stuff would do more than positive feedback on my stuff that I already liked. (How's that for a horrible sentence?)

But now I've gone over a week without publishing anything and feel like I am letting myself down. My goal is one 5000-word story every week. It seemed ambitious but doable. I've never written stories that long before.

Maybe my premise was wrong. I find I get better feedback in the forum, anyway. A single-star review tells me nothing. A 5-star review is good for my ego but also doesn't tell me much. And my end goal is to eventually find a way to monetize this. I know that somehow those goals are related, but require different skill sets.

1. Write well: good grammar plus good structure plus creativity - knowing when to break the rules.
2. Be reasonably prolific - making yourself write even when you don't feel like it.
3. Monetize it - knowing how and where to market your work.

I am not sure if this post is helpful to you. But sometimes I see the answer to my problems when I hear someone else describe theirs.

 

[oneagainst]

But now I've gone over a week without publishing anything and feel like I am letting myself down. My goal is one 5000-word story every week. It seemed ambitious but doable. I've never written stories that long before.

Maybe not make that a goal? Write one story you're happy with. It doesn't matter if it's 5k or once a week. Dropping 5k words a week for months at a time can be a murderous burden?