5 ms·

I spent my morning working on a science fiction novel. (I won't post more here, but you can find it through my profile if you're interested.) Are there any oth

I spent my morning working on a science fiction novel. (I won't post more here, but you can find it through my profile if you're interested.) Are there any other writers in the house? On a completely unrelated topic, one of my earliest "internet" memories was wandering into open source communities and trying to figure out this CVS thing and connecting it to GNU Savannah so that I could download some code. Those were some very formative times. The community was a bit more "prickly" than we're used to with Rust and some of our modern open source projects, but they were committed to technical excellence, and the fact that a random kid could show up and be in conversation with these people at so clearly far above my own level was (and still is!) nothing short of astonishing.

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
I'm very (very) slowing writing a book, a kind of biography of a local teamsters chapter from Rhode Island which my grandfather was part of. I've given up on it a couple of times, only to come back to writing again, and maybe on a good day cranking out 5,000 words that gets edited back down to maybe half that. What are you thinking about in terms of publication? After reading on the kind of fees traditional publishers extract from sales, I'm considering going down the self-publication route, and will definitely take a closer look at the Amazon e-book/print on demand service when the time comes.
- nunez 4y ago
  let us know when you publish it; would love to read it.
- eslaught 4y ago
  Plan A is traditional. Part of that is that I'm targeting middle grade with my first book (that is, ages 9-12), and it's honestly not obvious to me how much of a market exists for self-published books in that demographic. I'm still doing my research, but so far all of the self-publishing success stories I'm aware of are either in adult, or are a traditional author going indie rather than the other way around. Having said that, I have helped other people (mostly family members) self-publish their books and it is very doable, depending on what your goals are. In those cases, we were never aiming to make money, so we were more than happy with the results we got.
ihateolives 4y ago
In my free time I'm writing short stories, once I have enough I'm going to publish a collection. I'm fairly certain I can get it published, I already have a book out with good reception so I'm feeling confident but who knows.
- panosfilianos 4y ago
  What was the route you followed to get published?
probablypower 4y ago
Awesome, I'll stalk your work through your profile, I'm addicted to good scifi. I've mostly written poetry for the last 15 years, but I've been meaning to transition into long form writing. I'm wondering if you could share your process? Do you sketch out a plot then fill out the gaps? Are you creating situations then letting your characters grow the story organically? This is the bit I'm sort of stuck on, so hearing how other people approach the strategy of longform writing might hopefully jolt me into action.
- eslaught 4y ago
  I'm happy to talk about my process, though "process" is being pretty generous because it's very haphazard. Where it starts for me is the feeling when you get to the end of a good book, and you keep telling yourself stories (about the characters, the world, the situations, etc.). That's how I feel when I'm writing, except instead of applying it to some other book, I apply it to my own worlds. But the basic impulse is the same. I don't outline, in the sense of writing a bulleted list of plot points that I fill in. Honestly, I have never been able to do this and I don't understand how anyone else does either, despite having read some books about how people supposedly do so. I tried the Snowflake method too, and that didn't work for me either. The hardest part, I think, is getting started. Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of notes during this time, but I did a bunch of noodling around. I wrote a bunch of stuff that didn't stick: characters, situations, places. I even tried some different storytelling styles. Once I had characters and a world that felt right, I spent about 5 years rewriting the opening of the book over and over. This part sucked because no matter what I did, it always felt wrong. Eventually I threw in the towel on that. But rather than tossing the project entirely, I had the idea of writing a prequel. This was actually brilliant, because it sidesteps the process of generating the characters and world from scratch (part of what takes so long in the first place, especially as a first timer). So it was much easier for me to create situations that I knew would drive the characters to interesting places. Somehow, this clicked for me and I basically wrote the first draft start to finish in a single pass. At least for my first book, I found I didn't need to outline. Because I knew where the characters would be going (I had already written the opening of the "real" book to death), I wasn't too afraid of getting lost. In practice, how things worked out was that I spent the time between writing sessions coming up with what would happen in the next chapter. So it wasn't literally seat-of-the-pants writing, because usually I knew what would happen a chapter or two ahead, but I wasn't planning the entire book out all at once either. Hope that helps in some form, at least to kickstart ideas. And happy to answer any questions (can find my contact info via profile).
drakonka 4y ago
Awesome to see a fellow sci-fi writer! I've been writing and self-publishing science fiction romance in my spare time for a couple of years. I'm doing a rough edit pass on the first draft of my next story now in preparation for sending it to the developmental editor. I have not read the whole thing yet but am finding your "Age Scaling and Publishing Journey" post very interesting, specifically having skipped to the "Publishing journey" part to start with. I love your optimism about traditional publishing and hope you will find a publisher who gives your manuscript the investment it deserves.
atchoo 4y ago
Ooh! This could be a glimmer of a passion for me. Can you recommend any beginner guides or tips to get started? I've dabbled but get tied in knots overthinking the phrasing of a single sentence. I'd love to just get into a flow state. I've tried some tools like Final Draft (yuck) and Scrivener (meh). However Fountain.io plugin for vscode felt fantastic. The restricted format of a screenplay was really helpful to me actually getting some plot and dialogue down. It's easy for me to think like a movie instead of a novel. The markdown syntax was delightful. However I don't want to write a screenplay because that can't really go anywhere - can't self publish a movie lol. Does writing the first draft as a screenplay sound nuts?
- drakonka 4y ago
  Not OP, but as someone who also sometimes get stuck in my writing as well I thought I'd reply. Personally I use Scrivener for drafting and Vellum for formatting, but the tools usually don't matter that much for what you are describing. They won't really help with overthinking and getting tied up in phrasing. What helps me a lot when I sense myself getting into that getting-stuck phase where I just overthink everything is doing sprints. They're common in writing communities on Discord, but you can do them on your own as well. Just set a 15 minute timer (or whatever time works best) and write random flow-of-consciousness crap. I was surprised to find that usually the output isn't even as bad as I expect and is very usable (with some heavy editing). Also, remember that the first words you put down aren't really meant to be the final version of the thing you publish: they're just a rough sketch to be shaped later.
  - atchoo 4y ago
    Thanks! I'll try a sprint. I actualy did Morning Pages (flow of conscious execise for writers) for many years just for the psychological benefits. I got blocked on those because I think I just got sick of talking to myself and a novel is a way to get some self expression and joy of writing back without it being so self-reflective. Can you recommend a writing discord?
    - drakonka 4y ago
trykondev 4y ago
Incredibly cool, looking forward to digging in more on your projects. I love the mix of technical projects alongside the creative ones. Signed up for your email letter. Also -- I love your website, so simple and clean.
bckr 4y ago
I'm also a writer. I've got a little near future sci fi I'm writing. Having done Nanowrimo a few times, I'd like to one day spend a month / season / year just writing. One day.

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago

I'm very (very) slowing writing a book, a kind of biography of a local teamsters chapter from Rhode Island which my grandfather was part of. I've given up on it a couple of times, only to come back to writing again, and maybe on a good day cranking out 5,000 words that gets edited back down to maybe half that. What are you thinking about in terms of publication? After reading on the kind of fees traditional publishers extract from sales, I'm considering going down the self-publication route, and will definitely take a closer look at the Amazon e-book/print on demand service when the time comes.

nunez 4y ago
let us know when you publish it; would love to read it.
eslaught 4y ago
Plan A is traditional. Part of that is that I'm targeting middle grade with my first book (that is, ages 9-12), and it's honestly not obvious to me how much of a market exists for self-published books in that demographic. I'm still doing my research, but so far all of the self-publishing success stories I'm aware of are either in adult, or are a traditional author going indie rather than the other way around. Having said that, I have helped other people (mostly family members) self-publish their books and it is very doable, depending on what your goals are. In those cases, we were never aiming to make money, so we were more than happy with the results we got.

ihateolives 4y ago

In my free time I'm writing short stories, once I have enough I'm going to publish a collection. I'm fairly certain I can get it published, I already have a book out with good reception so I'm feeling confident but who knows.

panosfilianos 4y ago
What was the route you followed to get published?

probablypower 4y ago

Awesome, I'll stalk your work through your profile, I'm addicted to good scifi. I've mostly written poetry for the last 15 years, but I've been meaning to transition into long form writing. I'm wondering if you could share your process? Do you sketch out a plot then fill out the gaps? Are you creating situations then letting your characters grow the story organically? This is the bit I'm sort of stuck on, so hearing how other people approach the strategy of longform writing might hopefully jolt me into action.

eslaught 4y ago
I'm happy to talk about my process, though "process" is being pretty generous because it's very haphazard. Where it starts for me is the feeling when you get to the end of a good book, and you keep telling yourself stories (about the characters, the world, the situations, etc.). That's how I feel when I'm writing, except instead of applying it to some other book, I apply it to my own worlds. But the basic impulse is the same. I don't outline, in the sense of writing a bulleted list of plot points that I fill in. Honestly, I have never been able to do this and I don't understand how anyone else does either, despite having read some books about how people supposedly do so. I tried the Snowflake method too, and that didn't work for me either. The hardest part, I think, is getting started. Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of notes during this time, but I did a bunch of noodling around. I wrote a bunch of stuff that didn't stick: characters, situations, places. I even tried some different storytelling styles. Once I had characters and a world that felt right, I spent about 5 years rewriting the opening of the book over and over. This part sucked because no matter what I did, it always felt wrong. Eventually I threw in the towel on that. But rather than tossing the project entirely, I had the idea of writing a prequel. This was actually brilliant, because it sidesteps the process of generating the characters and world from scratch (part of what takes so long in the first place, especially as a first timer). So it was much easier for me to create situations that I knew would drive the characters to interesting places. Somehow, this clicked for me and I basically wrote the first draft start to finish in a single pass. At least for my first book, I found I didn't need to outline. Because I knew where the characters would be going (I had already written the opening of the "real" book to death), I wasn't too afraid of getting lost. In practice, how things worked out was that I spent the time between writing sessions coming up with what would happen in the next chapter. So it wasn't literally seat-of-the-pants writing, because usually I knew what would happen a chapter or two ahead, but I wasn't planning the entire book out all at once either. Hope that helps in some form, at least to kickstart ideas. And happy to answer any questions (can find my contact info via profile).

drakonka 4y ago

Awesome to see a fellow sci-fi writer! I've been writing and self-publishing science fiction romance in my spare time for a couple of years. I'm doing a rough edit pass on the first draft of my next story now in preparation for sending it to the developmental editor. I have not read the whole thing yet but am finding your "Age Scaling and Publishing Journey" post very interesting, specifically having skipped to the "Publishing journey" part to start with. I love your optimism about traditional publishing and hope you will find a publisher who gives your manuscript the investment it deserves.

atchoo 4y ago

Ooh! This could be a glimmer of a passion for me. Can you recommend any beginner guides or tips to get started? I've dabbled but get tied in knots overthinking the phrasing of a single sentence. I'd love to just get into a flow state. I've tried some tools like Final Draft (yuck) and Scrivener (meh). However Fountain.io plugin for vscode felt fantastic. The restricted format of a screenplay was really helpful to me actually getting some plot and dialogue down. It's easy for me to think like a movie instead of a novel. The markdown syntax was delightful. However I don't want to write a screenplay because that can't really go anywhere - can't self publish a movie lol. Does writing the first draft as a screenplay sound nuts?

drakonka 4y ago
Not OP, but as someone who also sometimes get stuck in my writing as well I thought I'd reply. Personally I use Scrivener for drafting and Vellum for formatting, but the tools usually don't matter that much for what you are describing. They won't really help with overthinking and getting tied up in phrasing. What helps me a lot when I sense myself getting into that getting-stuck phase where I just overthink everything is doing sprints. They're common in writing communities on Discord, but you can do them on your own as well. Just set a 15 minute timer (or whatever time works best) and write random flow-of-consciousness crap. I was surprised to find that usually the output isn't even as bad as I expect and is very usable (with some heavy editing). Also, remember that the first words you put down aren't really meant to be the final version of the thing you publish: they're just a rough sketch to be shaped later.
- atchoo 4y ago
  Thanks! I'll try a sprint. I actualy did Morning Pages (flow of conscious execise for writers) for many years just for the psychological benefits. I got blocked on those because I think I just got sick of talking to myself and a novel is a way to get some self expression and joy of writing back without it being so self-reflective. Can you recommend a writing discord?
  - drakonka 4y ago

trykondev 4y ago

Incredibly cool, looking forward to digging in more on your projects. I love the mix of technical projects alongside the creative ones. Signed up for your email letter. Also -- I love your website, so simple and clean.

bckr 4y ago

I'm also a writer. I've got a little near future sci fi I'm writing. Having done Nanowrimo a few times, I'd like to one day spend a month / season / year just writing. One day.