UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
Agony Aunt
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Today I mostly wrote ... the word count thread.
Yesterday, while refusing to watch the elections in the US, I finished the 982 word final scene in a 12K word chapter - and am getting ready to send it to my beta reader.The remaining chapters should be somewhat shorter, and I hope to finish this second volume in my mainstream trilogy as soon as I possibly can. (Not soon.)
I'm pretty sure that procrastinating and writer's block are currently the only authorly things that I am doing correctly at the moment. Finally overcame the first to run smack into the other. At least this topic/thread proves that it can be done, just not by me clearly...
Joseph wrote: "I'm pretty sure that procrastinating and writer's block are currently the only authorly things that I am doing correctly at the moment. Finally overcame the first to run smack into the other. At ..."
Oh I don't know, most of us are masters of procrastination :-)
I have a doctorate in procrastination for writing/marketing.I have a little note pinned up which says 'Stop pfaffing'.
It's so much easier and more rewarding to stop by on Goodreads and say hello here and there and to do the washing etc: there is a short time between starting and finishing.
Yeap it's far too easy to get distracted :-(
Today worked on the book I am sending round my crit group and completed the edits and story so far and sent it to them.
Looking back longingly to the days of the first lockdown. Yes I was still working through it, but people hadn't learned how to fill their days with zoom meetings and I got a lot of writing done
Joseph wrote: "I'm pretty sure that procrastinating and writer's block are currently the only authorly things that I am doing correctly at the moment. Finally overcame the first to run smack into the other. At ..."
What Anna said. I procrastinate like a pro. On the writers block ... I have started writing loads of things at once. That way there’s usually something I feel like writing. It’s not great for my completion rates but it keeps the I am fulfilled by writing bit of my brain happy. 🤪🤪
As usual, Jim, you've hit the nail on the head. I was blissfully undisturbed in the first lockdown with Zoom catch-ups with the family once a week on Sundays striking the right sort of note.Gradually, friends, bless them and I mean that, started suggesting Zooms, and then relatives on the other side of the world, and I get so excited about it I have to have a cup of tea and a time of reflection afterwards, and so it goes on.
M.T. I had it in my diary to start writing the first week in October and then November and then it was Tuesday of this week when, oh boy, I got out some papers and shuffled them, and now it is today that I will select what might be useful... I've always thought I could never, ever, not no how, write more than one piece at a time, but I can see where you are coming from and I might find it a good idea if the guilt starts seeping in.
Anna wrote: "As usual, Jim, you've hit the nail on the head. I was blissfully undisturbed in the first lockdown with Zoom catch-ups with the family once a week on Sundays striking the right sort of note.Gradu..."
For the last two weeks, I've slept four hours on a good night so, to be honest, I'm not really up to anything much. I'm hoping the sleep thing will improve over time. I just which it would fucking hurry up.
Cheers
MTM
I listen to CDs to get me off to sleep and to send me back off if I wake up in the middle of the night. Oscar Wilde at the moment, but some of the best sleep inducers are gentle comedies like 'John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme' series (intelligent comedy sketches making me feel all is well with the world). Then, if I don't slip off, at least I've been improving my mind or entertaining it!Four hours on a regular basis would turn me into a zombie.
I know it's mid morning, but may I wish you, M.T., and all who read this a good night's sleep - and that includes me!!!
Anna wrote: "Four hours on a regular basis would turn me into a zombie."Four hours on a regular basis has turned me into a zombie. I definitely don't function well with less than about six. It's 16 days so far and I see no improvement in the thing that's keeping me awake (it stiffens up in the night) so it doesn't look like there's much light at the end of the tunnel. I just have to have a snooze at midday now, as well.
Ho hum ...
Cheers
MTM
Snoozes are good, so very good. If I have one I have to put the alarm on!Enjoy your snooze, M.T.
M.T. wrote: "Anna wrote: "Four hours on a regular basis would turn me into a zombie."Four hours on a regular basis has turned me into a zombie. I definitely don't function well with less than about six. It's ..."
When you're up because it stiffens, do you have one of those bean bags you can heat in the microwave, and wrap around the joint? It might make getting to sleep, and getting back to sleep, a little easier. The pain keeps me awake - and I have a whole set of range-of-motion exercises I do then, which helps.
I also know that if I'm hungry, I have to get up and eat something, or I'm just going to lie there for hours. Last night I didn't get to sleep until 4, but I let myself sleep until 10:30 (after waking at 7:30), and it makes all the difference.
I definitely recommend the bags; good thought, Alicia.
Hi lovelies, yes I do have the bags and I use them in anger although it's very swollen so it's responding better to being iced. I have an ice pack that will last through the night and keep it by my bed. I guess it'll stop hurting one day, I just have to be patient.
Ice packs - brrr... Let's hope it stops hurting very soon.
I'll second Anna, hope it gets easier soon
Here in Qld Australia we have very few restrictions. Still frustrated though as my laptop went back to manufacturer 11 days ago so have not been able to write anything!
I think computer and phone repair shops are still open in the UK but genuinely I'm not sure
Thanks everyone, Rita, I hope you got your computer fixed. Did a little editing this week. The new book is a bit slow I think. Not sure. I need to tighten bits up I think. On the up side, bits are OK. Not sure the canal boat chase is going to hold water although I've introduced fog to make it more plausible.
Now I'm off to buy some warm tracksuit bottoms. Please heaven let Tesco have some.
Spent the last three days mostly changing from my main external hard drive which the system said could no longer be used for writing - no backups!Amazon delivered a new drive in a day, the transfer of data was LONG, and everything seems to be okay so far. The new drive is TINY.
I hope the write the scene I've been preparing all week today. Unless some other interference from fate comes along.
Aargh! I hate that sort of stuff happening, Alicia. I hope too that fate is kinder to you this coming week.
Anna wrote: "Aargh! I hate that sort of stuff happening, Alicia. I hope too that fate is kinder to you this coming week."yes it's the stuff that be the start of nightmares :-(
What we all need is an army of children, nieces, nephews, neighbours who are tech wizards and love showing off.
Anna wrote: "What we all need is an army of children, nieces, nephews, neighbours who are tech wizards and love showing off."Works every time :-)
The scene is written, 1700 words, polished, and listened to.It'll take at least an hour to run it through Autocrit and refine my usages to exactly what I want, rather than the somewhat-generic choices made by my brain during the writing (though I'm getting much better at catching them as I go, courtesy of using AC vigorously).
And it was a hard one. Except I say that about all of them!
Writing in the villain's pov is hard, until she just gets frustrated with me, takes over, and shows me how perfectly reasonable she is being. Her motto is 'Why not me?'
And I can't argue with her, because she's right, if you see the world from her hardscrabble perspective. In any case, she's it for the next scene, too, so that one should be easier on me.
AND I managed a trike ride.
This election stuff has been so depressing, mostly that it's not over, and that, from what I see everywhere, about 50% of the human race is being difficult.
Anyway. It only took me a week to get this done. I have to get much faster!
Stay safe, everyone.
Anna wrote: "Aargh! I hate that sort of stuff happening, Alicia. I hope too that fate is kinder to you this coming week."Having a Mac made it SO simple - time-consuming, but the instructions were simple, and they worked. I just had a lot of data to transfer.
I keep using Macs and iPhones, and have been rescued so many times by the automatic procedures. I programed supercomputers for a living way back, so maybe I just have the tech brain, but my kids run circles around me.
Jim wrote: "Anna wrote: "What we all need is an army of children, nieces, nephews, neighbours who are tech wizards and love showing off."Works every time :-)"
You lucky so-and-so!
Alicia said I programed supercomputers for a living way back, so maybe I just have the tech brain, but my kids run circles around me.Way back in the early 1980s, I was the only person trusted and allowed to open the 'email machine'. I would check and there wouldn't be any because no other organisations we had contact with had an 'email machine'. The organisation, which shall remain anonymous, was huge. And whenever I feel I am a tech failure, I smile secretly and remember...
I don´t normally put anything here, but I am feeling proud of the fact that I have just written a review of In Search of Lost Time Volume 2 and it ran to 3500 words. I cheated, by the way, because there are some grab quotes. But I did need to read the book to find them!
Philip wrote: "I don´t normally put anything here, but I am feeling proud of the fact that I have just written a review of In Search of Lost Time Volume 2 and it ran to 3500 words. I cheated, by the way, because ..."Good job. I can't review for beans. So aware of the mechanics any more that I can't evaluate the performance.
Still waiting for the return of my laptop. Then all I have to do is reload EVERYTHING!
Oh Rita, I do feel for you!! It's agony waiting, isn't it?For my first book to be published, the broadband decided to go down. A certain large (largest?) company couldn't find anything wrong and said it would investigate. 11 days later - zilch. So I visited my daughter and uploaded my first book.
Eventually, it was discovered that the break was in a cable along the road.
So hang on in there, we're with you in your agony! I'm sure you're already using that great cure-all - distraction.
I know how you feel Rita! I was 30,000 words into the sequal to my Bolivian Rhapsody book and somehow managed to break the memory stick it was on and couldn't find it anywhere on the laptop. Exists now only in my addled memory.Something similar happened to the novel I've just completed where I mislaid the manuscript when I was 20,000 words in. Rewrote it though and I think it's much improved so, every cloud, as they say!
When I have crafted a document (nothing like a fine piece of literature though!) that's important I usually email it to myself. Unless gmail goes down it can always be found :D
I need to bring a little of that common sense to my endeavours I think.In that vein, I have just written 2,000 words of the second tale of The Truth About Trees in which there is a nine year old girl encased in an upturned glass jar in the middle of a field in Belgium and a monkey named Leopold who plays the drums in a 19th century Harwich pub. There really is no hope for this fool!
After a week of gathering and pondering, the brain consented to write, edit, and polish the next scene - and I finally managed to write a short one: 769 finished words, and on to the next one.Usually I'm trying to write as short as possible, because there is a lot going on in a scene. This one was nice - one main turning point and a couple of surprises, and I could let the character run her mouth a bit. To herself: she wouldn't dream of letting anyone hear this stuff.
Fine going Alicia, Rita, Anna and Stuart, ouch! Yes I've done that too although like Stuart, I think the rewrite came up better ... probably! :-)
I've been a bit at sixes and sevens this week but I have finally written a blog post.
https://mtmcguire.co.uk/2020/11/21/au...
Dog tired, and being in pain is really getting old now, but I did some editing yesterday and it was wonderful. Cheers
MTM
It is, indeed, wonderful to lose oneself in writing and editing. Long may it continue for you (and the rest of us).
Anna wrote: "It is, indeed, wonderful to lose oneself in writing and editing. Long may it continue for you (and the rest of us)."Hear, hear! In the swing of it now and going through the edit with much more confidence.
252 word - beginning of next scene.I hadn't been able to focus lately, what with the pandemic and the presidential election here, but things are improving.
Just hope we manage to keep the stress level down a bit - otherwise it's going to be a very long wait. I won't be entirely happy until everyone who wants the vaccine has had it, and my kids are also safe, though we may get it well before them because of age and medical condition.
I'd like to get this book finished before restrictions are lifted, and I go back to too much social life!
Alicia wrote: "252 word - beginning of next scene.I hadn't been able to focus lately, what with the pandemic and the presidential election here, but things are improving.
Just hope we manage to keep the stress..."
Same here Alicia. Been sidetracked onto Christmas-related things. Had a lot of presents to send through the post for one thing as not seeing those people.
Just starting sweep three of the book and realise to my horror that it’s going to miss the audio slot. However, it should hit the streets late march. Woot!Not doing enough writing Christmas ... still at least we will be at home now.
Cheers
MTM
As I am in tier 4, I'm not allowed even one day to mix with others for Christmas. This has the advantage of making me realize I must get on while all this free time is being slapped on me. I have finished the first draft of the first chapter. About 1900 words written over many days! Bits here, bits there and Christmas cards written in between.
Anna wrote: "As I am in tier 4, I'm not allowed even one day to mix with others for Christmas. This has the advantage of making me realize I must get on while all this free time is being slapped on me. I have f..."Every cloud (Tier 4) has a sliver lining! Nice going.
Finally forced myself to focus yesterday, and got up to 996 words.And also admitted to myself that I don't like writing the villain's scenes from her pov, and don't like that, before the story can resolve, her dastardly plans have to come to fruition - plus worried about making them seem very, very plausible...
These are imaginary people, Alicia. Cut it out and get to work.
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I'm laughing at myself: the reason? It's a date between a character and someone readers will not want her dating - and I haven't been on a date in 45 years, so it's a little hard to write.
Things have changed, too.