...Is it too late to join, guys? I've got a good, doable idea for a novel (even though I've never written, or tried to write, a novel before) and I doubt I'd finish it on my own, ever.
Veni. Vidi. Vici.
People are made of places. They carry with them hints of jungles or mountains, a tropic grace or the cool eyes of sea-gazers. -EB
It's never too late!! Write write write and come here when you need encouragement or want to post about a success or have a question or anything! What's your idea? How far are you? Are you in need of a mentor?
And even though I've already written a novel, I'm joining so I finish another novel before the end of the year. Purple and I have been good buds but as we continue down the road to get published I need to breathe life into another of the many ideas spiraling around my brain. Now I just need to figure out which protagonist is going to fight the hardest to have it be their story that gets finished
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.
To everyone who's getting in on FinishThis, welcome! Let's kick this pig! I'm sorry I've been so inactive, I have a tournament to get ready for, and I am starting to realize I am way out of shape. No worries, I'm going to make time for FinishThis from now on.
Anyways, how about seven days of writing fun?
Day One: One thousand words of writing, once you're done, do some character sketches for fun! What does your character look like? Young? Old? Any scars? How do they do their hair? This will give you a better feel for your character.
Day Two: One thousand words of writing, once you're done, think of your main character's favorite meal, if you're a cook, give it a shot, if not, maybe you should go out for lunch. You might catch some ideas.
Day Three: One thousand two hundred and fifty words, once you're done, look at pictures of you main character's home town. What places has he visited? Where does he feel at home? Where is he a stranger?
Day Four: One thousand two hundred and fifty words, once you're done, find some dialog from your story, print it out, and try and act out the scene. This will give you some more ideas for how your character moves, speaks, feels, and all. It will also tell you if the dialog is boring or too wordy.
Day Five: Feel like you're building up to one thousand and five hundred words? Go for it! Once that's done, think of one of your character's short comings and how an enemy would exploit it. Is your character agoraphobic? Set his house on fire, what happens?
Day Six: You're getting good! One thousand five hundred, and as an exercise, write a journal entry from your main character's point of view. What is a typical day like for your main character? How is his life thrown out of wack by the events you throw at him?
Day Seven: Alrighty! Two thousand words! You got it! Do you realize that you have officially written nine thousand and five hundred words? It was probably hard at the start of the week, but now it's getting easier huh? For today's exercise, go back and look at what you've done. Don't expect it to be great, that's just a draft, it'll get better.
So, who's up for it? Most of this stuff was taken from Now Write!: Mysteries, please excuse the lack of actual numbers, the numbers on my keyboard are broken. I am going to try this, it's not too hard, and by the end of it you'll have nearly ten thousand words.
Review unto others as you would have others review unto you.
My days will be a bit messed up soon, so I guess I'll count a day from sleep to sleep as I'll be up late for a month :p
Just an idea for you all: if you have writer's block, why don't you write a short about your characters doing something totally unrelated to the novel instead? I did that. Then I found a *perfect* place to fit it in for later! So that's 800 words added to the novel :p
Start as soon as you see it! This is a great idea Shino! I cannot stress enough how important it is to write every single day (but take a day off like once a week or once every two weeks if you're starting to feel stressed or burnt out). If you get in the habit of writing your novel will get written before you know it. The more you put it off, the more difficult it will be to continually get back in it.
Yes it's difficult. I'm sure we all have next to a million responsiblities and things to do in a day. This last spring I had a full schedule of college classes, two work study jobs, more music rehearsals than necessary for a non-music major, and I found the time to get all of my homework done, go to church every week, have a social life, and re-write my 130,000 word novel in three months. If I could do it, you can do it. (PM me if you want any time management tips. I'll do my best to help!)
Try to resist the urge to edit right after you write or labor over every single word becauses you're just writing a draft. You're not sending this bad boy off to agents at the end of the year, you're just trying to get a draft. It doesn't have to be perfect. Get the story out there and make it outstanding later
And Shino, I love this idea because it keeps things fun. At the end of the day, if you aren't having fun writing or enjoying your characters then who else will?
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.
Thanks for the awesome advice Carlito! You are definitely right, finding the time to write can be tough, but it is also doable. If you guys can't write a ton of words for the day, then maybe just try for five hundred, or just write for five minutes, or twenty minutes.
You can do it Drak! Just do your best, if you can't hit the word count for today, finish it tomorrow or maybe adjust it to something you can do. Most importantly, get to feeling better! If you can write when it's hard, you can definitely write when it's easy. Now's a good chance to try and strengthen your will to write.
No Guinea! You don't have to edit unless you want to, I strongly suggest your forgo editing at the moment. Every time I edit, I just start tearing apart all that I've worked hard on. Congratulations on hitting the word count!
Review unto others as you would have others review unto you.
Oh... :/ I fear that not only was I too busy with other mattes, I am rather slow at writing.... I reeeealy need to catch up...
Anyway, I spent about 8 hours yesterday researching in order to attempt to write my own WriteOrDie app... The free online version is quite useless, for a single key press would save you from damnation, and it is easy to copy the text and stop whenever you want... I want to create one which would feature a complete self-destruct option for hardcore writers, prevent people from copying the text (you will not be able to retrieve it unless you finish) and be able to detect the difference between a user clicking any key to delay the countdown and them actually resuming writing...
Anyway, if I finish it, and I hope that I do, then the writing speed at least for me should increase by much... O fill share it if I will be able to do it.
Surround yourself with people who are serious about being writers, and who will tell you, ‘Hey—you can do better than this.’ Who will be critical of your work, but also supportive. And who will not be competitive in a negative way. — Isabel Quintero
