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Boarders writing a novel


Derfel Cadarn
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@Lord Patrek

It depends. No traditional publisher would be interested in my anthology so self-publishing is the only way for me to go. Furthermore, in my case, its about the personal sense of achievement and fulfillment (as naive as that may sound). If the book can make a positive difference in even one person's day that'll be good enough for me.
 

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While I'm still waiting to hear back from that agent, I finished the first draft of my novella Blademaster last week. The manuscript now weighs in at 116 pages. I wanted to wait a while before getting back to it and I wasn't in the mood to continue writing the sequel to The Evil That Men Do.

Two weeks ago, I challenged a writer friend of mine to write a short story based on the themes and images that come to mind from a song and its title. It's something that I always wanted to do and never took the time to actually do it. The challenge was meant for her alone and I wasn't planning on going through the process.

The day after I finished Blademaster, I went out to take a walk. Like Stephen King, that's how I get my ideas and how my muse provides inspiration. "She Talks To Angels" from The Black Crowes came on and by the time the song ended it felt as though I had just seen a short movie inside my head and the flood gates opened. In the last week, those ideas became clearer and clearer and I realized that I had material for a set of maybe 4 or 5 related short stories.

Oddly enough, though the first one will be titled "She Talks to Angels,", today I began writing the last one. It came together during my walk on Sunday and everything's fresh in my mind. So earlier this afternoon I sat down to work on "Heaven is a Place on Earth" and I produced about 8 pages (2100 words) in one sitting.

Looks like I now know what I'll be doing as I wait for that agent to respond to my submission. . . :)

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With all the life changes during the pandemic, I lost what little momentum I had in writing the book I'll never complete. I got 10,000-15,000 poorly chosen words in and then just ... stopped. I used to brainstorm while driving to and from work and I've been working from home since last March. Big difference. Plus, writing was a distraction at work and I have other distractions at home.

I've recently started trying to at least play with some things again. It's fun but it's quite daunting to have so much to do. My goal right now is to just start writing ... somewhere in the book ... and then fill in gaps later. I had been writing sequentially back at the end of 2019 and that did somewhat play into why I lost momentum, as I had reached a point that wasn't as interesting to me.

Anyway, dear diary, just figured I'd say something. It has been so long.

 

Edited by Ser Not Appearing
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Oh yeah, here's what I wrote a day or two ago. I decided to just start writing what came to mind and, in this case, it was a specific image in landscape. I rather like it but don't suspect it will be usable in current form. Not long, but it got me going again.

"Water wears away a patient groove, passing over, into and even through the stone. Over time, great cracks form in the cliffs and the inexorable pull of gravity slowly weakens remaining bonds until enormous blocks of sandstone break off to crash and tumble down from above. These hard, hulking giants lie forgotten as the windblown earthen deposits of ages accumulate. Years later, the seeds of a forest find a spark of life in that shallow, borrowed earth. These new trees grow not just up but creep and laboriously stretch out their roots in long, tangled fingers of octopus form to find the greater deposits of soil below and, in so doing, finalize the means of continued growth.

Unlikely. Resilient. Inevitable. It may take hundreds or even thousands of years but life finds a way."

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello everybody.

It's pretty late in my corner of the world, just coming up on that particular hour of night when all the hidden thoughts must come out and take hold. And like clockwork, here they come... 

But on this particular night, not having anything better to do and feeling particulatly frustrated, I guess instead of chewing on it by my lonesome, I might just reach out to some like minded fellows for some guidance or a reality check, whichever is more apppropriate. 

So, In the last year or so, one idea has taken hold of me and I just cannot shake it. To the surprise of no-one reading this, I hereby confess that I want to write stories of my own. :D

Actually it's an old idea, going back to high school (when I did write a bit), but I postponed it  when starting college and then snuffed it out brutally on starting on a path of building a 'career'. Said career, while successful according to its particular criteria, turned out to be not really fulfilling nor meaningful.

In fact, I've often described it as "soul crushing"

So my mind keeps going back to this crazy stupid obsession. I don't think it will go away.

By way of this long introduction, I'm working up to ask a question, a bit on the personal side, but not too much (I hope)...

if you don't mind me asking, how old were all of you when you started writing more purposefully? 

Me, I'm fresh off avoiding to celebrate my 40tieth. 

What I fear is, given my not so tender age, does it even make sense to give it a go?! 

As I read through this thread, I am feeling quite discouraged. I start to think it's all a fools errand.

Then again, when I finally do go to bed and try to sleep, I find myself sketching characters in my head, coming up with worldbuilding trivia and book themes. I think of meticulous plot lines and narrative threads, even draw up dialogues in my head. Obsession might be an understatement...

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On 7/25/2021 at 5:08 PM, Aurelius Talhoffer said:

if you don't mind me asking, how old were all of you when you started writing more purposefully? 

Me, I'm fresh off avoiding to celebrate my 40tieth. 

What I fear is, given my not so tender age, does it even make sense to give it a go?! 

As I read through this thread, I am feeling quite discouraged. I start to think it's all a fools errand.

This is a super common question among writers. You hear so much about promising young writers, "30 under 30", etc. But plenty of people have published their debut novels at ages more advanced than yours. I myself have been writing quite purposefully (ie making submissions) since I was 13, with somewhat of a hiatus during college, and have gotten nowhere fast so far (I'm 33 now).

Which brings me to the second point, is it all a fool's errand? Yes, probably. For the vast majority of us. The truth is that it is hard to get someone to publish your work, it is hard to successfully self-publish your work. But not because of your age! So...make of that you will. And if you want to write, write! Even without publication, it can be a very enjoyable hobby.

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38 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I'm extremely happy to have won an award. I won the 2021 BEST INDIE AUDIOBOOK for my Agent G series at the HEARNOW festial for best science fiction.

 

Congratulations!

 

--

I started writing myself, though I'm not sure how well it will go. A common failing in fantasy, I've found, is the absence of material that explores the science of its world in any real depth. How was the shape of the world discovered? How is the relationship and transit of the planets in the solar system discovered? What is the philosophy of mathematics in the society? Would they have strange ideological tenets like the Pythagorean school where irrational numbers are ignored and so forth?

For me, the history of science is amazing, and so I am interested in writing a series of books that goes into the gradual developement of science over many centuries in a civilization that has evolved in many respects to be quite different from what is typical. It bothers me that so often you have the standard duplicate cross-section of history where it's always the same patriarchy, etc., that is addressed. This is fantasy, we're allowed to change things up!

I think it's also a fun way to explore the failures of many different forms of government. So you have an egalitarian utopia. What will be the flaws that emerge from that? How would something like that collapse? Etc.

And the ultimate annoyance to me is that when magic is introduced, its real world consequences are rarely explored. All right wizard, you just burned a horde of goblins with a superheated fireball much hotter than the sun. Did you just irradiate your companions with x-rays? What was their dose? If it's humid is there going to be a large hydrogen explosion now?

On a less comedic note, I agree with Clarke that at a certain point magic and technology are indistinguishable, and I feel that this idea isn't explored as much as it should be.

I also feel that both magic and technology are a source of deep almost Lovecraftian terror. It just takes the right dominant civilization, and you suddenly have massive genocide and human experiments. The extent of this is dictated by technology and magic. We can see from our times that most societies dabble in this to a great extent (even the "good guys", as it were). And people often don't feel that guilty about it either, irrespective of their societal composition.

Anyway, I'm writing to explore these concepts. We'll see how it goes, I suppose.

 

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On 7/26/2021 at 6:08 AM, Aurelius Talhoffer said:

if you don't mind me asking, how old were all of you when you started writing more purposefully? 

Me, I'm fresh off avoiding to celebrate my 40tieth. 

What I fear is, given my not so tender age, does it even make sense to give it a go?! 

Not gonna lie, I was actually around nineteen years old when I first got paid for an article I wrote for a national newspaper. I was "hired" as their student contributing writer since all of their other contributors were over the age of thirty.

However, it was all down to luck and because I knew the editor personally.

You're probably talking about fiction writing. In that case, I am in my mid-40s, which is, in my opinion at least, a great age to start fiction writing. I've now got the experience that I didn't have when I was a teenager and I'm excited to see what I can do.

Edited by Lin Meili
grammar
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