Writing Check In

I just thought I would start a thread where writers on Permies (and anyone who writes is a writer by the way), could tell where they are in their journey. It does not matter if it is a novel, memoir, journal, short story, poem or any other type of writing genre.  Just an update of where you are and maybe why?

Myself, I came on Pemies because I was stuck in a novel. I had the rough draft done, but I suddenly got writers block and could not seem to get back into the novel. This week that passed, and so I have been vigorously editing my book and getting the elements chapter by chapter just right. I am excited, it is really going to be a great novel I think.

But that is me; where is everyone else in their writing?

Vigorously writing?
Beseeched with Writers Block?
Editing?
Trying to come up with a new storyline?

About to start a new book, book 4 in a series, after taking several months off. I needed the break. Though I love the revisions and edits stage, I was finding first draft a struggle and resisting writing. Time to get back into it and rediscover the joy!

Still collecting experiences for source material..

Getting ready to publish the first novel of a mystery series and also working on the sequel to that one as well as the sequel to a fantasy/magic realism novel.  Also blogging and writing short stories.

Jane Mulberry wrote:About to start a new book, book 4 in a series, after taking several months off. I needed the break. Though I love the revisions and edits stage, I was finding first draft a struggle and resisting writing. Time to get back into it and rediscover the joy!

I struggle with rough drafts too, but I am a very detailed person too. I think because of that I love the editing phase the best, but also have set up an Excel Spreadsheet to help guide me in that. It's really fun to write very specific paragraphs and increase the tension in the scene, or add personality traits to characters, or take the reader further than they expected. But I know it takes a good storyline and rough draft to get to that point I know.

One of my favorite books was working with my daughter on a book that had three teenage foster daughters. She really helped me with realism on "what would a 16 year old do in this situation". It was a lot of fun, and I think she liked the collaboration too.

Just ran across this and it reminded me of this thread:

I don’t know if this is exactly what the OP meant, but over the years I have had to learn and re-learn to write.

Growing up I was taught to write expressively, to use those colorful adjectives and turns of phrase.

I college, as a psychology major, I had to re-learn to write technically.  Technical writing shuns extraneous word usage (such as in writing instructions).  Once I learned to write expressively, writing technically was extremely difficult, having much more to say than is generally allowed.

When I was a grad student in history, I had to combine the two writing styles.  I wrote expressively so my writing was readable, but learned to tidy up my writing to prevent it from getting out of control.

I am now in grad school again and I am now being forced to write technically again—and I dead it!

I am hopeful that I can finish my time writing technically and not loose my expressive edge.

Eric

I have begun expressive journal writing again after a long break.

A few friends have encouraged me that they enjoy my writing.

Another friend recently gave me the book, The Power of Writing It Down.

A natural doctor I met with sent me information on the healing benefits of morning pages from the book, The Artist’s Way.

My daily personal goal is a blend from both philosophies (write something between 3 pages and 20 minutes, daily) and I hope to add the element of future self journaling from the Holistic Psychologist that she talks about in her book, How to Do the Work.

I’ve had book ideas, blog ideas, and research paper ideas for years that have yet to manifest. Permies has been a place of encouragement and motivation to me to write and to do projects that I’ve had in my heart and mind but haven’t carved out the time to do.

Thanks for the encouragement! The books I mentioned above echo your similar sentiments, “anyone who writes is a writer” and also we are all creative people who are artists, just in different ways.

I’m looking forward getting unblocked.

Blessings.

Eric Hanson wrote:I am hopeful that I can finish my time writing technically and not loose my expressive edge.
Eric

My professional writing career (paid writing) was dry technical stuff, in which to be even mildly expressive amounted to rude screaming.  Heaven forbid that I ever use anything as unprofessional as an exclamation point or an adjective unless my client required me be that bold.  As I was writing mostly for or about government entities and actions, in order to continue being paid I had to really watch it.  

When I went back to fiction I had a tough time of it.  I find writing expressively ito be more challenging than technical writing, which is just a matter of channelling my inner robotic-federal-agency-language-using-self that's been drummed into me.  With fiction I'm free to express whatever I want in any way I want!  Consequently it has taken a professional editor a few rounds of editing to rein in my tendency to go overboard when writing expressively without squashing that expressiveness.

I'm  hopeful you can maintain both your skills.  It's a challenge, I know -- but it's worth it.

I gotta say, I am struggling with making two children characters in my fictional novel stand out in any meaningful way. I semi-have the 13 year old boy fleshed out pretty well, but the six old sister, not so well. I got some other character deficiencies as well, but it all stems from one problem; I don't really know them so I can't write about them.

I got some character building questionnaires, I just can't seem to think of what to put down.

But I'll get there, it's just been a struggle lately.