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Who Are The Writers?

My writing is so amazing that sometimes I just can't help but a get a hard-on after reading over one of my stories, of course passing out then due to sheer amazement. Of course, I don't plan on putting anything I have worked on on a website. Which is a shame, since I'm sure anyone who cares for their work won't do so, either. But yes, back to me. I'm amazing. Etc.
 
Me too...

Yeah, I write. Sci-Fi and Dark. And like most, I lament that I don't do enough of it.
Writing now fills in the cracks in my life that are taken up by the 'good and proper' things like the kids and wife, WORK(boo) and of course sleep (always the last on the list).

If asked if I'm any good, I will usually say that I like what I write. I guess that's a bit of a cop-out but I suppose that's better than being a frustrated writer.
I've tried colaboration a couple of times and that was fun and I'm also enjoying publishing other people's work on my website (sci-fi-cafe.com) - that bit's fun because I think that I have a basic urge to CREATE something all the time. Creating the ebooks and physical books is loads of fun, and there's also a couple of quid in it! ;)

I often scribble ideas for short stories down on my palmtop. Some get written up, some stagnate. Others, end up as micro-stories simply to get them out of my head and onto paper. Occasionally, I'll take a micro story (just a glimpse of a situation or the essence of an idea) and try to make a story out of it.

Sometimes writing is a good way to vent 'the unwanted' - If I'm feeling in a foul mood, I can just take it all out on the character in the story rather than grouching at those around me

I've got 'the big novel' in the planning stage as an outline, which is good because I REALLY need an outline to remind myself where the story is going and what the characters are doing! That's almost finished and I'm looking forward to getting down to the 'colouring-in' part of writing the actual novel.
 
scificafe said:
Sometimes writing is a good way to vent 'the unwanted' - If I'm feeling in a foul mood, I can just take it all out on the character in the story rather than grouching at those around me
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I hear ya. I had started my first novel a few years back when the company I was working for was going through some financial problems, which resulted in massive layoffs (myself included). Writing provided a nice release for my frustrations and the story definitely took a darker turn on days when I was in a foul mood (of which there were many).
 
Running out of steam

sdmckee said:
But so far my second novel has been more perspiration than inspiration. It started well enough, but it's now been two years and I've still got another 100 pages or so before the finish line.
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Unless you're writing a 150 page book I'm afraid it sounds as if you have a problem here. You should be able to whip through the last part of a book as the adrenaline gets going and you race to the finish, I'm not that fast a writer but I average 1500 - 2500 words a day when I'm near the end. If you can't get the pace up you might well have a deep seated reservation about the way the book is going which you haven't admitted to yourself yet.

It's the hardest thing in the world to admit that your work is going in the wrong direction, I know, I've been there, but I also know, from experience, that simply ploughing on means you end up with an inferior book. The last time I did that the book was rejected after three acceptances from the same editor in under two years.

Put the book aside for a while, read stuff which is completely different, then start reading the manuscript with an open mind. No pens, no paper, no notes, just as if you're a reader trying out a book. If there's a plot problem/lacunae/charecter who doesn't fit in/weak writing or any combination of those they should leap out at you and you can start working out what you've got to do. Sometimes it means starting all over again which is a real b***** but in its own way can be satisfying.
 
France said:
Unless you're writing a 150 page book I'm afraid it sounds as if you have a problem here.
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Yeah, that may be true in part. I've got a friend who's been going through what I've written so far and is going to give me detailed feedback on what he thinks of the story (he was very helpful with the first book). But as I've been thinking about this lately, I'm feeling that most of my issue has to do with the poor sales of my first novel. It received positive reviews and those who bought it said they really enjoyed it (which was nice to hear, of course), but marketing the thing has been a real bugger. Part of me feels that when I have free time, I should be promoting the first book, not writing a new one. And I think there's also a bit of reluctance to finish the sequel knowing that the first one was something of a (sales) flop.

I just need to get back into it and enjoy writing for the positive experience it provides without worrying so much about these other issues. And when this book is done, I'll take a break from the series and work on some other stand-alone ideas that I'm excited to get to.
 
sdmckee said:
I'm feeling that most of my issue has to do with the poor sales of my first novel.
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Will you forgive me if I say that to me this sounds like you are deceiving yourself and looking for excuses? (I know, been there, done that.) I have no idea how long your publishing house took to edit, proof and get your book on the market but unless you're writing a massive blockbuster it should have been enough to have the book practically finished, if it was going well, long before you realised that there were problems with the marketing.

Sorry if that causes offence!

BTW, you have registered for Public Lending Right haven't you? It may not mean much to the bestselling authors but to those of us further down the reading chain it brings in a very useful sum!
 
No offense taken. I understand what you're saying but I don't believe I'm deceiving myself. It took a while to figure out where my main hang-ups where coming from (i.e., why I was hitting one long stretch of writer's block after another). You just have to understand my personality. I tend to be a perfectionist in everything I do (which lends itself well in my computer programming career) so when things don't go well, I stress/obsess about them. Promoting the first book has been what at times has felt like a fulltime job, and it started long before the book arrived on store shelves.

I began writing my second book shortly after signing the contract for the first one, partly because I was on an emotional high at that point, but I also wanted to flesh out certain parts of the story before the first novel was fully edited, just in case I needed to tweak something in the first novel that would help make the second book better. Anyway, that went fine and I worked on book 2 off and on during the editing process--when I had the manuscript in my hands, I was fully consumed with editing, whereas I could relax a little and work on the other book while my editor was going over revisions. The editing took about 4 months, with another month to produce the cover art (which I designed myself), galley proof, and website (which I programmed myself and had a lot of fun creating).

The book then entered pre-production and took 3 months to be released to bookstores. And during that time I did a little bit of writing on book two, but most of my attention was spent trying to promote the first book (lining up book signings, finding reviewers, interviewers, placing advertisements, and so on). The publisher was as new to all of this as I was, so it was a big learning experience.

The signings started a few weeks before the book's release and didn't go very well, in terms of sales (though I did get to meet some interesting people, but that's another story). I tried to stay upbeat and pushed on, but my motivation started to tank and things just sort of went downhill from there. I was also swamped with work at the time, putting in 60-80 hours a week on top of all the book promotion efforts and it eventually exhausted me.

It took a while to get back to writing and I was only doing a few pages a week. But things are going better now. Work's back down to 40 hours a week. I've got free time, and I'm more in the mood to write. So I'm looking forward to finishing off this novel in the near future.

Sorry for the long post, and I hope nobody took this as some sort of plea for pity. That wasn't my intent. I was more or less just jumping in and sharing my experience, for what it's worth.

Carry on.
 
France said:
BTW, you have registered for Public Lending Right haven't you?
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Actually, no. This was the first I'd heard of that. Thanks for mentioning it. I'll look into it, although a quick search suggests that the United States doesn't have such a thing. Is that correct?
 
sdmckee said:
Promoting the first book has been what at times has felt like a fulltime job, and it started long before the book arrived on store shelves.
I know what you mean, SDM. My novel came out in Oct and it seems I got little chance to write the first couple of months. And promotion hasn't started in earnest, although my publisher has promoted at two cons and I've done a couple of lackluster signings. But don't lose heart. From what I've heard, it takes a while to get the steam up. I'll be starting a more rigorous attempt, now that the holidays are over, with "local author" signings at libraries, a writing conference and then a writers convention.

I've found that some of the most disappointing turns in my journey have turned out to be pivotal points because I've met the right contact, etc.
Maybe I should change that old saw to: "It's not who you know, it's who you might meet." So I'll keep plugging and looking for that elusive "overnight success."

JohnB
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George Oliver said:
I think it's fifty per cent inspiration and fifty per cent perspiration.
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I think the percentages are off. I think it is more along the lines of 25% inspiration and 75 % perspiration.

Ideas and plot devices aren't particularily difficult to conjure. Themes are easy to think of in relation to a set of characters and events. The execution and polish is the difficulty.

Most of the people on this forum are well read. I think almost all of them could sit down and within a few hours create a foundation of characters, central theme and key plot points and events that could form the backdrop of a successful novel or screen play. From there if you write one page a day you will have written a novel within a year. One page a day is easily achieved. Making that one page part of an interesting and cohesive whole, with good dialogue, emotion andexploration of ideas is really, really hard.

For me, first drafts are easy but they tend to come out too long and the dialogue feels too intentional and forced. The perspiration is in making events seem inevitable, characters true to their background, and making sure that the dialogue and conversation sound real (even though, in my medium of film and television, characters can't speak like people do in real life because it is awful to watch and listen to).
 
Secret ambition

I am a publicist by day and a dreamer by night. I don't have the time right now to finish anything I have started but I have half of a novel written, one short story that I submitted but which was rejected because the idea wasn't original enough (Supposedly the writing was really good, I'll post it. Don't be too harsh!), another 3-4 mostly written short stories as well as one story that has the beginning written but I didn't know where to go with.

I do a lot of creative writing practically everyday because of my job. It's emails but I have to tell a story to get people interested. Everyone has slight variations to the story that will interest them so I make a lot of little tweaks depending on my audience. I like to think I'm pretty good at that part of writing because I get results for my authors.

Would I like to publish a book? Yes. Am I going to try anytime soon? No. I know enough about the industry to accept the fact that I have to finish other projects in my life before I can undertake the task of pursuing an agent and publisher. I know many people on these boards don't agree but in my mind, self-publishing (read subsidy and POD as well) is the last resort.

-Sabrina
 
Writer here. Definitely strongest in poetry, and would classify myself as pretty good in that style of writing.

Have TONS and TONS of ideas in my head for short stories and even a novel, just haven't found my style to write 'em out.
 
Back in 2002, I couldn't decide what I liked to do more - writing or editing books, so I decided to do both. This is how Adventure Books of Seattle came together.

I convinced Geoff Nelder from Great Britain to jump on board, and then Gayla Prociv, who already owned another business. She now handles mail orders and bookkeeping for AB. Christine Cartwright from Digitell Art sometimes advises on cover art. Our techie guy is Greg Page from Microsoft.

So far, I've written three novels ('Say Goodbye To The Sun', 'The 13th Day of Christmas', and 'The Corona Incident'.) Geoff Nelder and I split duties on 'Dimensions'.

I re-edited 'Robinson Crusoe' into a new edition in 2006, but that was only because Daniel Defoe could have used an editor back in 1719.

AB has a few other titles out there now, all very good I think. After 4 years, we have only published 11 books, so I suppose we're a little picky. Our main goal is quality.

We don't do fantasy, or anything that resembles fantasy. All sci-fi must be 'hard' sci-fi in the realm of stories such as 'Red Planet', 'Gattica', '1984', 'The Core', '2010', etc.

Our office cats 'Ginger' and 'Sophie' were victims of the Menu Pet Food scandal earlier this year. Took us a while to get over that one, but we have a new Official Office Cat now.

I usually write nights and weekends, because during the day Gayla and I run another business not related to writing or books.

There are many books about writing and publishing, but I highly recommend this one:

'The Idiots' Guide To Getting Published' by Jennifer Basye Sander and Sheree Bykovsky. Foreword by crime writer Ann Rule. This book is now in its fifth or sixth edition...and for good reason.
 
I try to write. My writing has appeared in some small magazines, community books, and academic contexts, but nothing major. Like many others here time keeps dwindling away while my brain rushes with neuronic flurry. I have dozens of ideas not yet codified in any comprehensible way. Occasionally I'll get enough gumption to put together something small for my blog, but I don't consider that real writing - a typical entry involves less than an hour's work. So I continue to float and hope the wind of my disposition flows in the right direction. Someday. Maybe.
 
I've written hosts of poems and short stories and have a few novel starts hanging around on my hard drive. I'm also currently writing my autobiography.

I've only been published once and that was a poem in a HS magazine but mostly it's because I haven't put myself out there.

I think I'm a pretty good writer and everyone else thinks I'm a very good - great writer.
 
Hey, I'm new and found this jewel of a thread :) anyways, I came here to say that I'm working on a novel. I think I'm a very good writer but my friends say different they think I'm the next big thing to happen to the world of novels (Personally I would never think that I'm nowhere near as good as some guys) My teacher at my Highschool runsa writer's craft program so I printed off a manuscript and gave it to him and so far he's impressed and I'm glad.
 
Well, I'm new in here, so I thought I'd throw my penny in. My first novel was published last year (a sci-fi), the second is being published in December (a dark thriller) and I'm about 70,000 words into the third (another sci-fi). My website has further details - rodglenn.com.

To pick up on what someone said earlier in the thread, promotion IS a full time job. Unfortunately in this day and age every author has to do a lot of promotion themselves. Obviously the best sellers get a lot of additional back up, but everyone else has to graft at it - websites, networking, book-signings, reviews, adverts, bookmarks. Basically all the time you're awake and no matter what you're doing you should always be thinking of ways to promote.

I have a full time business development job, as well as the writing and running the occassional creative writing class, so time is scarce, but I basically try to promote the books at every given opportunity.
 
I've been writing fiction for about seven years. I've done my time on the short story circuit, but for the past four years my main focus has been my debut novel. I am glad to say that I've connected with a California-based independent publisher and the book in question will be released in early 2008. Stylewise it falls somewhere between dark humor and social satire.

I can say it took me plenty of time and patience to get this far. First of all, English is my second language. I don't know how many of you have ever attempted to write a book that way. Hell, it's like writing a love letter with a dictionary.

Second, it is hard to do certain things overseas. For example, most US-based literary agents still prefer traditional mail. Therefore shipping a 350-page manuscript halfway across the world is a considerable expense.

"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere." -Frank A. Clark
 
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