10k Words & Counting

[DaRK9]

I recently decided I was going to finish/re-write a few books I started a few years back but never finished. I sat down and tried to write and nothing came to me for a few days. Though of a plot I liked better and tried to write that.

Nothing

Then I read a blog post about writers block and it asked "When is the last time you read a book in the genre you are writing in?"

A while.

So I picked up The Dark Tower and started to read. The post totally makes sense now. Looking at everything from a writers perspective I got to notice a lot that I never did before.

Now I'm at 10,403 words and averaging 1,000 a day.

Not that many words in perspective when thinking about an entire book, but it's a tremendous jump from none.

Anyways, I will be moving soon and I'm contemplating not activating internet for a bit to see how much more I write.

Or if I just go mental, we shall see.


Does anyone else avidly read books in their category when writing?

 

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[Timbonitus]

Nice, that's a good idea for people who are suffering from writers block.

I remember when I was working on my first eBook, I didn't know how to continue, and write a new chapter. I had to just open the document and force myself to write SOMETHING and after a few hundred words, it's a piece of cake, the ideas start to flow.

I finished the book a couple weeks ago but I'm not satisfied with it and I already want to write a new book.

 

[Lex DeVille]

I recently decided I was going to finish/re-write a few books I started a few years back but never finished. I sat down and tried to write and nothing came to me for a few days. Though of a plot I liked better and tried to write that.

Nothing

Then I read a blog post about writers block and it asked "When is the last time you read a book in the genre you are writing in?"

A while.

So I picked up The Dark Tower and started to read. The post totally makes sense now. Looking at everything from a writers perspective I got to notice a lot that I never did before.

Now I'm at 10,403 words and averaging 1,000 a day.

Not that many words in perspective when thinking about an entire book, but it's a tremendous jump from none.

Anyways, I will be moving soon and I'm contemplating not activating internet for a bit to see how much more I write.

Or if I just go mental, we shall see.


Does anyone else avidly read books in their category when writing?

Yes. I'm quite certain this is the best and possibly only way to learn what your market likes to read. Otherwise you end up shooting in the dark, hoping they like what you have to offer, but if they don't then you've wasted both time and effort.

I'm not just talking in terms of plot lines either. You need to know everything about what they want. Do they like indented paragraphs? Do they like first or third person etc.

Writing the story is only half the battle.

 

[Lauryn]

Good momentum.

To be honest, no. I'm working on a series around a concept of "What would 'I' do if I were someone else in this position?" and added a highly fictional slant to it.

Will it sell? Maybe. But for this situation, it doesn't matter.

 

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[DaRK9]

Eleven days of no internet. Just piles of Steven King, Koontz and Lovecraft around me.

I'm averaging close to 2k a day now. This is with editing. I need to learn how to shut off my mind and just write. It bugs me so much when I look back and see a misspelt word or awkward sentence. But in all, no internet has helped me tremendously.

So the lesson for any other writers who can't get anything done is; if you don't have the willpower to only write, just cut off everything else, toss it in the fire and start writing.

If you are serious.

If not go back to what you were doing.

In addition to no internet I deleted any games I have besides Chess. Also, any music that doesn't help me write has been removed, kept only on my phone. I only have ambient music on my pc now. Ambient or New Age music lets me tone out everything else and only focus on writing. Another small nuance regarding the music is that I find it much more comfortable if the speakers are either underneath me or behind me. This way it's even more ambient and doesn't feel like I'm actually listening to music.

@SinisterLex
Yes. I've been noticing stuff like that. I changed my dialogue and I use less filler conversation words. Said, spoke, etc and only use them when needed. It makes the conversations much more life like imo.

I also did something a little unorthodox in choosing my story.

I wrote 5 plot outlines and summarized them in a paragraph, basically a synopsis of a book never written, and asked my friend to hand them out to several people in his creative writing class.

I ended up writing the one i had liked the most but wanted to see if others with similar taste did. Which they all agreed they liked the best.

This was mostly for me to stop myself from thinking, "Wow, this is crap. Let me start a new one." As I was doing this regularly before.

Anyways, that's all for now.

I will post again when I venture back out into the city.