Post Pico December check in #3

[elmey.livejournal.com]

One more week has passed! Have you been writing, editing, hitting the panic button on your holiday stories?

Here's the post for your snippets, comments thoughts.

Check in any time during this week of busy schedules.

Comments

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Actually you've been inspiring me to get back to it! I'm capable of being disciplined for short periods, and then it all goes to hell and I do literally no writing for months (or sometimes years). Sigh.

The big advantage of finishing one novel would be finishing one novel -- I have three on the go, two of which stalled at the around same word count (45–50k). I think at some point the complexity just gets to me. The difference between a novel & a novella is supposed to be multiple plot threads, so I might well need to learn to wrap up a multi-thread story?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I warn you, I had the idea for this fic some time around 2006 :-) Disciplined for short periods and then it goes to hell sounds very familiar. Somehow this time I might actually be feeling I could be on the home straight, but the intervening period has had its longueurs...

The big advantage of finishing one novel would be finishing one novel

This I think is certainly true. My first (original) novel, was frankly crap. I suppose I learnt to keep going. I also learnt you can't polish a turd. And at greater remove I can see that it was doomed because I wasn't really interested in the central story, so much as the bits on the side, i.e. that you should probably pick which of the multiple plot threads you like best and not have that as the D plot. I think I've got that sorted better this time round, and with plot-lines that I'm actually interested in have learned more about handling them.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I find it very hard to keep writing when feeling discouraged about my output, and being self-critical & very thin-skinned that's a lot of the time, sadly. (This Yuletide has been sheer hell on that front.)

My first (original) novel, was frankly crap. I suppose I learnt to keep going. I also learnt you can't polish a turd.

I do wonder whether the Nano idea of just writing a novel's length of crap and then polishing it up is at all viable. I can't imagine it working for me, but others do seem to swear by it.

And at greater remove I can see that it was doomed because I wasn't really interested in the central story, so much as the bits on the side, i.e. that you should probably pick which of the multiple plot threads you like best and not have that as the D plot. I think I've got that sorted better this time round, and with plot-lines that I'm actually interested in have learned more about handling them.

First finish a novel, however terrible it turns out to be, then work out why it isn't very good, then write one that works... I might be finished by my nineties, if I'm very lucky...