Support Group, Anyone???!!!

[Mid]

Can you go online and find out?? Or try the Library. I've done many years of research for mine, mostly online, but I've gotten a lot of material from the Library.
A month ago, the Lord worked it out for me to meet my daughter-in-law's aunt and uncle who live in Jerusalem, and voila... I now have a great resource for information!!! I am ecstatic, esp. since I was able to tell them about the novel and got them excited about it!!!
Isn't that so like the Lord~!!

[eireann]

I'll either dutifully write almost every week, or I'll wait for the winners to be announced and then decide, based on my placement, if it's worth continuing. if I'm in the top 25% then I might throw out a few hooks to agents, and if they bite and set me a deadline, well then...then I'll be sure to finish it

[Hoomi]

Finish it anyway!

Quite often, success in contests and in submitting isn't always an indication of quality; it's an indication of what the judges or editors were looking for at that time.

Some great books were rejected many many times before finding a home, and some really lousy books were picked up because they just happened to be what the editor was looking for.

First and foremost, believe in your manuscript. If you don't, it makes it harder to expect an editor to believe in it.

Edit:

Not to imply your manuscript is lousy. My point was that a book getting picked up doesn't necessarily mean it's better than yours, and one getting rejected doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.

[Cinnamon Bear]

......I'll wait for the winners to be announced and then decide, based on my placement, if it's worth continuing. if I'm in the top 25%......

Are we actually going to be informed of our exact placement in the contest? I'm not sure I would want to know if I placed 45 out of 45.

By the way, how many entries were there?

My story is so--so ordinary--compared to the stories it sounds like other folks submitted. Just ordinary people trying to do their best--and making mistakes like human beings do. It is set in the 1930s which was a pretty exciting time and it is medical fiction which can be pretty exciting. But no assassins, psychos, aliens, or worldclass plots.

Cinnamon Bear

[puppylove531]

My goal is to finish my novel by the end of August. If, for some reason, that does not happen... well, my absolute, final deadline for myself would be November (by the time the contest is over and winner announced). This contest has really helped me to get super-motivated about my novel, so I feel like I have already won! yay!

I have published one book and it is non-fiction. Let me tell you, the novel has been far more difficult to write. The non-fiction book was sort of like writing a giant research paper. Every time I sat down I knew exactly what I was going to write. Fiction is much different.

Love and blessings, Teri

P.S. Mid - can I be in your support group??

[Cinnamon Bear]

Some of the best stories I've ever read fit a description similar to that.

Thanks for the encouragement , Hoomi!

Cinnamon Bear

[CrimsonMoon]

I have been working on this book since the beginning of 2004 - with its conception being at end of 2003. I hope to finished by Dec. 2007 - which will be a total of 4 years.

I have heard that when you get to a point where your manuscript makes you want to puke, you know you are done.

Oddly enough, I am not quite there - though at times I do feel slighlty queezy.

and by 4 years, I mean almost every day for anywhere between 2 - 12 hours a day except for a few burn out periods of a few months scattered here and there.

I am truly in love with 2 of my characters and I think I live in thier world more often then I live in mine.

[CrimsonMoon]

How in the world do you keep track of words?

And I have another question - for anyone out there who cares to answer.

From Thrus night through Sunday, I did 27 pages (double-spaced) and was compeltely discouraged and depressed Sunday night becuase I accomplished so little. (But i have no idea who many words that is nor can I check becuase there are typed notes all over it, headers, other stuff in brackets, etc.). But anyway, I guess my question is, am I really slow or is that about average. It was probably around 18 hours.

[CrimsonMoon]

The word count won't work for me becuase this particular section has paragraphs of notes, reveision ideas in brackets and other stuff all over the place, but I did about 27 pages in 18 hours and am wondering if that is really slow, or average.

[Hoomi]

Speed depends on the writer, how intricate the story is, how much research is involved in it, and many other factors.

When I did NaNoWriMo last year, I averaged about 2700 words per day for 22 days to complete the project. My profile has a bar graph with the word total at the end of each day. To accomplish that, I had the story outlined so that I knew what would happen in each chapter, hence saving myself the loss of time thinking, "Okay, what am I going to do next?"

Some stories flounder for a while. The one I just finished, Merrowsong, was first started a couple of years ago. I wrote maybe a chapter, and then it sat until something caused it to click again. The drawback to that is I have some inconsistencies from that first chapter through the rest of the story that will have to be corrected in the revision process, but the first draft is done. That's the tough part.

So far, I have never gotten sick of one of my stories. I'm not sure how I've managed that. I've gone over Cardan's Pod a bunch of times, and I still love the characters and the story.

One option you might try for your word count is to keep two separate files. In one, just have the text of the story. In the other, copy the text and add your notes. That way, you have a "clean" copy if you want someone to read over it and critique it, plus you can use your tools such as word count, "find and replace", etc.

[CrimsonMoon]

Now tonight I did 9 pages in 4 and 1/2 hours. So that is one page per half hour. that seems much more productive.

I also know what I am going to write before I sit and type. Or it would take me 2 hours to do a single page. I have the scene in my head like a movie, snippets of diologue, what has to be narrative, what has to be scene, etc.

I am very foturante that my day job is that of a courrier. So while I drive around Philly all day long, I have an outline for my next section and my digital voice recorder with me, and listen to instrumental sountracks, (mostly LOTR) and come up with what is going to happen next.

My book is extememly complicated, extremely long, and has too many characters to count, lol. (Ok, now I need to count....) OK, there is the MC, 2 major protagonist characters, and 3 seconday protagonist characters. Then there is the main antagnist, 7 major antagonists, and 5 secondary antagonists.

It is a roller-coaster plot with 16 sections - each with thier own mini-climax, and when all is said and done, it will be about the length of two novels.

And I am a no-name, unpublished, unagented little girl who believes she is writing the next LOTR - rofl. And I am dead serious, too.

[Hoomi]

Hey, if you don't believe in your book, no one else will.



I'm fortunate in that my job is much like the Maytag Repairman. Many days, I'm sitting around waiting for something to break, so I get a lot of idle time I can sit at the computer and write.

It beats the heck out of thinking up mischief to get into at work!

[Kiwigirl]

I entered a competition in NZ on the same day you guys had your deadline. We don't find out the results until October sometime. The prize is worth $10,000!

I'm sure I don't have a chance of winning but it was fun, and now that it's over and I have to wait I'm going to clean the loos, the floors, the kitchen cupboards.....

[Kiwigirl]

Duh, this machine is going wild doing double posts. Perhaps it thinks I'm going to clean the dust from it. Exciting.

[DMarie84]

Now tonight I did 9 pages in 4 and 1/2 hours. So that is one page per half hour. that seems much more productive.

That's amazing! I am SUPER slow at writing...I get picky lol. Probably explains why my stories die after a chapter--I get too picky about things. And then I get lost in research...

I have an outline for my next section and my digital voice recorder with me, and listen to instrumental sountracks, (mostly LOTR) and come up with what is going to happen next.

I don't use a voice recorder but I should try that I do listen to soundtracks all the time...lately it's been Memoirs of a Geisha because the music helps me relate to the story in my head. I generally try to picture it as a movie too

And I am a no-name, unpublished, unagented little girl who believes she is writing the next LOTR - rofl. And I am dead serious, too.

You may not be a no-name much longer It's good to have a goal like that--sometimes I dream that my stories will be made into movies...lol. But then I don't think I'd like to be a "famous" author--I'm not one for being the center of attention...ever.