Becoming the writer I want to be

This is an extremely common problem and for me the best solution is to read a lot alongside writing. I know for a fact I would not have settled on my own writing style without reading as much as I do. I also think education (in my country at least) prioritises rote memorisation of basic writing techniques as opposed to in depth understanding of how they actually work. This leads to people disliking something they may otherwise enjoy because education teaches the wrong aspect of it.

 

850 words today.

EDIT: Had some free time so wrote another 700 or so words. around 1500 words total for today.

 

Got kinda carried away today as I was writing a really intense and exciting part of the story. 2300 words done today, with 101 pages and 35,000 total words overall.

 

I'm loving this thread. Writing my thesis was murder and I would've killed for a place like this to get support and accountability. It took me a long time to get to a place where I'm actually able to put in the work, to write every day even when I didn't feel like it. But god it feels good. Even on the days where it's tough or you're pretty sure you wrote straight garbage.

I managed 2,500 words this morning, that's a really good session for me.

Keep it up everyone. Inspirational stuff.

-MK

 

I haven't written much of anything this week, but I do want to finish the short story I'm working on. Hopefully this weekend.

In other news, I got a new standing desk! I'm super stoked about it. It can go from standing to sitting, and it's on wheels. Which is really nice because our house is small, so i can keep all my wiring stuff on there and just easily wheel it into the other room if I want it out of the way. Previously I was mostly using our kitchen table, which made it kind of a hassle to ever use the table for anything else.

 

Welcome to the thread, looking forward to seeing your updates!

I always feel so satisfied when I manage to get a lot of writing done, to the point it doesnt really even feel like work to me at all. I generally struggle with dialogue, so I am trying to have a lot of it in the story so I can tangibly improve at it, and in general the story is very character driven so it makes sense but today I wrote a fight scene and it was so satisfying to do it, there is nothing I enjoy more when it comes to writing fiction than writing action setpieces.

I wasn't always like that though, like you, I struggled to maintain a daily schedule or organise myself with any efficiency. I think, for me, this changed when I started writing the novel, because its something I've wanted to do for so long that I began to realise "if I die without writing this it will legit be one of my biggest lifetime regrets" and that spurred me on to start it. I think, in spite of what I said, it wasnt until I saw this thread that I really felt like a fire was being lit under me and I seized the opportunity. Over a month later and here I am. If you can find that spark to get moving and not want to stop, you'll be on your way to success as well.

 

Spot on. I started thinking "am I really going to play-act at being a writer without ever writing anything? Am I really going to be satisfied with the self-soothing deception that I could have written that book if I wanted to?"

I think the other thing was really connecting "being a writer" / "having finished works" to the day to day imperfect act of writing. It sounds silly, but I had to remind myself "if I don't sit down today and start writing something, where do I think the book is going to come from? Is it going to just float down on a cloud?

 

I've had the concepts for a lot of the things I write about in my head gestating for years and years, but only started writing properly at the midpoint of last year. I think a lot of my reluctance came from imposter syndrome, where I would read stuff other people had written and feel like what I was doing didn't count. I only managed to break myself out of that mindset by reading published work that was more in line with what I wanted to write, and realising I was being irrational. I now have the mindset I can write about literally anything as long as I can pull it off, which is a liberating mindset to have.

Having said that, I remember back when I submitted a story I wrote to a magazine or something, I cant remember the exact details, it was a long time ago, and I got a rejection email back the same day. Looking back, I think what I wrote wasn't that great and more importantly, didn't fit where I submitted it to. I remember making a thread about it and getting this really long, honestly kinda douchey reply from someone where their attempts at "tough love" came across as incredibly inappropriate, with them being overly harsh and getting a lot of the details of what I actually said wrong (I distinctly remember me being annoyed I didn't know WHY I was rejected, not annoyed because of the rejection itself, but this guy stomps in in his size 12 boots and tries to lecture me about stuff I didn't say regardless.)When I replied back explaining myself and calling out the unnecessary hostility, I didn't get a reply, so go figure. I wont lie, that exchange really demoralised me and made me not want to write, and I didnt for a long time afterwards.

Theres something weird and interesting about two people on the same forum, one being a dick and putting me off wanting to write for like a year, and another inspiring me to write a novel just by talking about his own experience completely independently of my own. Guess the moral here is I need to stop letting what strangers say get to me, but also that sometimes tough love is just an excuse to be an asshole.

 

It's tricky because I'm working on two separate projects.

In the mornings (when my brain's fresh) I'm working on some political philosophy. I'm trained in academic writing, so the work (not sure if it's a book, more like a paper at this point) is about building better futures in terms of political economy.

In the afternoons (more of a creative zone) I'm working on a novel! It's sort of solarpunk political fantasy, trying to make something weird and fun

 

Thank you for the kind words of support and encouragement. Its great to have a place to report back on what I'm doing.

I think the person who responded to me way back when was that kind of person that would probably pride themselves on "telling it like it is" and spend time calling others overly sensitive when in reality they were just being abrasive and borderline rude. Theres a difference between being a tough talking motivational speaker and just being a jackass. The fact I can still clearly recall the entire interaction and still feel bad about it says a lot, that guy could have avoided this by having the common sense to think "Maybe I shouldn't come down so hard on someone who has made a thread where they are already in a bad mood" but here we are lol.

I try not to let what people say bother me as much anymore, although of course some things still do.

 

Got just under 800 words done today.

 

Lol that's funny, that's basically what I was doing too. I didn't have two screens but I had my laptop propped up on a box and used an external keyboard. I tend to get pretty bad back problems, especially when I write a lot, so I'm excited to have the option to stand and raise the screen up to eye level and lower the keyboard down to whatever level is comfortable for my hands. I think it'll help my back a lot.

 

Wrote 678 words during a writing sprint session just now, and it finished up my second short story I was working on

 

1600 words written today, finishing the chapter.