RL Peeves
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Why can’t I get this stupid brain of mine to finish a book? I want to be a professional author. I know my writing quality is good enough. But why can’t I finish a goddamned book?
Why can’t I get this stupid brain of mine to finish a book? I want to be a professional author. I know my writing quality is good enough. But why can’t I finish a goddamned book?
I’ve been struggling with this, too! Well, sort of. I can plan and brainstorm all day, but starting the putting words on the page part has been like pulling teeth for some reason. So I imagine finishing will also be an issue.
I can outline a five-book series, but actually writing one of them?
Lol.
Lolololololololololol.
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That is the biggest hurdle. Decided Point A and B and maybe even some major parts in between? Doable. Writing all the stuff on how you get from Point A to Point B? Not happening on my own xD
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@Raeras I’ll get going into a book-- get into almost 50k words and then my brain just goes “blurb”. And I stop. I just stop writing.
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On a different topic. I sat down to work on my game, maybe learn some ruby so I can work on some systems for said game, and my family all immediately converged on my location.
My spouse magically came home from work. The teenagers all came out of their rooms. Little brother came out of his room. Mother in law. Uncle. Everyone.
“Cobalt, why are you sounding so snappy?”
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I was TRYING to learn to code.
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@Cobalt I asked Neil Gaiman once (at a book signing, we weren’t just hanging out) his top piece of advice for aspiring writers, and it was “finish things.” He said I’d learn the most by forcing myself to get to the end.
He also once gave me a hug and told me everything would be okay, so I take Neil’s words as absolute truth.
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@Coin 500 words a day. Every day. It worked for Terry Pratchett.
Moreover, it worked for me. I finally published my first this spring.
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@Cobalt I asked Neil Gaiman once (at a book signing, we weren’t just hanging out) his top piece of advice for aspiring writers, and it was “finish things.” He said I’d learn the most by forcing myself to get to the end.
He also once gave me a hug and told me everything would be okay, so I take Neil’s words as absolute truth.
He seems like a really nice guy, yeah. And that’s what I’m having to do-- force myself to finish. x.x
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@Cobalt I asked Neil Gaiman once (at a book signing, we weren’t just hanging out) his top piece of advice for aspiring writers, and it was “finish things.” He said I’d learn the most by forcing myself to get to the end.
He also once gave me a hug and told me everything would be okay, so I take Neil’s words as absolute truth.
His masterclass was way more inspiring than I expected it to be even as a fan! Definitely recommend.
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@Floof I loved his masterclass. But I love everything he’s ever done.
R. L. Stein’s is also accidentally hilarious? A+, do recommend.
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@Raeras I’ll get going into a book-- get into almost 50k words and then my brain just goes “blurb”. And I stop. I just stop writing.
I call it the 40K Wall, because that’s where mine always hits. The first 40K come so easy, but right then, every time, I stall.
I HAVE managed to get past it - have several finished novels now, but absolutely no luck getting any agents to bite on them. But that mid-book wall is no joke.
For what it’s worth, what does work for me is to just…write badly. Push on through, force yourself not to edit or second-guess and when you look at something and say ‘this is nonsense’ just go ‘okay, so it’s nonsense’ and keep writing. Eventually, you grind through the hard part and things get easier.
You can always go back and revise the bad stuff, but you can’t edit words you haven’t written.
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@Pyrephox If you ever decide to go into self-publishing, check out Draft2Digital’s services.
Sometimes, it’s not about the manuscript, after all. I gave up on getting published in my native language because there simply isn’t enough of a market for magical realism historical fiction in my minority language. I got tired of rejections that basically read, ‘we’ll take it if you add a sex plot’.
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@Raeras I’ll get going into a book-- get into almost 50k words and then my brain just goes “blurb”. And I stop. I just stop writing.
I call it the 40K Wall, because that’s where mine always hits. The first 40K come so easy, but right then, every time, I stall.
I’m at about the 20k mark on my current project. My faerie project is at the 40k and I just nngggh it feels like a huge amount of words for nothing of important happening.
I’m writing out WWO to see how that goes.
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On a different topic. I sat down to work on my game, maybe learn some ruby so I can work on some systems for said game, and my family all immediately converged on my location.
My spouse magically came home from work. The teenagers all came out of their rooms. Little brother came out of his room. Mother in law. Uncle. Everyone.
“Cobalt, why are you sounding so snappy?”
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I was TRYING to learn to code.
I feel this very strongly. For whatever reason people in my house know when I’m about to start really hitting my stride and that’s when it’s the most important time to converge.
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@somasatori For real! They were all on the living room watching TV so I figured I could sit at my laptop in the living room… nope. It’s like I shown the at signal.
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@Raeras I’ll get going into a book-- get into almost 50k words and then my brain just goes “blurb”. And I stop. I just stop writing.
I call it the 40K Wall, because that’s where mine always hits. The first 40K come so easy, but right then, every time, I stall.
I’m at about the 20k mark on my current project. My faerie project is at the 40k and I just nngggh it feels like a huge amount of words for nothing of important happening.
I’m writing out WWO to see how that goes.
Good luck!
I have (knock on fake wood) broken out of my stall on my latest project and am in the ‘staying up far too late writing’ stage. It does break, eventually.
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My RL peeve is my brain weasels insisting I must have done something wrong to X, Y, and/or Z, because things seem different compared to about three months ago. I’m positive I didn’t say or do anything, but my brain is insisting SOMETHING IS WRONG, OMG even though there might be nothing wrong, and I’m trying to resist the urge to directly confront the matter in case it’s really nothing on my end.
faceplant
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Grumpy old guy called being Trans a mental illness.
I don’t want to quit. But I sure af don’t want to be around him ever again.
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@junipersky Ugh, I’m sorry.
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@junipersky said in RL Peeves:
Grumpy old guy called being Trans a mental illness.
I don’t want to quit. But I sure af don’t want to be around him ever again.
Working with the kitties seems to make you happy, so…
Have you considered strongly suggesting he eat an entire bag of shit every time he opens his mouth instead? I mean, definitely do what’s best for you. Like 100% do that. But even Emily Post wouldn’t expect you to be sweet and friendly to a trash can.
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