I am, 33,000 words in so far.
>>7750747
What's it about?
>>7750751
It's about 33,000 words.
>>7750751
It's a historical novel set in Dark Ages Britain about the Saxon invasion.
>>7750752
No repetition I hope.
>>7750755
As opposed to the Saxon invasion of Israel set in the precambrian era?
>>7750747
Yes a sort of comedy, but now I'm depressed as fuck...
>>7750755
Have you got a copy to post or what sounds sort of cool. Please tell more at least.
I have ~20,000 words of character descriptions, funny dialogue, scenery descriptions, and recountings of characters on their phones, at their laptops, walking to class, staying up on various websites (with browser transcripts), and texting. I have no plot, though. Still figuring that out. I have a general idea where it's just a bunch of well-formed characters who end up crossing paths somehow but I'm working on that.
>>7750747
I am. Only about 10,000 words out of a planned 85,000 so far though.
already did, getting published this year. not trying to get my hopes up but it feels good.
Yes, I'm 13k words in the first rough draft. It's just for the sake of writing, anyways.
>>7750789
that's an interesting way to go about it. it sounds like your characters might end up sounding real if a little "alt-lit" like. but it all depends on the plot.
>>7750777
Not really a copy. I can tell more though, what did you want to know?
>>7750792
Do people really plan out how many words they want in their book?
>>7750816
>what did you want to know?
Everything.
>>7750796
Well what's it called motherfucker? I'll get a copy if it sounds good.
>>7750818
I don't know about others, but I do. If you have a clear goal in mind that makes the process a lot less overwhelming.
>>7750747
Yeah I am, about 9,170 words into it, still have a LOT more to go through, but it's coming along. I kind of hit a wall, but whatever, it's going to happen.
It's about an undercover cop who gets addicted to drugs, primarily cocaine, and gets caught up in the scene of getting fucked up and partying instead of doing his job.
One of his partners gets murdered by a serial killer stalking his way through the city, mostly on accident as he was planning on killing the woman living next door to them and gets the addresses mixed up.
After this he begins stalking the main character because they have a run in at the murder scene and be becomes interested in him.
This eventually leads to him having to work with the Homicide Squad who start to realize he's a little too fucked up to be doing his job.
ive been working really hard on an idea, but i know that that means absolutely nothing when it comes down to the physical act of writing. all of my past projects have fallen to pieces for reasons i think i finally understand but i worry that ive set my sights far too high and the book can never be what i want it to be, because im not experienced enough yet
>>7750747
Yup. First draft finished. 87k. Feels good.
>>7750912
Congrats man. What are your plans for it?
>>7750937
Thanks, dude. I definitely wanna pursue publishing it but I dont really know how to go about doing that. There's a professor I'm acquainted with at my university who has published several books, so I was thinking about approaching him and seeing if he could explain the process, or help me through it in some way.
>>7750747
I've written 2 short stories (about 20k words each), with 3 more in the works and a series of proper-sized novels following that.
>>7750985
Do it
For real though, just google literary agents, find a bunch that are advertising themselves as interested in the type of book your's fall under (YA, a specific genre, nonfiction, etc) then send them a query letter giving a breif description about yourself and the book, keep doing that until one of them says they're interested in reading it (ormally they ask you to send the first chapter or so with the query letter) and then they start asking publishers to take a look at your book until someone reads it and wants to publish it
Boom
>>7750985
You either query a bunch of agents or try to send the manuscript itself to a publishing house. Most don't take unsolicited manuscripts though so you'll probably need an agent.
Also, if you can get your professor to introduce you to an agent or editor directly, that'll help a lot.
i wrote in a blitz to about 10k words then inexplicably started hating the fuck out of it. lost all inspiration. went to gf/senpai for feedback, all of it positive, then couldnt overcome the thought that it was all biased. insecurity is a fucked up thing. no creative writing courses, haven't read a novel in ages, convinced objectively that i couldn't write well.
posted a blurb in the critique thread on a whim, got good feedback. have successfully convinced myself anons are about as unbiased as you could get, so now having faith in my writing again. going back to work on the same piece this evening after re-reading and studying the direction i was trying to go. thanks /lit/? lol.
>>7751021
Biased feedback is the thing I fear the most.
>>7750812
I'm into the Tao Lin "millennial melancholy klonopin and twitter and lowercase letter" aesthetic but I'm a bit more maximal, political, mid-brow genre-ish. For my playwriting class I'm writing a spinoff where one of the characters in this novel forms a harem in a post-apocalyptic Texas.
I am 95000 words in. It's a about a tough world-weary no-nosense old cop who's close to retirement. He gets the hardest case of his life and gest paired up with a new, cocky young hotshot rule-bending rookie detective. Here are some lines from it (it's still pretty rough):
>Look McConnor, his methods? I don't like them...but goddamn it the kid gets RESULTS
>Because it'll get us both killed son
>You took that oath but did you think about it? Do you ever wonder why we do what we do?
>I can't take it anymore, this gets under your skin and eats you up from the inside
What do you think?
>>7750999
>>7751009
Yeah I'm vaguely aware of the prospects of finding an agent, but the process really intimidates me, not having experienced it yet. What I'm hoping is that the prof I mentioned has some colleagues/connections that are looking for clients and I get hooked up that way.
This might just be me being optimistic, but I'd feel like literary agents nowadays are particularly hungry for clients, right? I feel like there are less people writing and publishing in the formal process now than ever, or at least in recent years. Or is that an incorrect assessment?
>>7751058
>This might just be me being optimistic, but I'd feel like literary agents nowadays are particularly hungry for clients, right? I feel like there are less people writing and publishing in the formal process now than ever, or at least in recent years. Or is that an incorrect assessment?
Very wrong. They get so many submissions that you will be lucky to even get a reply a lot of the time, and even if you do it can take months and that's just for what will most likely be a rejection.
8152 words in out of the 20k (~60 pages) and I hit my mental block
It's about political science mixed with systems theory and a slight deviation towards evolutionary psychology. Haven't taken a break from the past 3 days of non-stop writing and trying to come up with stuff to actually write for so I have at least 50 pages of this shit. After a fast revision of what I've written so far, it starts out very creative and powerful but ends up feeling (for the last 5 or so pages) like you're reading some scientific article with zero feeling in the text.
Oh well, I guess it's time to go back to the practice of drugging myself with huge amounts of coffee. To the point where you can't keep the soup in the spoon from having your heart nuked with adrenaline, forcing your hands to shake like you've spent your whole day drilling something. If you keep your brain clean of coffee for a couple of months and do the above, you'll literally feel like you're some 30 IQ smarter. The brain activity spike is insane.
>>7751068
Really? Fuck, guess I feel for the "literature is dead" meme and assumed people arent as inclined to writing novels as they used to be.
>>7751092
The problem is that so many see these authors making a fucking killing off of shit works, like Twilight/50 Shades or generic 'self-help' books, that they've flooded the market. Most of it is so shit that people expect all of it to be shit, which means decent writers don't get found amongst it all. I mean, I genuinely saw someone charging $5.99 for a 7 page 'story' of their life in the foster system.
>>7751021
I try not to reread anything except maybe the last paragraph until it's finished, it's the easiest way to lose faith in yourself, because it's not going to be perfect the first time around, and if something's not finished there's no point in editing relentlessly, especially if it's a scene that you may end up cutting or reworking all together once you know what the entire scope of the story is going to be.
Really just finish it, even if it never gets published and you move on it's good practice.
It's like working out, if you don't lift everyday you're not going to make progress, and if you don't finish your stories then it will be that much harder to finish one that you want to.
Also, what's it about, I'm curious?
>>7751058
>>7751060
I'm >>7751014 and I agree with >>7751068 by all accounts, they're flooded with queries and it takes a week or two minimum in most cases to even get a generic form rejection. You should definitely try to get your professor to hook you up because that'll massively improve your chances.
>>7750830
thanks buddy, but it's a czech book so you wouldn't really get much from the title.... and as well from reading it.
>>7750747
Finished already (80k) and now I'm waiting for a contest result. I'm currently writing my second one (10k so far). Sometimes I wonder why I insist but it's fun when I don't want to die.
Writing a "sci-fi" thing. Working out the different episodes and already have my endings together.
I've probably written at least a novels worth of stuff but I'm constantly revising and working at the structure of it so its the best form it can be.
I had in mind for a couple books and novellas, but I feel like I can get this all down in a single work. I really want it to be something people can re-read for more layers and enjoyment
>>7751174
thanks for this. that's good advice, through and through.
it's about a straight-edge academic whiz that stumbles into the underground graffiti scene, eventually becoming obsessed with conquering it.
>>7751581
You're writing an episode for a cartoon? Or is it an entire arc?
I'm writing something.. or I was, until I got in a block around november. I wrote the first 30 pages in two days or so, then I slowly lost the drive, I've been reading it over and over, but I can't get myself to write the next scene, I've like two sequels in mind and a lot of stuff I want to throw in. The story is fantasy genre by the way, I want to integrate some sci-fi elements in it as well. I'm not saying the title or what's it about because I know people will call me weeb and other names, though I can tell you that I got inspired mostly from Accel World and other similar Japanese light novels, also the Warcraft series.
>>7750747
finished and edited, 90k.
Now I'm just stuck shitting out query letters while going back and forth between a sequel and something original.
>>7751092
Not really. Writing is one of those things that is heavily romanticized in a lot of peoples minds, and it's one of the most accessible arts in the sense that anyone can afford to do it, it isn't collaborative (outside of things like publishing) so can be done solely, and that people are more deluded in thinking they can write just because everyone is functionally literate, so they think it requires less effort than other arts because they already have the basic provisions to pursue it.
Reading serious literature is what's dead and even then it's arguably more of a meme than everything as it's never been popular.
You're going against more people than ever when competing to get published. There is a reason your generally told not to pursue the arts/writing if you are in it for the money.
Even if you get a literary agent, that's not even a guarantee of you getting published either. They still have to do their job and field you to publishers and if that's not going anywhere most won't be hesitant in dropping you quickly as they have so many other options and aren't making money while trying unsuccessfully to get something publishers to accept something.
Then there is the fact that even if you do managed to get published, unless you or your work have a lot of commercial potential or they really like your stuff, they aren't going to hedge their bets and put a lot of work in marketing in. Most published writers make fuck all and will fade into obscurity quickly.
Not meaning to deter you, but it's not an easy road, and you need to keep your expectations in check. You're lucky they you already have someone you know who could possibly provide an in. Like another anon said try to exploit that.
>>7751590
i'm hoping it'll be a novel worth reading.
>>7751691
>, but I can't get myself to write the next scene, I've like two sequels in mind and a lot of stuff I want to throw in.
You don't have to write sequentially. Just write the shit you have in your head now. Just get stuff down on the page and edit it into something coherent later.
im writing a book where the hubble telescope sees that our god is a really large duck - spanning several galaxies in size and the only reason the universe continues is so he can finish squeezing the full contents of a similarly massive ketchup tube onto a piece of bread and how humanity copes with this revision of their knowledge
>>7751806
Burn in hell, heretic.
>>7751781
I think I'll do that today, just now I was re-reading and I thought some new stuff for the prequel (I said two sequels but it's actually a prequel and a sequel, my mistake).
yes I am but I'm learning how to write first
Well, I've been working on a novella which the bare-bones plot is loosely based on the film 'Seven Samurai', and has the idea of each of the Seven Samurai representing each of the Seven Deadly Sins and their contrasting Seven Virtues.
Been working on it since late December, and have 25,000 words written for a first draft, but I've been stuck for the past 3-4 weeks and haven't made any progress.
I've been re-watching Lawrence of Arabia, my favorite film, and it's making me feel like writing a novella about something Arab. It helps that I know a hell of a lot more about Arabian culture (considering I'm Arab myself), compared to Japanese culture.
>>7752690
i'd read that novella, keep us posted
>>7752701
Thanks anon, I'll be sure to make note of any significant progress that I've made.
>>7751764
OP here. Reading serious literature is dead? It's literally all I read.
>>7751691
The title is World Splitter. Even Oedipus could read through that blur.
Also, grow some balls. "I might get called a weeb" is not an excuse.
It's called "Odysseus in the New Millennium" and is a broad attack on modernity. It's an inquiry into the hubris of modern man, and his struggle to find his home. In the 21st century, people are beginning to call themselves "Global Citizens" of the "Global Economy". Even conservationism is condemned to abstractions. Terms like "biosphere", "eco-system", "environment" are common because people there is no longer a connection with "home". I think we can learn from the words of Heidegger: “only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build”. The further we drift away from this desire to dwell the more angst we suffer.
Much of the capitulation of the West is the loss of confidence. Modern man needs to rediscover himself. He also needs to reject the Utopian hubris of technocracy, multiculturalism, one world government, peace on Earth, trans-humanism, atheism, etc.
Even if modern man can overcome his hubris, he must slay the villains at home. Just like /p o t t e r y/
>>7753208
it's non-fiction btw. I am not skilled enough for fiction.
>>7753208
> 2016
> writing neo-nazi propaganda
Anon plz
>>7753208
Pretty much what the above guy said. Sounds like you just don't like brown people and think they should die.
>>7753208
>angsty faggots shitting up the book sphere with their neo-reactionary brainfarts that boil down to "i want to crawl back into mommy's lap"
>>7750800
>1 word
Cock.
>>7750766
Jesus what an annoying cunt you must be in real life.
>>7751806
>ketchup on bread
I would not take it well.
>>7753257
You mean like Houellebecq?
I'm writing my first. I've been doing freelance writing for other schmucks for 2 years now, and I'm at a comfortable spot I can do that as a living, but I want to write for myself now instead of helping people ghost write their novels.
It's nothing major. An anthology collection of horror short stories.
>>7750747
So far 10,000 words, about 30,000 more from finishing the first draft. I started writing during my free time, then my shitty job's company broke, letting me with that wonderful feeling of "WhatTheFuckAmIGonnaDoWithMyLife?" of the post-college, side-job losers.
Then I realized that now I had the time to get into the story I was crafting, as much as I wanted. It had an actual meaning also, since I started that as a way to satisfy my narrative desires that my "quest designer/writer" job in an indie games company didn't fill.
I hope I can get it done by May-June and start to look for agents or publishing companies by then.
So glad to see that so many people trying to write as well. If I can give a pleb advice: DON'T FUCKING QUIT, NEVER. We all now that self-indulgent-guilty feeling of "Yeah, my writing is bad, I'll just give it a thought for a few days, take a break" and then you never come back.
Keep going, improve, re-read, re-write, re-do everything in the end if it's necessary, but don't stop.
PS: Hard-boiled style, OP?
>>7751764
>mfw you use all these factors to rationalize why you haven't finished whatever you're writing
Not the guy youve replied to, but you're undeservedly pessimistic about a process you've likely never gone through.
>B-but I'm just being real, man!
Is anyone here looking forward to self publishing? There's absolutely nothing out there that's like the novel I'm writing. Publishing houses wouldn't know how to market it, if they even took the gamble of picking it up. It would have a shit cover, a bunch of shill blurbs shamelessly crowing about how it "evokes [insert famous author's name here]" and is "staggeringly mature".
I don't want publishing houses touching my work. They're clueless. I haven't enjoyed a single novel I've read published in the last twenty five years.
>>7753806
If push comes to shove I'll self-publish, but I honestly think my work will be able to make it through traditional publishing.
>>7753770
He's not wrong though. That was an excessively pessimistic way to frame it, but what he said is fairly accurate in that there are pitfalls in every step of the process assuming you even get that far.
>>7753822
How much marketing research have you done?
>>7753822
lol the big companies easily spend ten times that much so I think I can manage.
Ontop of that, building up an image + working via word out mouth should be an effective tool. People love to hear about some zany "outsider" stuff, sell it like that and watch the attention flow.
t. wannabe Marketing major
>>7753819
I'm not saying he's wrong, but I'm not saying hes speaking from experience, either. He's likely just parroting some memes from a movie he saw, or heard from a teacher he had, or something.
If the people ITT are to be believed, then that means several of them have finished the novel they set out to write. This might sound like I'm giving them too much credit here, but that alone sets them apart from 99% of "writers."
And maybe I'm being optimistic because I'm in a good mood today, but it's not hard to imagine that someone tenacious enough to finish the first draft of their book could at least nab an agent, which would even further signify their potential.
>>7753844
You're definitely being way too optimistic. Finishing a first draft, or even a final draft, in no way guarantees finding an agent for it. The market is oversaturated and with cold-querying 99% of the time you're going to be rejected over and over again before anyone even shows the slightest sign of interest, unless you have something that's clearly marketable or you manage to find an agent that happens to like it.
>>7753862
>Finishing a first draft, or even a final draft, in no way guarantees finding an agent for it.
Never said that it does.
And yeah, who's kidding who, a lot of what gets published nowadays is crap. But maybe somebody who posts on /lit/ has written/will write a marketable piece of crap. It's not impossible to imagine.
I'm not saying you and the other guy are wrong, but it's probably best to take what you two are saying with a grain of salt because, again, you're likely not speaking from experience. Publishing a book is such a gambit of a process. There's way too many variables involved to be able to talk about it with unfamiliar assurance.
>>7752690
What a hackneyed plot premise
Weird. OP's pic depicts something somewhat similar to what I've spent the last two years working on--part travel adventure story, part intertextual puzzle box.
I'm currently at 160,000 words, 4/5 finished, and it keeps metastasizing. Editing it down is going to be harder than writing the first draft.
Out of curiosity, provided the story and prose are up to snuff, would /lit/ be interested in or turned off by a modern book that quite consciously mimics the golden age of bookmaking: quality binding, antiquated features, ample vintage illustrations and photos, maps, a ton of original research, and a plot that involves dead languages, mystery cults, a palimpsest, and the search for two female archaeologists who go missing in the same remote region nearly a hundred years apart?
>>7750747
60.000 + words written in less then two months.
Haven't added a single line in almost a year.
>>7753879
It's not as unpredictable as you'd think, and usually not in a good way.
98k reporting in. Just done with prologue and characters/world representation. Long road awaits, before it's done.
I've written eight novels and three biographies (not auto) but I haven't published them and never will
>>7753954
Are they that bad?
>>7753961
I don't know, I've never read any of them as a whole. But at least my Alessandro Cesati biography should be very good.
>>7753972
What's the point of writing that much stuff if there's no chance that anyone would ever see it though? Seems like a waste of time to me.
>>7753988
My biographies are about people of no further interest to anyone but maybe a handful of people. So publishing them would be a waste of effort.
My novels are written in Hebrew (in order to practice my Hebrew since I emigrated to Israel) which isn't my first language therefore they are not very good and probably full of mistakes. Ergo publishing them would be a waste of effort aswell.
Nevertheless, I enjoy writing
>>7753140
>The title is World Splitter.
kek well yeah, still I'm not sure is a good title for what the story is about, I decided the name when I had just started writing and now I don't think it fits the images of the story as well as it's supposed to, maybe I should change it later when I get out of this problematic part I'm writing.
How do you guys decided the title for your works?
>>7754009
מה שפת האם שלך? אני אשמח לקרוא את מה שכתבת. אין מספיק חומר בעברית, טוב או לא. זה חשוב להמשיך לפרסם דברים בשפה, לפני שתמות פעם נוספת.
>>7754022
For my main story it just worked
Later stuff its usually just an indicator of the overall theme done in a way consistent with the aesthetic
>>7754022
Sometimes the title comes even before I start developing the idea and it stays like that, but mostly the words that can summarize the topic and core of the story comes at half the development of the draft or close to the ending.
Anyway, I always follow a statement Umberto Eco made once: "A novel is a complex machine that creates interpretations and make ideas blossom". So, when writing the title I keep in mind that it is (imho) something that may hint the original idea of the story, some obscure meaning, or just something that describes the overall of your book, without spoiling anything.
Though in the end you can just name your work as you please and not give a fuck.
>>7754032
Sorry, but no. If I ever decide to publish something then it would be one of my biographies, probably the one about Mao Zetan (the brother of Mao Zedong) or the one I'm currently writing on about John Sherman, the cricketer.
And my first language is Dutch. (My biographies are written in English, though)
>>7754022
It just sort of popped up in my head. I'm not 100% sold on it but it's something to put on query letters for now.
>>7750789
sounds pretty good
I've just started on an idea which I expect warrants a very long book. Best way to explain is that it's kind of like a postmodern 1001 nights.
>>7754312
fucking disgusting. first, why would anyone want to read a book that the author self-categorizes as "a postmodern [x]". second, this sounds like a lazy excuse for an infinite jest knockoff from a dumber person than dfw.
>>7754329
It's not at all remotely similar to infinite jest. I don't want to go too much into it but what I meant by 1001 nights is that it's a series of stories and stories within stories. I guess it's more of a modernist than postmodernist idea really
>>7753938
If it was as formulaic as you say, people would have found a way to work around it.
>>7753930
I would read it, more for the plot than the book making.
>>7754840
It is and they have. Look at Tao Lin for example. He started small with poems and self-published crap, then slowly worked his way up until he got Vintage to publish a book of his. Poetry is often used as an easy "in" to publishing because the standards are noticeably lower for it and getting poems published is piss easy.
>>7750747
Yes. Most of them are still in my head. Haven't stopped to count what I've written since I could, theoretically, rewrite it all out anyway.
Over the course of 2 years, i've written about 10,000 pages that i've either completely erased or rewritten. That said, it's the first two books of 4, so i guess it isn't that much.
Is that guy with like 6 fantasy books already written still around here?
