oneword.com

Keeping myself sane
Means some selfish alone time
A sad essential

Next word: ignore

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is Soft, and they are the sunrise. ;P

Welcome! :)

Hi Mrsmig, welcome to oneword and our group. I hope to see you around. :)

Cool! ’Chameleon boy’ is my favourite Blue October track. But ’Calling you’ has a great video. :)

I’ve posted those two videos in the music thread here if you fancy a look. Clicky clicky >> http://oneword.com/groups/active-users-of-oneword/forum/topic/music/?topic_page=3&num=15&_wpnonce=d6acc2e0d3

Hopelessness is the very bottom. It is an imagination and volition drinking vampire. It sucks up self-respect and concern until bones and brain decay into a dusty recollection of how things used to be. It feeds on this memory until all is gone.

Hopelessness is the basement’s basement in that dark pit with the floor of rock. The way up and out and back into daylight is difficult. Finding the ladder that often plays with invisibility is a task requiring an oxymoronic change of heart, but it is there.

21st word: Freedom

You’re mine, all mine now.
You hear me? Now believe it.
This is the way now.

Next word: horror

Hi October, great username. Are you a Blue October fan by any chance? Just wondered.

Anyway, welcome!

Sorry F, I didn’t notice your post! >_< I didn't look close enough to realise you'd started a new discussion. Sorry about that.

Anyway, four days later….
I have a similar problem so I can sort of understand what you're saying.

When you write shorter pieces do you intend them to be as short as they end up being? Or, like me, do you have the habit of starting on new ideas before finishing previous ones, so you always have several pieces on the go? Inevitably many will never be finished or even worked on again. This might just be me though!

The first bit of advice that comes to mind about writing long form pieces is that many novels or sometimes films are based on an original short story. It is fleshed out and has much more detail added. Is that something that might help you to feel less intimated? To write something very short and then look at how it might be possible to add much more?

Many novelists don't sit down to write their novel and start with the first scene of the book. They might write the ending first, or a few scenes from a chapter slap-bang in the middle of the book.

If you think of a novel in the form of lots of pieces that fit together to form the whole, then you can choose which piece you will write today. Maybe you just need to add another tiny piece in there between two other pieces and take out a middle sized piece that doesn't work anymore.

If you already have ideas for a novel length piece of writing it might be helpful to just get the basic story down, a plot or story arc. Don't worry about anything other than just getting it down, try not to edit or censor, just write it. It might be terrible, but it's only a first draft so it doesn't matter. You can look at the first draft as the raw material you need to craft your story.

You could try working your way up in length. Maybe challenge yourself to write something of 2500 words, then 5000, then 10,000 and so on.

Think about how everything at the beginning has to get to the end. Using this technique, you can start by finding the middle part of the story, then finding the mid point between the middle and end. Then doing the same again and again breaking it down in sections until you have basically broken it all down into chapters. From there you can also get right down to individual scenes. The most important scenes might be the ones you write first in order to shape the rest around them.

Don't take this as scientific or proven or anything, this is all off the top of my head. This is just me trying to solve my similar issue too, and that's probably how I personally would do it.

I think the intimidation comes from seeing a novel as a whole entity. When you try to see how it's made up of many parts working together, and can focus on them one by one, you might find it's not quite as scary. Think of the writing as a process, a journey. Not a destination or product.

Hope that's helpful to you F. Does anyone else have some advice for F?

Hi Anna, it’s good to have you.

It’s interesting that you enjoy working with words AND numbers because in my experience people tend to lean toward one or the other. Personally numbers tend to frustrate me. I feel like my brain is naturally much more accepting of the thought processes around words than numbers. Actually sometimes I have a complete mental block when it comes to numbers!

Anyway, welcome Anna, hope to see you around. :)

Hi Ebony Bird, welcome to this little corner of the interwebs!

We have an awful lot in common! Hope to see you around. :)