Becoming the writer I want to be

This is where rigorous planning becomes vital. If you have a rough idea for what needs to happen in your story, you can delve deeper into the fine details of this, and set it out so you arent spending ages deliberating over it while actually writing it. Its hard work but its too important to not do, as jumping head first into writing might see quicker progress but it practically guarantees something unforeseen going wrong later down the line.

As for the dialogue thing, I have the same problem. A lot of my short stories have very little, or even no dialogue at all, and eventually I realised this doesnt fix the problem, it just postpones it. Therefore, when I started writing the novel, I made a conscious effort to have a lot of talking, and a lot of different character interactions. Some entire chapters are just characters speaking to each other. I still dont think my dialogue is great, and there are some hokey parts here and there, but in the end the only way to get good at writing something is to try and do it, and improve with practice and time.

 

Its interesting reading the books after being a fan of the movies for so long, and knowing a decent amount about the lore. I think an interesting criticism is that Tolkien is extremely verbose and even possibly "boring" and I dont agree. Maybe reading so many long books and series has warped my perception but to me, a book around 1000 pages long, split into 3 easily digestible volumes, does not constitute a book that is "too long." I feel like the people who think this would have a panic attack if they saw how long other fantasy books are. A Clash of Kings for example, is over 900 pages by itself, and thats part of a series.

 

I still have not seen the movies and I do not know why, haha. I do not agree with the criticism because while he may spend two pages talking about a tree, it adds depth and builds the world he has us visiting with the hobbits. I think that the book itself is three sections, but one story. So sure, a 1000 pages may be long, but, as you said, there are books out there that are much longer and are individual volumes in a series (*cough, George Martin, cough*), but Tolkien wrote it as six books that were subdivided into three volumes that tell one story all around the same time period. I do agree that people would have a panic attack if they saw what was around now, haha.

 

That’s a good point. I have a WordPress blog where I used to post some of my ideas and practice attempts but it has been gathering digital dust for over a year. I think it’s time I shake out the cobwebs and get back to it. That should give me practice, put my work and my name out there, and just be a fun way to pass the time (instead of cowering in fear of porn triggers.)

I do have a problem with perfectionism when it comes to my writing though. Even just posting on the forums here or sending a text, I have to make sure it says what I want it to say. That makes any writing project take FAR longer than it probably should.

 

The movies are fantastic, definitely worth watching. They do cut and change some elements from the book, but they are still great. They wont all those awards for a reason for sure.

 

Perfectionism is something you need you to break otherwise it will make writing really annoying and time consuming. The best way I overcame my own perfectionism was by reading other books, and realising that all but the very best of books have the occasional wonky line, or weirdly phrased moment, or hell, even outright technical errors sometimes. I used to go into panic mode if I used a certain word too often, but there are best selling authors out there who repeat themselves constantly and readers dont care. Its easier said than done, but dont worry about it.

 

Monday: 0 words
Tuesday: 235 words
Wednesday: 503 words
Thursday: 0 words
Today: 393 words

Not quite what I was hoping for, but I am extremely tired and spent most of the day reading so I did not write as much. Still, I am over 1100 words for the chapter and I aim to get the document up to 1500 words tomorrow so that I am on track to resume the 500-word count quota beginning next week.

 

Today: 407 words.

I am now up to 1537 words on the chapter and I meet my weekly goal, which was to get up to 1500 words. Now to prepare for the beginning of my 500 daily word quota beginning on Monday.

 

Good work!

 

Rebooting my WordPress starting tomorrow to start sharing my writing practice with friends and family! Plus, it will hopefully serve as a nice, neat portfolio of my work for potential employers in a writing career! It's been sitting idle for over a year and a half so it's high time I get back to it. I'll start sharing my word count here as well!

 

Great stuff, looking forward to hearing your updates!

 

Is this a good service to get noticed? Does it work?

 

I'm not really sure. I made my site and posted a few times but didn't stick with it enough. I'm not great at self-promotion either so I'm probably not the best person to ask... It's free though! And pretty easy to use! That's why I went with it.

 

It sounds easy. Let me know it goes for you and I might consider using it myself.

 

Last week: 1537 words

Today: 530 words (and all before 7 A.M.)

I am starting this week off strong.

 

Last Week: 1537

Monday: 530 words
Today: 634 words

I ended up writing a bit more than what I expected, but nothing with writing a bit extra if you do not know the exact word count. I am up to 2700 words in the document now.

 

Last Week: 1537

Monday: 530 words
Tuesday: 634 words
Wednesday: 533 words

I am maintaining a good average up this point. The document is now at around 3200 words and so with my initial word goal for the document in hindsight, I hope to complete this chapter by Friday.