I only joined here recently (like... yesterday). I've just turned 13 and I'm on word 18,000 (exactly actually :/) of my novel. The one thing that is worrying me, is that I read the 101 tips for writers and realised that I haven't actually done any of that 'stuff'. I haven't got a certain place where I write, I write wherever I can, be it on the train, on the plane, at my mums house, dad's house, sisters house or even in the garden. Since I move around so much I can't exactly have one, especially since I usually get fresh ideas from fresh new places.
Also, I never exactly 'planned' it. Of course I know what's going to happen at the end, and the main features of the story, but there is a lot of blank space where I haven't filled in. I haven't even written down my ideas for the main plot, so there is every chance that I'll forget them.
It's just that whenever I'm in a composition exam, and I write a plan, I never stick to it, and therefore always get tangled up with my own line, desperately trying to stay on the plot, and when there's ten minutes left, realising that none of it makes sense because I've tried so hard to stick to what I wrote down in the first place that I've forgotten to actually make the story interesting.
That probably shouldn't stop me from writing down a plan for my novel though, I realise that. But it's just starting to worry me now... I've spent so much time and effort on it, and for all that to go to waste just because I haven't sorted the basic storyline out seems really failworthy to me.I also want it to get published one day, but like that's ever going to happen...
So I was wondering if anyone had any advice on this... Are there some things that are essential to novel writing? Should you set yourself a target of x amount of words each day? If so, how many? How many do you have if you do?
Sorry, so many questions and probably not many people having the time to answer them.
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