I’ve been putting off writing more of my book for a while now, but have recently become more motivated to write it. I got on Atticus and wrote a few sentences today, but then my cat distracted me and I stopped.
How often do you work on your writing? Sentences a day, paragraph a day, section/chapters? Or a few times per week? What keeps you writing?
It’s a non-fiction book. If that makes a difference.
I’m learning to work [when to write] when I feel like it instead of forcing myself onto a set schedule.
Absolutely agreed! We need to figure out what works for us.
What you reported, and I quoted, I just learned to do for myself. Just in the last couple of years after decades writing. This is self-kindness, self-care, and self-confidence. That last part, self-confidence, is coming to the realization that one will write when the time is right, and it is okay not to fear when or if that will happen. I'm there now. Sounds like you are there also.
How often do you work on your writing? [Other questions on how much you write.]
I would advise to put in your mind that any writing you get done is good, and it is all excellent practice no matter how small.
The bad word is fail. Setting goals is good, but it is bad if it allows you to define what failing is for you. It has been pointed out to me numerous times until it mostly sticks that comparing oneself to what others do is searching for the definition of failure. Let's not do that.
Like all the other authors answering this thread have related, we all write except when we don't. It makes us a writer. Personally, when I am in a groove, I can write thousands of words. Then again, I also burnt-out for 14 years and wrote nothing during that time. I do write stuff for Mastodon more periodically than I am actually writing for sale or online publishing, but that's just seasonal. Sometimes the need to write is so intense, characters wake me up in the middle of the night and won't let me sleep.
I am #actuallyautistic, so I've had to learn what works for me, learn how to (in your parlance) lock the cat out of the room, and be okay with writing when the feeling hits me—willing to put the world on hold to do so. Keep focused on you and what you want to do, writing so it feels good and not writing when it doesn't. The rest you'll eventually figure out.
Adding a few more hashtags to see if others will read the original post and add their thoughts.
My tankies know that Ukraine cannot join NATO as it is a buffer state. This means important decisions on Ukraine must be taken by Moscow, as Prez’s book explains.
Today in Labor and Writing History July 10, 1925: The Scopes "Monkey Trial" Trial began in Dayton, Tennessee. John T. Scopes was a high school science teacher accused of violating the Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee wrote about it in their play “Inherit the Wind” (1955). However, they said that their play was a response to the McCarthy anticommunist witch hunt and a statement in support of free speech. Ronald Kidd's 2006 novel, “Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial,” was also based on the Scopes Trial. Scopes was defended by labor Clarence Darrow, who had defended Eugene Debs, during the Pullman strike (1893); and Big Bill Haywood against false murder charges (1905); and the McNamara brothers for the false charges in the L.A. Times bombing (1910).
#WritingWonders 7.9 — What are you good at when it comes to writing?
People have complimented me on my dialogue.
Recently, I've switched from 3rd person to 1st person narrative. That's essentially the MC talking to the reader, which may explain why my writing feels so much more fluid and natural.
I read most everything I write aloud. It has to pass the speech test. Getting tongue-tied is a bad sign.
So...
My answer to this one is what I am doing now. Talking to the reader. What do you think? Does it work for you?
It's very weird; I generally much prefer 1st person, for just the reason you cite. But my stuff always winds up coming out 3rd? This puzzles me.
As to what I'm good at? I like dialog and I /feel/ like Im good at it, but I haven't really had enough readers to have any sense if I'm actually good at it.
Very happy.
Did a sort of draft on the Scrivener corkboard of story ideas. I don't have an exact plan in mind, just sort of go where my characters insist I do. So this corkboard will certainly change - a lot!
I even managed to write 3 chapters.
It's Saturday and my knitting is calling so unless I have some brainwave on the book that I have to get written I'll just enjoy the weekend.
(BTW - I use Scrivener for my writing and only convert it to Word when I send to my publisher.)
Hey, I just created an account on bookwyrm. Who here uses it as an author? It only shows one of my books. Can I add the other? Can I use bookwyrm to promote my work?
Today in Labor History July 2, 1822: The authorities hanged Denmark Vesey and 34 others for plotting a slave uprising. An estimated 9,000 were involved in the plot, but only 67 were convicted of any offense. Vesey was a free man living Charleston, South Carolina, who still had enslaved family members. He cofounded the African Methodist Episcopal church (AME) in Charleston, quickly gaining near 2,000 members and the support of white clergy. Charleston at the time had far more black residents than white, including many upper-class free blacks, some of whom had their own slaves. Additionally, many white refugees from the Haitian Revolution moved to Charleston with their black slaves. Consequently, there were many black residents who wanted to replicate the Haitian slave uprising in South Carolina and many whites who were fearful of such a rebellion.
Many of the congregants in Vesey’s church were current slaves and he used the church to help organize the revolt. The uprising was supposed to occur on July 14, Bastille Day, since the victors of the French Revolution had abolished slavery in Saint Domingue. The plan was to attack the arsenal, kill as many white slave owners as possible, like they did in the Haitian Revolution, and then commandeer ships to Haiti. Vesey’s success at organizing thousands of free and enslaved blacks was also his downfall. So many people knew about the plot, that word easily leaked to the white slaveowners. In the end, he was betrayed by two slaves who were loyal to their masters. Several white men were also convicted of participating in the plot. None were known abolitionists and all the white allies received lenient sentences.
Many writers have depicted Vesey or his rebellion in their writing. The title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel “Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp” (1855) is a composite of Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner. Probably inspired by contemporary criticism of “Uncle Tom,” who she portrayed as a passive martyr, she made Dred a revolutionary escaped slave. Martin Delaney also refers to Vesey in his serialized novel, “Blake; or the Huts of America” (1859–61). Delaney was, himself, a revolutionary free black man. He was an abolitionist, writer and the first and only black man to achieve the rank of major during the Civil War. He was also the first black nationalist, who coined the phrase, “Africa for Africans.” African American writer John Oliver Killens (1916-1987) wrote a biography of Vesey “Great Gittin' Up Morning” (1972). And, more recently, Orson Scott Card portrays Vesey in his “The Tales of Alvin Maker” series (1987-2003).
Today in Labor and Writing History July 10, 1917: The Jerome Deportation occurred in Arizona. On July 5, IWW workers struck at Phelps Dodge mines, in Jerome, Az. Mine supervisors, along with a hastily formed “Citizens Committee” made up of local business leaders, rounded up and deported over 100 Wobblies (IWW members) to Needles, CA, and told them to never return. Two days later, after seeing how successful they had been in Jerome, they launched an even bigger deportation in Bisbee, Az. This time, they rounded up roughly 2,000 Wobblies from the Phelps Dodge mines in Bisbee, Az, and deported them to New Mexico.
“Bisbee ‘17,” (1999) by Robert Houston, is a historical novel based on the Bisbee deportations. There was also a really interesting film of the same name that came out in 2018. In the film, the town’s inhabitants reenact the events of the Bisbee deportation 100 years later. It also includes interviews with current residents.
Today in Labor June 30, 1906: United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act in response to Upton Sinclair's novel, “The Jungle,” which exposed atrocious sanitary conditions in Chicago meat packing industry. Sinclair intended his book to bring attention to the terrible working conditions and racism faced by Chicago’s largely immigrant meat workers, as well as the corruption of both the politicians and union officials, but the public was most outraged by the prospect of getting food poisoning from the rotten meat.
I'm trying to resist the temptation to knit for a few days - I need to get back to writing.
I haven't written since my cancer diagnosis except for the edits on the last book.
I'm now determine to write the 5th book in the series and have it to my publisher by the end of the year.
Me: I can only read so many descriptions of body parts as fruit, can we try something different?
Client: Well what if we changed it to vegetables?
Me: 🤦♀️
I've been trying to write a novel for years, but I cannot get over my perfectionism at the time of writing. It's manageable for short stories, but novels... it just seems impossible.
I was reading about the #author and was wondering why it took so long(81 #years since the original) for someone to write something as #good as this. Then, I came to know that apparently the author had to wait for more than 10 years for the trustees of A.A Milne to approve the work. Why? For the #love of god, why anyone would ever deny the world of such #beauty is beyond me.
#OnThisDay in #history - Ann Ward was born in 1764 in #England - her parent's only child, she wed in her early 20s to William Radcliffe. They had a happy marriage - he became a journalist. In 1789 she published her first novel and quickly published 4 more, each more popular than the last. She became a household name and her influence was felt in the development of the gothic novel genre, especially on Poe, Scott, and the Brontë sister's works. #OTD#histodons@histodons#author#writer
How do you handle perfectionism?
I've been trying to write a novel for years, but I cannot get over my perfectionism at the time of writing. It's manageable for short stories, but novels... it just seems impossible.