# I Am So Lost Right Now



## srebak (Jul 5, 2014)

I'll warn you right now, there may be stuff from previous threads in here, but i really don't have the patience to hunt down each and everyone on this forum.

Anyway, here's the deal: i've started work on so many writing projects and i just can't seem finish any of them. This is made even more frustrating by the fact that i have nothing but time on my hands. It's been months since i've written anything, what's wrong with me? 

Part of me thinks that it might be too much television, but even when i turn off the TV, my muse still leaves me hanging. I can't even visualize the stories properly anymore, now it feels like everything i don't want in my story, my mind wants to force in, it's driving me to the brink i tell you!!!


----------



## Svrtnsse (Jul 5, 2014)

Maybe your projects are too big? I don't know, but I sort of get the impression with your mind wanting to force things in.

Have you tried a really short and focused story? Something that you define clearly what it's going to be about and then limit to a very low word count? The purpose wouldn't be to write a great story, but to finish something. That way you don't have to focus on making it super awesome, but on sticking with the program and not deviating from the plan.
Pick something silly that you don't really care about and view it as a learning experience rather than as a writing project. Try something silly that's not your style and just get it done.

Example: Little girl climbs a tree, finds a bird's nest and in the nest there's a tiny dragon. The dragon breathes a tiny flame on her and she falls out of the tree and runs home crying. Then her mom scolds her for getting her dress dirty. The end. - 500 words.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 5, 2014)

srebak said:


> ...my muse still leaves me hanging.


This is your problem, relying on inspiration to write. If you want to be a writer you have to sit down and write, even when you don't want to...no, especially when you don't want to. 

Inspiration may come in flashes but it never sustains long enough to finish any work of length.  Instead of inspiration, learn to rely on discipline. When you sit and work regularly, you will find the inspiration you think you need isn't truly necessary. The muse exists, but she rarely comes to those who aren't already working. Make her respect your discipline and work ethic and she'll be a more willing partner. 

Keep a commitment to yourself. Rely on discipline. Rely on yourself alone and stop telling yourself it's exterior forces (like inspiration) that's keeping you from your goals. It's you & your choices, nothing more, nothing less.


----------



## ThinkerX (Jul 5, 2014)

> Inspiration may come in flashes but it never sustains long enough to finish any work of length. Instead of inspiration, learn to rely on discipline. When you sit and work regularly, you will find the inspiration you think you need isn't truly necessary. The muse exists, but she rarely comes to those who aren't already working. Make her respect your discipline and work ethic and she'll be a more willing partner.



Case in point:

I am currently rewriting an older piece of mine.  It be s struggle each time to open the relevant files and start scanning the texts.  But once I do, the hours melt away.  Last time, a 'real quick edit pass' lasted four hours and some.


----------



## Penpilot (Jul 6, 2014)

As T.A.S. mentioned, you can't depend on your muse. 

Here's a little something I wrote on a different forum about 7 years ago when I came to the realization that I couldn't depend on the muse. I think I posted this on Mythic Scribes before but I can't seem to find the thread. But any way, here's what I think about the muse.



> The muse is a big fat lazy witch that wants to do nothing but eat bon-bons and watch Oprah all day long. That right I said it.
> 
> After finishing my first novel and doing rewrites to it, I found that I achieved so much more if I didn’t wait around for her, my muse, to get up off the crumb riddled couch. Sometimes you just have to write whether you’re feeling it or not. You put on the greased stained, wife-beater, tank top, grab that witch by the hair, drag her to the computer, and pound her into submission with each key stroke. (Please this is not condoning violence against women)
> 
> ...



TL;DNR?

F*ck the muse. Just pick one of the many projects you have on the go, and just stick with that. Put down one word then another, without worrying if what you're writing is any good. That's how you get out of a funk, you write. Write the story until it's finished enough and then move on.

Don't let the weight of the infinite possibilities in front of you stop your progress. Shrug it off and just focus on the next word, not the words that came before nor the words beyond the next one. 

Write and fall down. Write and fall down again. That's how you get better.


----------



## Philip Overby (Jul 6, 2014)

Good advice so far. I'll share a little story of my own because I've been writing novels and short stories for going on 10 years, trying different things. The most success I've had as a writer thus far has been because I didn't worry about waiting for inspiration. I decided, "You know what, I'm just going to write every day." I've been doing so since I quit relying on mainlining from a muse. Now I'm not some roaring success or anything, but I don't get writer's block, I don't have bad days (I have mediocre ones for sure), I don't beat myself up. I just exist as a writer. It's a lonesome existence at times and has little instant gratification. Therefore it becomes a constant need to impress oneself. The key, for me anyway, was to just try and get things moving. Forward momentum is your friend. Once you finish a first draft and then another and then another and see your projects completing, becoming edited, existing out in the world and not on your laptop taunting you, it becomes like a drug. 

I've seen several projects that looked like piles of failure turn into something quite remarkable. It's because I worked on them until they were as perfect as I could get them. Not comparing myself to other writers has certainly helped. I'm not GRRM, I'm not J.K. Rowling, I'm Philip Overby and that's who I'm going to be. I have to carve out my own place in the writing world and hope there are people that like what I'm doing. That's all any of us can hope.

Completion. Again and again, writers who have work out there say "Finish what you start." It's a plague upon beginning writers and veterans alike to not finish projects. But after you complete another and another and another, your muse will be left in the dust because she can't keep up with you. 

That's when the real fun begins.


----------



## Helen (Jul 6, 2014)

Sure you got to write. Else you won't get anywhere.

But you also got to figure out how stories work. Else you'll easily write garbage, and that'll crush your motivation. 

You also want to figure out your market. Selling your stories is a big motivator.


----------



## Devor (Jul 6, 2014)

A few things - and I'll shoot for a longer list even if some don't apply to you:

 - Focus on the next step, and see it clearly, instead of focusing on the entire project.  Focus on the scene, the paragraph, the sentence.  Shuffle the rest aside.

 - Change your goal from finishing to starting, at least while you're in this struggling phase.  Make a point of starting.  Start ten times a day if that's what it takes.  You can't make progress if you don't start, and any amount of progress adds up over time.  Start, start, start.  Keep it up, and over time, you'll get through a little more on average each time.

 - "Planning" should not be an ambiguous step.  Planning should be as active as writing.  You've got to go in with a goal, a technique, and figure out what you're doing.  And yes, "creative downtime" can be a technique, _if you have developed it into something you can rely on_, or else build it into your day so that it doesn't infringe on your writing time ("I think about my stories while I do the dishes...").  But don't let "planning" be a time-wasting trap.  It's part of the work.

 - There are different definitions of the word "muse."  The one that I learned growing up - and which I have found helpful - is that a muse is the person you're writing for.  The single person you have in mind, besides yourself, to represent your audience, be it a spouse, a friend, a mortal enemy.  I mention this because it helps with focusing and finding your writing voice.  Sure, your voice should grow with experience writing and reading.  But the throughline of your voice comes from you, your life experiences, the way you conceive and talk about things.  Figure out who you're talking to, but don't be afraid to be yourself.  It takes the pressure off.

 - There are different types of editing, and most of them should be shuffled off as a later, separate step.  Don't try to restrain yourself.  Don't try to reshape yourself.  Don't try to overthink yourself.  Rewrite a bad sentence or if you change your mind, or if something leaps out at you as you reread, sure.  But for the most part, just let it out.  Let the editing Hell come later.

 - Everyone is dissing inspiration, and for good reason.  But the problem is specifically _relying_ on "inspiration" because you can't control it.  But inspiration is great when it's there.  And you _can_ influence your inspiration. *Give yourself a lot to be excited about in your work.*  Why are you writing?  What makes you think you can do it?  Go back through your work, find anything about your work that you love, however small or infrequent, and build on them.  There are reasons you think you can do this.  Find those reasons and plaster them all over the page.  And it's okay, early on, if they are the moments that struck you as "inspiration."  That inspiration didn't come out of nowhere.  It came out of you.  It came out of _your excitement_.  So foster it.  Use it as your springboard for the bulk of the time when it isn't there.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 6, 2014)

Devor said:


> Everyone is dissing inspiration, and for good reason.  But the problem is specifically relying on "inspiration" because you can't control it.  But inspiration is great when it's there.  And you can influence your inspiration. Give yourself a lot to be excited about in your work.  Why are you writing?  What makes you think you can do it?  Go back through your work, find anything about your work that you love, however small or infrequent, and build on them.  There are reasons you think you can do this.  Find those reasons and plaster them all over the page.  And it's okay, early on, if they are the moments that struck you as "inspiration."  That inspiration didn't come out of nowhere.  It came out of you.  It came out of your excitement.  So foster it.  Use it as your springboard for the bulk of the time when it isn't there.


Devor makes a good point. It's certainly worth noting where and when in the process inspiration occurred. I agree, but with a caveat. 

Inspiration feels great. It's a fantastic creative fuel. It can drive you as an artist. However, it can also be blinding. 

When I go back and read things written weeks, months, or even years ago, it's easy to remember those spots where I felt inspired. Often they're no better, and sometimes worse, than sections where I was simply working at the writing. 

This is also true where I've had people read stories for me. It isn't unusual for them to scribble comments like "this is really good" over parts I penned with plain old work and discipline where the inspired bits receive comments like "I don't get it" or "this seems overdone". 

That alone has taught me that work is superior to inspiration over the long haul. I now view inspiration as a luxury. It can make me enjoy the process more and revel in the muse's attentions, but I don't need her. Further, I can write just as well without her. That is a liberating revelation. It grants me all control of my pursuit.


----------



## Jabrosky (Jul 6, 2014)

For me the problem isn't really finding inspiration. If anything I probably have an excess of ideas. It's figuring out how to turn those ideas into functional stories that continues to stump me. What tends to happen is that, once I get a chapter or two into a project, I stumble into a plot hole or otherwise realize that I've written myself into a corner. One message I've taken home from such experiences is that some form of planning would work better for me than so-called "pantsing". But even then, plans can still have holes that you may miss.


----------



## Devor (Jul 6, 2014)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> When I go back and read things written weeks, months, or even years ago, it's easy to remember those spots where I felt inspired. Often they're no better, and sometimes worse, than sections where I was simply working at the writing.



I can definitely say that isn't true for everybody.  I've had people literally isolate the thought I felt was "inspired" and go "Wow!"

I think that "inspiration" - and I use the word in quotes because I think it's misunderstood - is just another way by which the brain works.  It's a different way of making connections that you can be good at or bad at just like anything else.

However, I also want to be pretty clear, because reading your post I feel like you're hearing something much stronger than what I said.  In the quote you highlighted, my wording wasn't very strong at all:



> _And it's okay, early on, if they are the moments that struck you as "inspiration." ...._


Admittedly, I didn't include those qualifiers out of concern for the quality of the inspiration, but because it's not the same source of motivation you should be doing the bulk of your writing with.  Still, it's a far cry from suggesting that "inspiration" is going to be, well, truly "inspired."

Finally, it was only one point out of several, and I don't want a discussion of inspiration to distract from the perceived importance of the other points.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 6, 2014)

Jabrosky said:


> For me the problem isn't really finding inspiration. If anything I probably have an excess of ideas. It's figuring out how to turn those ideas into functional stories that continues to stump me. What tends to happen is that, once I get a chapter or two into a project, I stumble into a plot hole or otherwise realize that I've written myself into a corner. One message I've taken home from such experiences is that some form of planning would work better for me than so-called "pantsing". But even then, plans can still have holes that you may miss.


I don't know. Pantsing can be as effective as outlining. It just depends on what works for you.  

Ideas for stories, in my opinion, are small pieces of inspiration. An idea may inspire, but it is only a kernel of the overall tale.   

I think most of us have a plethora of ideas. Some may inspire us at the start. Some may change and morph in inspiring directions as we write. More often than not though, that inspiration will peter out somewhere along the way. That's where we have to be dedicated to work.  

So, as Devor said before, we each have to define what inspiration means. I don't really consider an idea, in and of itself, inspiration.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 6, 2014)

Devor said:


> I can definitely say that isn't true for everybody.  I've had people literally isolate the thought I felt was "inspired" and go "Wow!"


I accept that.  I speak from my own experience alone.   


Devor said:


> However, I also want to be pretty clear, because reading your post I feel like you're hearing something much stronger than what I said.


I was only commenting on your mention of discovering what inspired you or how to achieve inspiration, that it's worth consideration. The remainder of my post was merely a commentary on my personal experience.


----------



## Mindfire (Jul 6, 2014)

If your projects are big ones, you might be, ironically, restricting your creative freedom. The reason I say this is that for some people, myself included, taking on a big writing project tends to generate lots and lots of notes that help you keep track of worldbuilding and continuity. This is a good thing. The problem is that pretty soon, you find yourself obsessively checking all your notes before you write anything to make sure you haven't contradicted your established lore, writing more notes, or categorizing the the ones you've already written. This means you spend more time fact-checking and making notes than actually writing. That can kill your creative momentum very quickly and creative momentum is everything. Speaking from experience on this. If this sounds anything like you, my advice is to ignore your notes and just start writing. You can do a continuity check afterwards. This way you can stay flexible and keep that all-important momentum. I also second T. Allen's advice about discipline. (I should also start following it...) Schedule a time-slot to write every single day and stick to it, come dragons or white walkers. That's what I'm about to do.


----------



## Mindfire (Jul 6, 2014)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I accept that.  I speak from my own experience alone.
> 
> I was only commenting on your mention of discovering what inspired you or how to achieve inspiration, that it's worth consideration. The remainder of my post was merely a commentary on my personal experience.


Typically my "inspired" sections tend to sound like melodramatic dreck once the glow wears off.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 6, 2014)

Mindfire said:


> Typically my "inspired" sections tend to sound like melodramatic dreck once the glow wears off.



That's my experience as well. Glad I'm not alone.


----------



## A. E. Lowan (Jul 6, 2014)

Mindfire said:


> If your projects are big ones, you might be, ironically, restricting your creative freedom. The reason I say this is that for some people, myself included, taking on a big writing project tends to generate lots and lots of notes that help you keep track of worldbuilding and continuity. This is a good thing. *The problem is that pretty soon, you find yourself obsessively checking all your notes before you write anything to make sure you haven't contradicted your established lore, writing more notes, or categorizing the the ones you've already written. This means you spend more time fact-checking and making notes than actually writing. That can kill your creative momentum very quickly and creative momentum is everything.* Speaking from experience on this. If this sounds anything like you, my advice is to ignore your notes and just start writing. You can do a continuity check afterwards. This way you can stay flexible and keep that all-important momentum. I'm also second T. Allen's advice about discipline. (I should also start following it...) Schedule a time-slot to write every single day and stick to it, come dragons or white walkers. That's what I'm about to do.



As a writer who works on _very_ big projects, I agree, this can slow you down.  What we (my writing partner and I) do to get around it is keep very organized notes (I use OneNote, and I can't say enough good things about this program), so that the slowdown is minimized, but most importantly we accept that in the course of writing _things change_.  Nothing in the planning, even as thoroughly planned as our world is, is written in stone - not until publication, and then it becomes canon.  So we will change things as I write, and only fact check _backwards_ as needed.


----------



## Mindfire (Jul 6, 2014)

A. E. Lowan said:


> As a writer who works on _very_ big projects, I agree, this can slow you down.  What we (my writing partner and I) do to get around it is keep very organized notes (I use OneNote, and I can't say enough good things about this program), so that the slowdown is minimized, but most importantly we accept that in the course of writing _things change_.  Nothing in the planning, even as thoroughly planned as our world is, is written in stone - not until publication, and then it becomes canon.  So we will change things as I write, and only fact check _backwards_ as needed.



I typically keep all my notes on Google Drive. I tried Scrivener, but didn't stick to it (mostly because I was too lazy to learn all the features and too cheap to buy a license for the software) and found yWriter to be a bit of an eyesore. I'll give OneNote a try.


----------



## Philip Overby (Jul 6, 2014)

My feeling is that if people have trouble finishing anything by pantsing, then they should try outlining. If outlining is too restrictive, try pantsing. I've mentioned this before, but try writing something you don't care about as much. Write it until it's complete and then pick it apart. See what you did that you like. I find that if you put all your effort into a passion project, you may be too busy focusing on making it perfect instead of putting all the working pieces together. 

I also don't necessarily think every writer on Earth needs to be a novelist either. Some people are better suited to shorter works, but they try to force being a novelist of an epic series because they feel that's what they're supposed to do.


----------



## Chessie (Jul 6, 2014)

srebak said:


> I'll warn you right now, there may be stuff from previous threads in here, but i really don't have the patience to hunt down each and everyone on this forum.
> 
> Anyway, here's the deal: i've started work on so many writing projects and i just can't seem finish any of them. This is made even more frustrating by the fact that i have nothing but time on my hands. It's been months since i've written anything, what's wrong with me?
> 
> Part of me thinks that it might be too much television, but even when i turn off the TV, my muse still leaves me hanging. I can't even visualize the stories properly anymore, now it feels like everything i don't want in my story, my mind wants to force in, it's driving me to the brink i tell you!!!


Hi Srebak, totally feel you. It is frustrating when ideas come and go but you have nothing to show for it. But you care deep enough that you're posting about it on here. I am going through something similar, where none of the ideas I've had stick and I get bored with them. So I've been writing short stories instead because it gives me a sense of completion. That's one thing you could try. My other suggestion is to just spend this time reading and cultivating that love you have for good stories. That might even inspire a good idea in you.


----------



## Penpilot (Jul 6, 2014)

Philip Overby said:


> My feeling is that if people have trouble finishing anything by pantsing, then they should try outlining. If outlining is too restrictive, try pantsing. I've mentioned this before, but try writing something you don't care about as much. Write it until it's complete and then pick it apart. See what you did that you like. I find that if you put all your effort into a passion project, you may be too busy focusing on making it perfect instead of putting all the working pieces together.



For me, I pantsed my first novel. I outlined my second, and I found there's a nice middle point between the two. I outline loosely.

First, I plan my plot lines loosely, getting enough to know in broad strokes where each of them is headed. I do this in Excel columns.

Second, any lore and very specific details get organized and are read over once and only once before I start into my first draft. I generally don't read them again until the first draft is finished.

Third, I sketch out a list of my scenes, planning out roughly what plot lines get dealt with in each scene using scene sequel format. This list of scenes is constantly in flux, with scenes getting added or dropped on the fly.

And finally, I start writing using the list of scenes as a rough road map. I only know roughly what's going to happen before I start into a scene, details and specifics get pantsed into the scene. Only the lore that I can remember gets put into the story in the first draft. This helps in eliminating information overload. And generally, if I don't remember it, it probably wasn't that important and I usually find something else that's better any ways. Once I finish a scene, I take note of if I was able to fit in all the plot threads I had originally planned originally to be in the scene. If I wasn't able to the scene list gets altered to accommodate the change.

I find this is a very flexible and organized way to work. Even though the outline for the story is continually changing, I always have a map of the general direction of where I'm headed. Since I have a road map, I can see how unexpected deviations in the plot will affect the story as a whole, and I can make an educated decision on if a deviation from the plan is a direction I want to go.

Any ways that's how I work. I find that having a plan of any sort helps me keep on moving ahead. 

When I do run into rough patches I always fall back and focus in on three simple questions that I should know the answer for. Thinking about the answers to these questions and how they apply to the point in the story where I'm stuck is a great help in finding my way again when I'm lost.

The questions are as follows.

1 -What does my POV character(s) want, physically and emotionally?

2- What's preventing my POV character(s) from achieving their physical goal and their emotional goal?

3 - Does the character achieve their goals, and if they do what happens?


----------



## Terry Greer (Jul 7, 2014)

The thing that helped me progress was to build an excel chart for the daily word count. Seeing it rise (or not rise) was an incentive to do more. 

Of course it doesn't affect the quality of what you're writing - but it does encourage you to do something every day.

The other thing that I find essential is visualizing the beginning. middle and end first. everything else is then just points along the way.

I find I need to have an end to aim at and a number of images as to what key events I want to occur along the way - otherwise I don't know where I'm going.


----------



## hunter830 (Jul 7, 2014)

I suppose I'll share my own tools and hope they help; I also fully agree with trying to discipline yourself to sitting down every once in a while even if it's just to read over what you have, I've come up with some of my favorite things when expecting just to edit.

However, if I'm really stuck I'll step away from my writing put on a playlist of my favorite 'writing music' and just day dream. Just letting my mind wander to wherever it wants has helped me immensely in the past.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 7, 2014)

Terry Greer said:


> The thing that helped me progress was to build an excel chart for the daily word count. Seeing it rise (or not rise) was an incentive to do more.



Tracking goals and productivity is essential, in my opinion.


----------



## Caged Maiden (Jul 7, 2014)

okay, so time for a little confession...

I spend minimal time on my challenge entries.  Every time I involve myself in a writing challenge, I begin writing two days before the deadline.  Sometimes I begin the day of.  So what, right?  Well..... I've found that the less thought I give to something, sometimes the more cohesive it is.  Not that every challenge entry was a show-stopper, but there's something to be said about keeping it simple.  One focused plot, rather than a novel's meandering ways.  A character with a clear goal, versus a twisting romp through a fantasy world that's too much fun to explore.

My point is,that sometimes, a novel can actually MAKE you want to give up on it, because every little change or progression to the story, can contradict an earlier thought, concept, or plot.  IN fact, in one novel, I have a pretty hard-nosed character who was in her fifties... who I then softened toward and by the end of the book, my entire concept of her changed.  She's now 43, emotionally scarred and slipping into a state of delusional paranoia, but she's so much more complete than my original concept.  It took MONTHS to repair the damage I'd caused.  I know how intimidating that can be.  

The more writing you do, the easier it'll be to "get it right the first time."  Until you're a pro though, try taking a step back once in a while, simplifying, and maybe doing a short story or something that's not so emotionally draining.  Juggling three novels and a challenge entry and an anthology entry can be exhausting.  It's counterproductive, to have so many irons in the fire.  

AND... most of my inspiration comes AS I'm writing.  [SUP]Or from friends I call in the midst of a dilemma.  They usually set me back on the right path [/SUP]


----------



## Legendary Sidekick (Jul 7, 2014)

@Caged Maiden,

I actually find this to be the case for me as well, and the challenges being competitive or not makes no difference. I don't wait until the deadline, though, but what I do is effectively similar. I write for the challenge as soon as I can, and without any thought of winning, word count, or anything BUT what the prompt says. (Oh, and once I feel like it's time to wrap up my story, I try to have an unexpected twist that I like, in the hope that the reader will like it too.)

I feel like when I put too much thought into the craft of writing, I hurt my own story.


----------



## ThinkerX (Jul 7, 2014)

> The thing that helped me progress was to build an excel chart for the daily word count. Seeing it rise (or not rise) was an incentive to do more.





> Tracking goals and productivity is essential, in my opinion



Useful in composition, yes.  Not so useful for editing and rewriting.  Rewriting the same paragraph or passage four or five times has a good shot of reducing your total word count, especially when you get into things like unneeded speech tags and adverb extermination.  

I put in a good three hours last night rewriting two short sections.  Total word count might have increased by fifty.  Now I have to do another partial rewrite on one of those scenes today.



> The other thing that I find essential is visualizing the beginning. middle and end first. everything else is then just points along the way.


  This is pretty much what I do.  

It used to be I'd start with a 'wow neato' idea (yes, I'm that old) and take off from there...only to have a head on collision with a dead end.  I've since dusted off some of those old fragments and turned them into actual stories, but it usually means cutting a bunch of stuff and splicing in a fair bit of new material.

Anymore, I do not start a new work unless I have at least semi-solid ideas for the beginning, middle, and end.  No written outlines, just a few rough notes for the highlights, along the lines of 'this is how to solve X.'

My 'Challenge' stories, with a few exceptions, are all set in my world.  When I see the prompts, I start looking for places and situations on my world where those prompts would best fit, and devise the tale accordingly.  But again, I won't start a Challenge story without a fair idea of the beginning, middle, and end.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 7, 2014)

ThinkerX said:


> Useful in composition, yes.  Not so useful for editing and rewriting.  Rewriting the same paragraph or passage four or five times has a good shot of reducing your total word count, especially when you get into things like unneeded speech tags and adverb extermination.
> 
> I put in a good three hours last night rewriting two short sections.  Total word count might have increased by fifty....



Agreed. I don't mark word counts on my trackers during revisions & editing. I do annotate those days being spent on editing though. That way, when I go back and review progress, I can see each day's production and/or efforts.  It's important for reassessing goals, which I do regularly.


----------



## srebak (Jul 13, 2014)

Well, inspiration suddenly hit me today, now i have two new ideas for a fantasy story i'm writing

1. I was originally going to have this particular story end in this book, but now i'm considering having this book end on a cliffhanger, with the next book picking up where it left off, sort of like what J.K. Rowling and Cressida Cowell did with their books, as i've been told. However, not only does this feel like i'm ripping off the former, but after hearing about how the latter intends to end her book series (which is also how the movies will go as well), i'm not sure i feel comfortable about this.

2. My story involves an archipelago that is home to a variety of magical creatures. Originally, the idea was that the magical creatures just found islands of their own at random, but now, i'm leaning towards the idea that Merlin the wizard created it somehow and the magical beings that inhabit it now were drawn there by his magic. I'm worried that that might seem a bit derivative and i'm also not sure how well Arthurian legend will mix with the Greek, Egyptian and Norse mythology elements i've started to use already.


----------



## skip.knox (Jul 13, 2014)

@srebak: that doesn't sound derivative at all, and the idea of each island having distinct magical creatures sounds interesting. As for splitting across volumes, I say don't worry about that at this point. Just write. Chances are very high you'll have a different opinion about how the story ends by the time you get to it.

That said, what you describe isn't a story. It's world building. A story isn't description, it's narrative. It takes one or more characters from one place (physical or spiritual) to another. I don't see anything in your posts that is about anyone. It's all setting.

To return to your OP, this may be one reason why you are feeling a bit lost. You are lost amid ideas, but you aren't telling a story. Perhaps if you concentrate more on characters (people), on getting a character from one place in his life to another, you will be better able to focus. Fair warning, it's possible to get lost in character creation as well. At some point, one simply has to pick up the standard and carry it to the end of the battle, win or lose. That is to say, one has to write a story, from beginning to end, ignoring all those alluring ideas that dance around at the edges.


----------



## srebak (Jul 26, 2014)

If i may turn the "I feel so lost" subject towards something else, there's always been a bit of a writer's issue with me in regards to the holidays:

Around Halloween, i usually hope to get more written down, especially since two stories i'm writing at the moment fit right in with the theme of Halloween; One's a fanfic about a tv show with a magical theme to it (its main character is a dragon living in a city where Magical creatures live alongside humans in secret), while the other is a novel about magical creatures. Both of these stories go well with Halloween, since the aforementioned holiday is pretty much about the supernatural. However, in four years in a row, every October, i never get any further than where i was before, and it's the same for a WWII book i'm writing on Memorial Day.


----------



## Bansidhe (Aug 9, 2014)

It sounds a little like you need to get organized (believe me--I've been there). 

First of all, know that Perfect is the enemy of Done. Writing isn't just an art--it's a craft, and there are several steps to any crafting process. Once you have a first draft in hand, you're going to do several revision passes anyway--that's where you make the story really shine. A first draft is just a raw product until that point.

There a few things I do to keep on track. I draw a plot map, noting just the bare plot points (or destinations) of where I need to get to. I also write lists of characters, locations, and objects that are important to the story. I dig into what my characters want, and come up with impediments and complications to those wants.

Here comes the best bit: I use a screenwriting technique called "Spinning Down The Page" to brainstorm my way through the story from beginning to end by just using snippets of Action, Images, and Dialogue, leaving lots of white space. I hone up my plot map, make some notes. Then Spin again, deeper, from plot point to plot point, to get all the information out. It may take a few times, but before I know it, my mind is clear of all the clutter and I can FOCUS.

Probably the best thing I did, though, was come up with a Production Schedule. I built a story queue of all the stories I wanted to write, and when I plan to write them. Knowing I'm not going to forget all those ideas, and when I'm going to develop and write them, also helps with the mental clutter. I keep a little black book of all the ideas, and when I have any moments of inspiration for those ideas, I simply write it down on the appropriate page. Done and done.


----------

