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The German from Galiria

SirJasonCrage

SirJasonCrage

Dreamer
Hello fellow writers and aspiring storytellers.

I am some German guy, just reached thirty and I've been writing for half my life. Usually when I was supposed to be doing something else.
Nowadays, I make my money by writing... customs declarations.
But the dream never died. One day, I'll finish my first book. And that first book will make me rich enough to quit my job and write fulltime. I will have a global following and a cinematic universe that sprang from my words. People will write scandalous articles about me and half of them will be true. I'll be invited to interviews by people who did not read my stories, sign books for people who know my stories better than I do and find quotes from my stories on tshirts at a festival. It may only take fifteen more years. At least if we extrapolate my rate of writing from the last decade. Sigh.

Until then, my characters are only known to close friends and strange people on stranger online forums.
So I welcome you, to the lands of Galiria, to the continents of Shrijo and Kudros, to the legacy left behind by Parn and Daimaon, to the struggles of a world where the gods were chased away and people disagree on whether that was a good thing, a bad thing or even deny that it ever happened.
 
SirJasonCrage

SirJasonCrage

Dreamer
Man I've been here a whole of fifteen minutes and I could already tell you'd be the first to reply.

So yeah, howdy pmmg. Glad to be here :)
 
pmmg

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Y'all have no idea to depths of my ability to fire off a post in 10 seconds or less ;)
 
SirJasonCrage

SirJasonCrage

Dreamer
I, uh, would not put it past them? They employ enough pyro in their shows, they might as well cook it on stage, too.
 
pmmg

pmmg

Myth Weaver
SirJasonCrage said:
Nothing.
But then again, nothing really stopped me for the last fifteen, and yet here we are, bookless, maidenless and entirely undisciplined.
Click to expand...
Every good thing done is something that could have been done sooner. Past is gone. Make it happen this time.
 
Prince of Spires

Prince of Spires

Auror
SirJasonCrage said:
Nothing.
But then again, nothing really stopped me for the last fifteen, and yet here we are, bookless, maidenless and entirely undisciplined.
Click to expand...
The main thing to keep in mind when trying to write a novel is that in the end almost no one sits down to write a novel. A novel is 50.000 words or more, for fantasy, 100k words is a good number. If you write 500 words an hour, then a 100k novel takes 200 hours to write. Of course you can do it faster, and some people challenge themselves to write 50k words in 24 hours. But I wouldn't start out aiming for that. So realise that it takes time to write a novel.

With that in mind, this is my strategy, which worked for my first novel (I used to be the same as you, too undisciplined to finish):
1. make an external commitment to write the novel in X time. Tell your significant other you want to finish a novel this year. Or your parents, or your dog, or us.
2. Track your word count. I use a simple excel spreadsheet. But there are tools online that help as well. This is a way to see your progress over time.
3. Plan to write frequently. I aim for 5 days a week. I can do sports 1 day, and spend time with my wife another. Which gives me a pass those days. I write the other days. Don't go for less than 5.
3a. Also don't plan to write for hours. This will destroy your schedule. It's very hard to find 3 hours of undisturbed time. However, everyone can find 30 minutes in their day. Or even 2 blocks of 15 minutes.
4. Outline. Don't make it too detailed, just know what should happen in each chapter. It's a lot easier to write if you know where you're going.

Do this, and you'll have your novel before the end of the year.
 
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