Anyone tried to write a novel?

[SaltwaterServr]

I am 9 1/2 chapters into my first novel. I churned out the first 9 chapters in about 3 months....that was about 6 months ago. I have a horrible case of writer's block and haven't been able to dig my way out of it.

Wish I had some pointers for you, but it is hard! :laugh2:

One thing I would say is limit what you read re: how other authors do it. I picked up and read every book I could find on the subject and it's all I can think about now when I'm writing. (Although, if I were to recommend one, it would be Stephen King's On Writing. Even if you're NOT writing a novel it is an awesome read!)

Also, just write. Do NOT revise until the novel is complete. That is another thing that has bogged me down.

Best of luck to you! (and me! : )

You're light years ahead of me then, I'm still outlining the first Act. I was working on notes tonight for a fire fight and someone asked me how far I was on my novel. I said I'm going to swim the English Channel, and I've just taken my first swimming lesson with the arm floaties.

 

[Kangaroo]

No thank you ! I am in no way shape or form have been able to write awe inspiring elegant sentences with hidden meaning in them. Using color references and using words in a flowing manner to describe a story in detail that did not bore people to death.

I think i will pass and just stick to reading other peoples stuff.

:beer2:

 

[LilTexan]

You're light years ahead of me then, I'm still outlining the first Act. I was working on notes tonight for a fire fight and someone asked me how far I was on my novel. I said I'm going to swim the English Channel, and I've just taken my first swimming lesson with the arm floaties.

:laugh2:
You know what, though? All of your careful outlining will probably be a very nice and continual springboard when you actually start writing. You likely won't run into the problem I have.

I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda girl, so I did a minimal amount of planning before I began. I don't have anything but a very bare bones outline to fall back on when I get blocked.

IOW.....I'd not be at all surprised if you finished your novel long before I finished mine. :

 

[kristie]

I tried to write a romance novel once and the main character, Bob Sacamano, couldn't get laid so I had to give up on it.

 

[CliffnDallas]

I did an out line for a Star trek novel several years ago. I always wanted to put something as an aside in the story like Texas playing Star Fleet Academy in the Cotton Bowl.

Yes, they still have football in the 23rd Century.

 

[kristie]

I did an out line for a Star trek novel several years ago. I always wanted to put something as an aside in the story like Texas playing Star Fleet Academy in the Cotton Bowl.

Yes, they still have football in the 23rd Century.

that's cool.

 

[SaltwaterServr]

:laugh2:
You know what, though? All of your careful outlining will probably be a very nice and continual springboard when you actually start writing. You likely won't run into the problem I have.

I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda girl, so I did a minimal amount of planning before I began. I don't have anything but a very bare bones outline to fall back on when I get blocked.

IOW.....I'd not be at all surprised if you finished your novel long before I finished mine. :

Well, my monitor decided to fry tonight so I'm taking a break for a few days. And yesterday my Blackberry ended up swimming in some iced tea, so there's a pair of new purchases I hadn't anticipated. :bang2:

I might just sit down an outline everything again without looking at my notes. I know I changed a few things already to make a better story. My military consultant pointed out a few flaws in my assault on a village, so that needed to be modified which required modification of some other stuff before it.

Now I have to work on how my nukes are stolen, smuggled, and ultimately lost. How the Russians work their search for it also, and then the American response. Then there is an issue with defoliating a few million acres of opium poppies, restructuring the Taliban's operational infrastructure, a few raids on Taliban caves/positions to gather intelligence (when you want something really distasteful done, have the Russians do it for you), and the White House involvement, a new airbase to be built, blah, blah blah.

At least I got my smuggling method for getting heroin into the US worked out. Pretty dang sneaky too.

 

[arglebargle]

As a former professional proofreader, I have gotten to know a number of writers, many of them published commercially. Some even support themselves with it!

Pretty much the most important advice they all seem to agree on is...if you want to be a writer, you must write. Alot. A considerable number of them support the idea that you should write in an organized way, ie, X number of hours a day, or X number of words a day. As one put it, "When you start out, it will be crap, but when you get good, you will be used to putting out X volume."

Different things work for different authors, so you have to try different approaches and see what works well for you.

It does sound like you have a pretty good headstart so far. Getting it into words is the big thing. There are gazillions of great stories locked up in people's heads. And some pretty terrible ones too.....

This site has a fairly broad set of information about writing and the writing business.

http://www.aaronallston.com/factpages/faqwritn.html

 

[SaltwaterServr]

As a former professional proofreader, I have gotten to know a number of writers, many of them published commercially. Some even support themselves with it!

Pretty much the most important advice they all seem to agree on is...if you want to be a writer, you must write. Alot. A considerable number of them support the idea that you should write in an organized way, ie, X number of hours a day, or X number of words a day. As one put it, "When you start out, it will be crap, but when you get good, you will be used to putting out X volume."

Different things work for different authors, so you have to try different approaches and see what works well for you.

It does sound like you have a pretty good headstart so far. Getting it into words is the big thing. There are gazillions of great stories locked up in people's heads. And some pretty terrible ones too.....

This site has a fairly broad set of information about writing and the writing business.

http://www.aaronallston.com/factpages/faqwritn.html

Thanks for the link! That made me feel somewhat more secure in this process especially considering how the author of that FAQ list approaches idea integrations is very much how I've been doing it. I have a short list of inspirations for this novel, and a lot of them came out of somebody mentioning something and I "daydreamed" on it for awhile.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

Its a fantasy genre tale about dragons set in contemporary times.

The beginning was easy and I have the end mapped out and I have pretty solid highlights planned to connect the two, it's just a matter of getting back into the flow of writing it!

Good luck with that. It sounds very interesting.

 

[Danny White]

my advice:

[youtube]FWsGvWwUctk[/youtube]

 

[DemonBlood]

Starving screenwriter here...Wrote and still write many screenplays but have never tried creating a novel.

 

[arglebargle]

Screenwriters are really hosed right now. No one in Hollywood can even conceive of attempting a movie that is not based on some already existant property.

Buncha brain dead shoe salesmen. ... Can that. I have met some okay shoe salesmen....