My husband said i should log out of GLP and finally write my book, so I made this thread. 48k words - almost half!

d'oh! but that would mean everyone here would know my true identity. i wonder if that would help book sales or hurt them, lol.

You can, but it takes a LOT of luck and talent. It's virtually unheard of for an unknown coming out with a breakout hit Novel. Unually it's someone who knows someone, or is already entrenched in the publishing industry, Look up Gillian Flynn. Worked at Entertainment Weekly for years. Wrote a novel and is now a huge success.

My latest novel premiered at the Horror Writers association yearly banquet, It got great reviews and I sold enough copies to buy a car, but I think you'd have to sell the rights to a movie studio to really make it big now a days.

Last Edited by Black Unit on 12/09/2013 10:37 AM

movie deals would be sweet, haha! thankfully in recent years my kind of writing has suddenly become very cool, lol. When i was a kid in school i got picked on for reading the LOTR books. Who's the nerd now, huh?


congrats on the sales too, btw!

Last Edited by green_girl on 12/09/2013 10:41 AM

Set a goal- mine was 500 words per day- every day! If I missed a day I wrote a thousand the next.

It was an autobiographical work that ballooned to 750 pages 'till I whittled it down to a trim 400.

Edited by a former New Yorker Magazine editor, check it out:

[link to www.lulu.com]

love the title by the way. I have often felt like a "dented can" myself!! Hope you sell a ton of copies!

eta: my current goal i a thousand words a day. If i leave glp completely i could do 2000 easily, lol, but i won't go.
my last failed book got to 40,000 in about two weeks. then suddenly, writer's block. i had forgotten a key part because i didnt write my notes down.

Last Edited by green_girl on 12/09/2013 10:44 AM

current progress: 1,935 words. started this yesterday. Hoping to get to 3,000 by tonight.

read 'Bird by Bird' by Anne Lamott.

[link to www.amazon.ca]

i should ask hubby to order it for me as a Christmas present!

I read this not too long ago - i enjoyed it a lot! I have always been a King fan anyway, though!

[link to www.amazon.ca]

Last Edited by green_girl on 12/09/2013 11:03 AM

It took me eight years to finish my book, lot's of starts and stops as life got in the way. Best thing I found was to try and get at least one or two pages a day, then you will find your flow...lot's of coffee helps too.

My book is still available for FREE download at www.revolution222.com and can be purchased in print at www.revolution222.com/book

My friend Duncan does. Does art as well.

nice! you even have ison there in the banner, lol!

I cant afford to take eight years! If this is going to be a thing i am going to do, now is my chance, my time. i have to make it happen before we go bankrupt, lol. otherwise i will be working in walmart. Sadly, i live in the worst place to be a graphic designer. The businesses here do not value it at all. I am lucky, just enough clients to justify staying home, leaving me just enough time to write!

Seems like just about anyone can get published nowadays.

especially since self-publishing is an easy option. but it is sales that i need, lol.

yup, anyone can

but not everyone can be published by a publisher. big difference.

Why does this thread have so many one star ratings?

no one likes me, lol.

Oh, your other threads are the same...

Bizarre.

Try and get some short stories published first, to see the reaction to your work.

I've had about a dozen shorts published in obscure websites. But even so, it thrilled the hell out of me that they took my work.

I've been writing novels for years now, seems like I can get the first draft done and then the editing is a problem for me. Maybe I'm just afraid to polish and submit a big work like that.

Still writing the nano novel I started. I know the end, so I will be able to complete this one.

What I found when submitting is to go by the guidelines, not a word over their word count and submit exactly the way they say. No matter how good a story is, if you don't follow guidelines, they chuck it before they even look at it.

They don't like editing, either, so make sure your story is sharp in every way before you submit.

The easiest way I found to get past the block is to open up the word processor and write the title and chapter number. Once I get SOMETHING on the page, I can write. But that damn blinking cursor on a white page is enough to cause brain freeze for me. :)

Here's 5 to counteract the asses. LOL

many thanks!!

good advice there.

i am thinking though of _ if i finish this - of looking for an agent. I do not have what it takes to either self-publish or try to sell my own work to other publishers. i think if i can land an agent to do that part for me i would be better off. Anyone here have experience with that?

You have to polish it before you can get an agent. If you want some great feedback on your writing, go to American Zoetrope and put your work there for reviews. Lots of published writers and they used to have a forum regarding how to get an agent. Just search and it will pop up. Francis Ford Coppola owns that site.

My daughter wants to be a writer. She has some pretty good ideas and writes great poetry. I remember her 3rd grade teacher telling me she should pursue writing. She'll be in college next year. Don't know what kind of job you can get while you're waiting to publish that novel though.

Her husband actually said...

lmao! thanks for the lol's!!!
nah. my husband would give naything to see me finally publish something. he likes my writing a lot!
I have always been a writer on the inside, ever since my grandmother gave me an old manual fifty pound typewriter! I used to snag old church bulletins from an elementary school teacher because they were blank on the back, and pound away for hours at a time on my typewriter. All my teachers encouraged it, saying i had great potential. I think it is fear of failure that always stops me. As long as i never try, i will never have to fail and risk losing that part of me. it is very scary to actually attempt something that is so tied into who you are. If i lose this, who will i be? What will my dream be then?

If the broad that wrote "50 Shades of Grey" can get on the NY Times Best Seller list anyone can. That book was so badly written I couldn't finish it.

Go for it! My son's a writer and has been working on his book for a long time.

Best you get on it! As each day of your life passes you learn to dream a little smaller each day.

haha - i AM on it, just trying to STAY on it. Now i have to, if for no other reason than to not feel shame a few months from now when one of you asks "so how is the book going?". I have committed myself now, and have to see it through to the end, even if it is dismal failure waiting for me there.