Writing Questions for Josh Showing 751-800 of 4,753

[Calathea]

In a thread in the "Goodreads Feedback" group they mentioned that the chat is only available on special occasions like author chats.

[Jordan]

Hmmm.... I don't know where the chat is or anything.

I suppose we could just chat here in the forums once an hour or something. Would that work?

I wasn't going to be online much tomorrow anyway myself, just to check in once an hour because I do want to get a lot of this novel worked on. I'm wicked excited about tomorrow!

[Josh]

Jordan S. wrote: "Hmmm.... I don't know where the chat is or anything.

I suppose we could just chat here in the forums once an hour or something. Would that work?

I wasn't going to be online much tomorrow any..."

Why don't we do it that way? Check in tomorrow around the midway point (or, given the time differences, have members post when they reach their midway point?)

The focus should be on the writing not the chatting anyway, right?

[Anne]

Josh wrote: "Jordan S. wrote: "Hmmm.... I don't know where the chat is or anything.

I suppose we could just chat here in the forums once an hour or something. Would that work?

I wasn't going to be online..."

I would be into the chat every hour or so -- but it should be a voluntary thing. Jordan, I think I will start at 8, here. If none of you are online when I check in, I guess you just aren't. :)

[Jordan]

Ok, 8am for you and 11am for me then. Surprisingly, I just had a visit from one of my friends who wants to join us in this venture. She might just join me in my livingroom for the afternoon tomorrow.

She's not into m/m romance, but if she's hanging out with me, then I can just post for her or something, so that shouldn't be too big a deal. Or she can join for the afternoon? lol, we'll work something out. She's still not sure about her schedule yet anyway.

[Taylor]

Guys, I am totally confused. ARGH! What's going to be? The crit group's chat room or the one Jordan suggested (I'd say that one as better in case people that are not members of the crit group decide to join us. With the one Jordan suggested is just a matter of following the link; for the other one you guys just have to click on the Chat option and a new window will open. Looking forward to figure it out hehe

[Anne]

Taylor V. wrote: "Guys, I am totally confused. ARGH! What's going to be? The crit group's chat room or the one Jordan suggested (I'd say that one as better in case people that are not members of the crit group decid..."

Oh, the M/M Crit group on Yahoo? I get it, now.... I guess we should decide.

ETA: I have no real preference; here, Yahoo or Chatzy.

[Jordan]

I think Josh agreed to just chat here in this forum once an hour (or at the halfway point if you'd prefer). That way we don't have to keep a chat window open while we work. I'll be logging off between check in points, just to keep myself working on my novel.

But I could do one of the others if you guys would prefer. I'll talk to my friend, and see what she prefers when I go on my lunch break in a few minutes.

[Anne]

When writing a series, is it okay to change perspective from book to book? I'm writing in third person for the most part, but I have this prequel (happens 50 years before) that I want to write in first person. The MC's in each book are different.

[Jordan]

I think I'm just going to suggest that we meet up on the thread tomorrow morning and see where we want to go from there, if we want to have an actual chat or not. I don't think we need to, but we can see. Maybe if someone's having a difficult time and needs to talk to someone, we can work something out then, or they can work it out with the person they want to talk to, if not the whole group. Sound good?

BTW, the times are 8am for Pacific Time and 11am for East Coast time. And we'll go for 8 hours. I checked out the official site and it looks like you're supposed to check in, say what your goal for the hour is, work, come back and assess whether you met the goal, then create a new goal for the next hour and so on and so forth. I doubt we need to get that into it, unless some people will find that helpful.

[Blaine]

Jordan S. wrote: "BTW, the times are 8am for Pacific Time and 11am for East Coast time. And we'll go for 8 hours. I checked out the official site and it looks like you're supposed to check in, say what your goal for the hour is, work, come back and assess whether you met the goal, then create a new goal for the next hour and so on and so forth. I doubt we need to get that into it, unless some people will find that helpful. "

That would make the start 17:00 my time ...
I have no idea whether I'll be able to join you ... but I'm going to try. I'll set my mobile to remind me :)

[Anne]

Blaine D. wrote: "Jordan S. wrote: "BTW, the times are 8am for Pacific Time and 11am for East Coast time. And we'll go for 8 hours. I checked out the official site and it looks like you're supposed to check in, say ..."

Blaine, you certainly don't have to work the whole time if you can't do 8 hours. We'd love to have you. :)

[Jordan]

My friend is joining me in person, but she's decided to work from a notebook, so I'll post her progress for her. She'll have no internet to distract her, which could be a good thing! I'll just log off while I'm working.

So, does anyone plan to do something special, or allow themselves to buy something if they succeed tomorrow in all eight hours and getting everything done that they'd planned to? I'm thinking I might allow myself to get a stromboli for dinner. lol. Or maybe I'll allow myself an extra order or books, or to buy my bookcases earlier than planned.

[Anne]

Jordan S. wrote: "My friend is joining me in person, but she's decided to work from a notebook, so I'll post her progress for her. She'll have no internet to distract her, which could be a good thing! I'll just log ..."

Well, I'm considering buying the husband and e-reader for his birthday, so maybe I'll allow myself to seriously consider it....

That's kinda lame, isn't it?

[Cleon Lee]

How many hours until the writing start?

[Merith]

Cleon wrote: "How many hours until the writing start?"

I hope you all have fun today... I would love to be part of it, but have a long established commitment to watching Eurovision song contest with a group of friends. We've been doing it for years and it's a lot of fun.

[Blaine]

Merith wrote: "I hope you all have fun today... I would love to be part of it, but have a long established commitment to watching Eurovision song contest with a group of friends. We've been doing it for years and it's a lot of fun. "

I gave up on it.
I used to enjoy it, but with the new way of doing it, it just lost something. It seems less and less about the songs and the comradery of countries working together (well, together ... yes, in a way they are/were)

[Calathea]

Merith wrote: "Cleon wrote: "How many hours until the writing start?"

I hope you all have fun today... I would love to be part of it, but have a long established commitment to watching Eurovision song contest wi..."

I let me (reluctantly) convince to watch it, too. So, okay, Lena won last year, but she won't repeat it. I don't know if I want to be watching and see her fail... Best way to watch is with a whole lot of friends. GrandPrix-parties are known to be veeeery funny. :-))

[Jordan]

And the writing thing begins now! Or... whenever you want to start. Just don't forget you're "supposed" to do 8 hours if you can, but you don't have to.

I'm starting out by editing chapter 5 and 6 of my novel, and then I'll continue to write chapter 7.

[Cleon Lee]

I am shopping now on FW... will start in half an hour. lol.

[Anne]

Jordan S. wrote: "And the writing thing begins now! Or... whenever you want to start. Just don't forget you're "supposed" to do 8 hours if you can, but you don't have to.

I'm starting out by editing chapter 5 and ..."

I'm here, I'm starting! I got sucked into another thread. I'm writing for this hour, working on a prequel to the book that's been giving me anxiety attacks. I hate that thing.

[Blaine]

Cleon wrote: "I am shopping now on FW... will start in half an hour. lol."

I just finished shopping :)

Since it's past 5 pm here, I'll be interrupted by dinner and Doctor Who ... but I'll be writing on the novel that I'd put aside to write my short story (which is now finished, though still needs editing)
I finally found a new title for this novel. The old title, 'Echoes' became obsolete as soon as I found the villain of the story and the pov shiftted ...
I've been looking for a title for ages, and I kept coming back to the last names of my main characters ...
So, I finally caved and went for 'Aliens, Smith and Jones'.

first thing ... write a new first scene (the old one needs to be pushed back).

Good luck everyone :)

[Cleon Lee]

I am writing till I drop since it's already 11.00 pm here. My target is 5k words for a fantasy novel I have planned for so long and yet never managed to write.

[mc]

Good luck to all of you! I hope there are words oozing out of your ears by the end of the day.

Perhaps an unfortunate image.

[Josh]

Anne wrote: "When writing a series, is it okay to change perspective from book to book? I'm writing in third person for the most part, but I have this prequel (happens 50 years before) that I want to write in ..."

I think it's okay to try something new. Look how many readers would like to read a story from Jake's perspective. Just make sure you have a valid reason for changing the POV.

[Josh]

Okay. Hope you're all writing busily.

I'm going to do my checking in here today -- just because I don't have the attention span to try and figure another venue out.

The main thing, though, is to WRITE. Focus on the writing and don't worry about the checking in. We can hash it all out later, but the point of the exercise is to write and make significant progress. So let's do that.

Let's WRITE.

[Merith]

Calathea wrote: "Merith wrote: "Cleon wrote: "How many hours until the writing start?"

I hope you all have fun today... I would love to be part of it, but have a long established commitment to watching Eurovision ..."

Oh yes! And I don't think Lena will win again this year. I actually think the UK has a shot!

[Taylor]

I am late but I am here! Re-writing Chapter One of my second book draft to fit current ARC.

Good luck everybody

[Anne]

Josh wrote: "Anne wrote: "When writing a series, is it okay to change perspective from book to book? I'm writing in third person for the most part, but I have this prequel (happens 50 years before) that I want..."

Oh, I so want to know Jake's perspective. Seriously, I think it'd be hot. With lots of literary merit, of course.

I think I have a valid reason, but I'm doing it in 3rd for now. Thank you!

[Anne]

Okay, my first (half) hour is up, and this is what I did: I got more coffee, got my kids chocolate milk, yelled at them to ask their father, dragged the Husband out of bed, barricaded myself in the bedroom, answered the phone when my mother called (I've been avoiding her for 3 days) and wrote about 400 words.

This next hour, I'm writing 1,000, come hell or high water.

[Anne]

Cleon wrote: "I am writing till I drop since it's already 11.00 pm here. My target is 5k words for a fantasy novel I have planned for so long and yet never managed to write."

Go, Cleon!

[Josh]

Yes. Let go of everything else and just concentrate on the writing. Turn off the phone if you have to, lock the door, crank up the music, and work.

I don't want to hear a peep from anyone until you've got at LEAST 1K down.

Seriously.

[Blaine]

Well, it turned out I'd already written a satisfactory new first scene, so I'm now focussing on putting one or two more scenes between the beginning of the book and the occurance that used to be the first scene, but didn't feel right as a scene to begin the book with.
Am I still making sense? Probably not. Anyway ... getting back into the story is fun, but still more difficult than I'd thought it would be.
I can't remember all the names and keep having to go back to my two A4 papers with the complete organisation of the Primrose Organisation on it and hope I got them all.

back to writing :)

[Jordan]

Well, I've been working for about an hour, and things are going along pretty well. But I'm editing before I get to actual writing of future chapters, so it might be a long time before I get to writing 1k. I'll work for that though.

btw, Blaine, your crits are fantabulous! And "monstrous" became the word instead of horrible. Thanks to the thesaurus and Emily, my friend who's doing this with me.

Emily's hand writing, so it'll take her awhile to reach 1k too. Crossing my fingers though!

[Blaine]

Actually, my work today is part editing, part copying and pasting from other scenes and part re-writing. So ... it's a bit tough to say when I've reached 1K, but I'm enjoying mysef :) (and, yes, still checking in far too often)
yWriter claims I've reached the 1k, but most of that is copying and pasting ... so it's difficullt to say.


Jordan S. wrote: "btw, Blaine, your crits are fantabulous! And "monstrous" became the word instead of horrible."

*blush* thanks. And I think monstrous is a good one :)
I'm working on not letting my own writing style get in the way of critiquing others. It's quite the challenge.

[Blaine]

I'll have to say bye bye for now ... Dinner's almost ready (hubby's cooking) and Doctor Who will begin in less than half an hour.

I hope to be back afterwards :)

Good Luck, everyone!

[Anne]

Peep. I hit 1,195 words at 10:06 and stopped (the scene ended). I'm actually happy with it. I was planning on moving to typing in notes from all those notebooks to my wiki, but I think I'm going to keep writing.

Taylor, glad you made it. :)

[mc]

Well, I've mentioned writer's block before.

So I decided to try my hand at a writing exercise in honor of all the prolific-ness at hand here, which ended up being a sketch, rather than a story, but still a thousand words of something. It's certainly not good, nor is it anything I'm thinking of developing further, but I figure, the first step back into the bog is still the first step.

Doctor Who tonight, yay!

Now to reward myself by searching through the What Are You Reading Now thread and see what new authors (at least to me) I should purchase next.

[Cleon Lee]

*groans* I've been inactive for writing fiction too long and it's so hard to start again and finding my voice. Anyway, 1.00 am and I need to shut my eyes a couple hours before I start again. Good luck guys!

[Jordan]

I'm still editing away. I thought I'd be able to do a quick edit on chapters 3 and 4, but apparently there's a large plot hole looming, that I never even saw in front of my nose, so I've got to go back and fix that before I move on. Then, I'll jump to writing chapter 7 and beyond! Woot! This day is fantastic for me.

btw, welcome to others who've joined while I've been gone getting work done! Good luck! And thanks Josh for your wonderful inspiration!

[Anne]

mc wrote: "Well, I've mentioned writer's block before.

So I decided to try my hand at a writing exercise in honor of all the prolific-ness at hand here, which ended up being a sketch, rather than a story, ..."

That's so cool, mc. Feels good, doesn't it?

@Cleon -- you've gone above and beyond the call of duty. Go to bed. :)

[Anne]

I was going to write more, but I needed to plot stuff out in a little more detail, so I used my whole hour to do that. I've gotten pretty far.

Question: I made a up an evil, semi-fascist organization, and gave it this name that, as far as I can tell, doesn't actually belong to any other existing organization (or previously existing one). BUT... it's a commonly used phrase -- especially among gay activists, it turns out (that was a fluke) -- to describe a group of people.

Should I change it or stick with it? It's pretty politically charged.

[mc]

It would feel better if I thought it was anything of any value, given that's it's only an exercise :0 but yes. It's been years since I was part of a writing group, and forget about actual writing, I can't even come up with ideas anymore, whereas in the those years, I used to have them all the time (written on scraps of paper, napkins, bills). As a wise man once said, 'you don't miss your water till your well run dry.'

I'm just very impressed with all of you.

eta: I am now on page 8 of the 'what are you reading now' list. Only about 50 more to go!

[Josh]

Leave it for now. A better name may occur to you as you work.

[Josh]

mc wrote: "It would feel better if I thought it was anything of any value, given that's it's only an exercise :0 but yes. It's been years since I was part of a writing group, and forget about actual writing,..."

Getting those creative muscles moving again is a reward in itself.

[Blaine]

I'm back :)
Doctor Who was FAB as always :D
And dinner was lovely (rubarb and fish, can't go wrong)

Hubby is back to mending the fence (literally) and I'm going to have to sort out a train schedule for a friend who's coming to visit tomorrow, and then I'm going to see whether scene 2 is finished or needs something extra and what to do about scene 3 :)

Happy Writing :)

Josh wrote: "Leave it for now. A better name may occur to you as you work."

I agree with Josh.
The novel I'm working on actually had ORG as the name of the organisation my main character works for ... I didn't get around to actually finding a good name for it until I started editing in January ...
Then again, that's always been my basic MO. I name things [namenurse] or [isa'sboss] and keep at that until I give myself time to make up names.
The only ones I can't do that for are my main characters. I need a name for them before I start the story, but anything else gets alternative names until the edit :)
And let's not forget those poor characters who get two names, and you don't realise until you start editing that you changed their names

[Taylor]

Hummmm... I've been writing at a good pace and actually like how the scene is turning out, but one of my characters loves to quote the Bible and I am wondering if that could be a problem for potential readers, even if it is necessary for the plot...

[Blaine]

Taylor V. wrote: "Hummmm... I've been writing at a good pace and actually like how the scene is turning out, but one of my characters loves to quote the Bible and I am wondering if that could be a problem for potent..."

make a note and fix it later is what Michael A. Stackpole would say. You're writing now, let it just flow. You can worry about that when you're editing :)

Personally, if that is something your character does and it is believable, I'm not going to have a problem with it.

[Marie]

Merith wrote: "Cleon wrote: "How many hours until the writing start?"

I hope you all have fun today... I would love to be part of it, but have a long established commitment to watching Eurovision song contest wi..."

I'm watching Eurovision Song Contest too. :D (Right now as a matter of fact.) I've watched it pretty much religiously for as long as I can remember, and I actually think it's been much more fun in recent years when all the new European countries have gotten involved.

Jedward (Ireland) is my absolute favorite (with Moldava close behind). And I guess I should also add - Go Sweden!! lol

[Jordan]

Anne, it's probably best to do as Josh suggests. Though you've now got me curious as to what the name is! lol.

I'm still editing, but I think I'm almost done and ready to get back to actual writing. It's hard though, when you have to comb all the older chapters for small bits of info... like, where did someone (and I've forgotten who, of course) mention this thing that happened a year before the novel starts?!?! Oiy. I don't want to imagine having to do that when I'm further along than just at chapter 4. lol.