Hello Writers!
That does sound pretty awesome. Writing a blended sci-fi/fantasy story is on my list of things I want to do, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet.
The worldbuilding for something that size must have been immense, I feel like that must have been the most fun part in a way.
(after about 1.3 million words, not intended for publication)
Sheesh. I'm at 106k words and that's 10x more than any single thing I've ever written before. 1.3 million sounds impossible - what a journey writing that must have been!
Nothing kills the joy of writing for me more than “okay, but is it marketable enough to sell?” No shade on anyone who wants to be published! It’s just not for me.
I can get that. In my case, I am going to need a second career as I age, and personal circumstances limit the sorts of things I can consider. Fortunately, this is something I can consider, something I am really enjoying, and something I think I can learn to be good at.
If you are willing to share, what's the scope and general description of your huge work?
I have four out and one on the way, and they’re all learning experiences!
Nice! I'm glad to hear they each remain their own adventure - that should keep things interesting. Wow though - my entire notion of what it means to write a novel has been transformed by this first-first-draft experience. I literally had no idea what I was getting myself into. Every step along the way to reach even this not-quite-finished-draft point has been an acquisition of new skills on par with anything I've ever learned before. It's been enjoyable, but really a much more serious endeavor than I think I imagined at first.
I’m not as excited about revisions, fortunately I have a wife who’s a fantastic editor
That is a lucky turn of events. :-) I'm looking forward to revising because when I peek at the early parts of the book I can tell how much this experience has changed my writing. I think it's going to be fun to redo those parts with fresh eyes.
You've got a fair point, but it just makes me feel really hopeless. I think this is going to take a lot of years to turn around and fully undo the damage that's being caused while half (or at least a third) of our country works on developing anything resembling emotional intelligence and critical thinking skills - and in the meantime they are degrading our educational system, civil rights, and the general state of public discourse. It feels like they are dragging a blade through the side of our social norms - how long is this going to take to heal?
I have a neighbor who would have just been my Republican neighbor twenty years ago, if I even knew his political leanings at all. Now he's got handwritten signs in front of his yard proclaiming anyone who voted Biden is a moron. They rotate from time to time, and some of them are hard to read. One of them said something about "all four guns" but I couldn't read the rest. Now is there any chance that man and I are ever going to be friends? Absolutely not, because I have no interest in ever speaking to him, and if we did have an honest conversation he'd learn I was a member of a group he's maligned via publicly posted handwritten sign tens of times in the past few years. (Anyone who votes Democrat) I swear ever since the bud light thing Kid Rock is nearly the only artist I hear blaring from his garage when I drive by.
But maybe if things were like they were 20 years ago we'd get to know each other before we knew those things about each other, and we'd either be friends despite those things, or just never learn those things about each other at all. That's gotta be repeated around the nation millions of times with different variations - what's that doing to the state of our cohesiveness as a society and nation?
I really used to think people were over-reacting to how much influence Trump could really have, but I have no choice but to eat my words now. Lasting damage has been done which is surely causing people to be killed or traumatized every single day because these people are so terrified that trying to make things better will require some kind of admission of complicity regarding how shitty things are.
Sorry for my rant, has been really eating at me lately.
A confession of unrequited love. (And one of my top 10 songs of all time.)
An affirmation that things might not be as bad as you think.
They don’t want to feel bad about what their ancestors did.
I don't think you need to feel bad about it to acknowledge it. That's part of what makes it so infuriating. They throw around white guilt like it's something progressives suffer from, but it's very clearly something they cower and hide from.
My family hasn't been here long enough to have been slave owners, but my grandfather was a little bit racist by today's standards (and I acknowledge he may have been more racist than I realized). My dad is a boomer who always taught us to treat people equally, but he says things now (and did back then) that would be really offensive to a modern ear. I never heard the N-word from anyone in my immediate family nor grandparents, but I'm not sure it was never said out of ear shot, and I definitely heard it from a great-uncle or two.
It's a little uncomfortable for me to say that out loud, but so what? It's nonetheless true. It reflects on them, not me, and it would be no different if I could go back a couple more generations and find a slave owner in my family. Awful, uncomfortable, but something that does not reflect on today's generation beyond their reluctance to admit it and what it meant and what it did and continues to do with regard to impacts on the community and the people who are descended from enslaved ancestors.
They should be feel bad about their own cowardice about admitting what happened in the past, not for the details of those past events.
If your great great grandparents did bad shit, don't make it worse by trying to lie and whitewash it, make it better by encouraging those truths to see the light of day so society is bettered for it, or at the very least stop trying to prevent others from doing so.
It's honestly kind of sweet that you sound so surprised.
Feels like just yesterday in some ways. But how the world has changed since then. Really sad about this.
Before you all fall for the shamless clickbait,
I used to start and end my day at Ars Technica. For years.
Has really never been the same since Conde Nast took over. I usually only end up there now when someone links an article from there. Thanks for saving me a click, and I'll pour one out for what once was...
I'm more than a year into using a Trilium instance at home and another at work for taking notes and keeping track of various information.
I love it love it love it, maybe especially at work, but I am certain I use only a tiny fraction of its capabilities.
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I'm aware, but it doesn't change the level of enjoyment I'd get from one of those two taking a cane to the other. :-)
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It’s all fun and games til someone gets beaten with a cane.
I mean... in this case I think that's where the fun begins. No matter who does what to who between the two of them I will have no sympathy. I only hope it happens where we can get cspan footage.
I’m burnt out and can’t focus at work. Really wish I had more that 2 weeks of vacation time a year
Have been there, and am never far from there. It sucks and I wish you the best in overcoming it. Any chance you've got a supportive boss? Mine is and it helped a lot.
Just created my account here in the past day. I know it probably can't last, but I don't think I've had that "cozy" feeling right away in a forum or other online community like this in decades, and I'd say it was somewhat rare even "back in the day."
So far folks seem to live up to the stated goals of the place and I think that's pretty great.
So my day is going pretty good because that's a pleasant surprise, and because a stressful work event today ended up being not too stressful after all.
As someone who showed up a month late, can I just say I find both of these ideas wildly interesting! Now I'm a little worried that they don't look bad to me. 😀
- The disgruntled younger sibling of the “Chosen One”
- The main character has traveled back in time to kill Hitler. Little do they know is Hitler is now a skilled killer of time travelers.
I think the second one especially could be a lot of fun. Not sure I'm clever enough to come up with all the interesting traps he would have to devise, but it could be a little zany if ultimately the story was entirely focused on their battle of wits, completely leaving the holocaust angle out of who Hitler is until the very end...
Apologies for responding to an old thread, but I'm newly joined and excited to participate. :-)
Best advice I've heard for this is - Make a goal that you will write one sentence per day. And write that one sentence no matter what. No matter if you do think it's bad.
The reasoning is - some days you will just sit down and write one sentence, and that's fine. But other days you'll find that sentence turns into a paragraph, or a page, or five pages. But if you never sit down to write that one sentence, you never give the chance for those other days to happen.
That advice came from B. Dave Walters from the podcast "Writing about Dragons and Shit" - which is my second bit of advice to you - find a writing podcast you like and listen to it regularly.
I'm on my third pass through the back catalog of "Writing Excuses", but there's a few I listen to. I get motivation, inspiration, and education from them and I try to listen to at least one episode of one writing related podcast daily. It keeps me thinking about my story and usually makes me daydream about how something they are discussing would work in my story.
And I don’t want to force myself because maybe then it turns out to be just bad, you know?
Also - and I say this as someone who is still a couple tens of thousands of words away from the end of my first draft - you are going to have to revise your draft when you are done no matter whether you think it came out bad or not. So don't worry about that.
Another B. Dave Walters nugget: "The worst thing you write is better than the best thing you don't write." An awesome story that lives only in your head lives only in your head.
Hope this is helpful and good luck! I have a hard time getting started again when life gets in the way sometimes too.
That sounds challenging and enjoyable. I've never written nonfiction for more than the length of a college essay, but it seems inherently more difficult to me, but it's good that you seem to have a supportive team already lined up to help you get over the finish line.
Good luck to you! (And what's the topic, if you are comfortable sharing at this time?)