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Pick one book that you want to finish next & post your progress here as you go. Posting progress can promote the book, motivate the author and provide insight into how writers write a story.Suggestion only, but maybe your first post could start with where your story came from and why you are writing it. Then say where you are at the moment and what you will do next.My novel, The Phoenix Diary, began with a series of dreams. They were different but had a common feel. It was years before I realized they were connected by geography and time, taking place in the same imaginary world. I wrote the dreams as scenes, dropped them into a Joseph Campbell plot structure and the story came naturally. The clear advantage is I am able to use my memory when writing most of the story. The writing is easy; time consuming but not difficult. So far, I have 53,000 words completed of a 100k hard science fiction book.Lately, I've been learning about basic editing. Progress at the moment consists of editing the completed chapters into a "final" draft. Today, I edited chapter 6 of 15. Next :) edit chapter 7!
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Great input!Amazing, how some of us are completing something that we started years ago. (I began The Phoenix Diary in 2004.)Nicki wrote, "...Strain was born of a series of failed attempts from many years ago...."Angela wrote, "I started this book almost 30 years ago...."LeeAnna wrote, "Where did Hands come from? Well, it was a little high school thing that I did for fun."Others may be at the beginning of a process that simply cannot be forced.Laura wrote, "...both of my projects are in their early stages. I only have a few chapters of one and a handful of the other, and they're nowhere near completion."Mimi wrote, "I'm not giving up on Sly! My thinking is a little muddled at the moment, but I'll pull myself together and persevere."Maybe for some creativity is not subject to the will and we have no choice but to write as the story comes to us.
I'm with Marc & Niki. Nobody in their right mind shows their first draft to strangers but there's something professional about many people here that makes their advice helpful. Kinda like undressing for the doctor.Thanks, Laura. That's good insight into how ideas pop. Maybe you positively wanted a better character because you had one in there, somewhere. Interesting too, how a good idea can come with kin.I spent this morning researching a piece of meteorite shrapnel from Sikhote-Alin because it was radioactive dated to the same time as an important period in The Phoenix Diary. It's age baffled the researchers but made ideas pop into my head. Now, for the first time, I have a detailed plot background that supports my story. And a sequel. Woot!
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