Write On! :: Comments :: Serialized novels

There's something to be said for having an audience, just to keep you going. The 3 times now that I've done the NaNoWriMo thing, I never would have gotten beyond a few days (oddly, that's how long my 2nd attempt lasted...) unless I had at least one person reading along as I posted the unedited daily drafts. Knowing you'll disappoint that someone if there's nothing for them to read really does help.

Of course, now the whole thing (two of them are inter-related parts of one story) needs editing, and I have no real idea of what I want to do there, so.
Exploring dark places since last Thursday

I ran into a similar situation with the first "novel" I wrote. I completed it at a torrid pace and when I was done, I was so exhausted by the effort that I really didn't want to expend any more energy on the project. As a result, while complete, it's in pretty bad shape.

And I keep putting novel in quotes because.. I don't know.. I suppose it's because I not only have expectations of a certain length for a novel but a certain level of quality?

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Bah. First drafts suck. Quality comes with editing.

Also, welcome back :-)
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Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
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Thanks for the welcome. :)

I'm considering a writer's group but mostly because it seems "the thing to do". And while I know what's on offer (critiquing, commiseration, camaraderie... any other 'c' things?), I'm not sure of the value of it.

I visited a meeting of one local writer's group, very near to where I live. Maybe it was because it was just before the Christmas holiday and so they didn't have the usual speaker or the usual crowd, but.. well it felt like a support group. Like I could have expected the film crew from 'Fight Club' to have been in the back, shooting every second. I left feeling like I'd spent a few hours hearing "It's alright. We're all writers and we're all ok." Maybe that's what's needed?

Happy. I think that's it. I didn't meet anyone there that seemed happy about writing. It seemed like everyone felt like writing was this heavy burden but that they must march on. Why on earth are you writing if you don't enjoy it?

Anyhow, what's been y'all's experiences with writer's groups? Better I presume. For someone? Somewhere?

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