Tag Archives: finishing

Finish it already!

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I started on this journey to be a full time author and I started writing… a lot. In March I wrote more than I have written in any other month outside of NaNoWriMo. It’s 3/4 of the way through April and I am on track to meeting the same kind of numbers… But I feel like I should be doing more.

This last week I’ve found myself stuttering again, trying so hard to finish this novel and getting stuck on the words time and time again. It’s at that point now where I just have to push through, find some words, any words, and put them down. It’s always the battle scenes.

Right now the two parts I have left are an arena battle in the middle, and the final battle at the end. Both battle scenes, both needing some choreography, and both tricky because they involve some mechanics from unusual creatures. Plus trying to make them read well at the same time.

I think it’s time to stop trying to make them read well. It never works with me and a battle scene. I just have to block it out, figure out the mechanics, and then rewrite it to make it readable. I wish I could do this every time without having to agonize over it, but I just want to write the darn book, not have to rewrite it over and over again.

To top it off I just wrote ANOTHER battle scene at the beginning of this month for Restart, a shared collaboration between my litRPG discord group. You can read it for FREE over here. I wrote chapter 7. We each write a chapter in order, and I got the battle scene. It, of course, took me longer to write then everyone else because I agonize over battle scenes so much, but it was definitely great practice, and I enjoyed it. I also got to switch things up a bit, and then the next guy in line NERFED the ability I created because it was too powerful…. I think that’s a win 😉

Anyway, back to writing.

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The rise of the “boring” story

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Science fiction and fantasy are known for their action. Sword fights, space ship battles, magic spells and solar storms. All of the exciting bits that make us cling to the edge of our seat. I even write a bit of this myself.

So imagine my surprise that my favorite reads this past year didn’t have any of that. At least not in the traditional sense.

Take “The Name of the Wind” as an example. There isn’t a lot of fighting in that book. 600 pages of studies, trying to get into the archives, miss adventures with girls, and a rivalry with another classmate. Not a whole lot of magic or swordplay. It was all about the main character using his wits to outsmart everyone else.

“The Martian” is another one. There is some action in the sense that he is trying to survive, and everything is going wrong, but the majority of the story is about the main character using his wits, and science, to figure out how to survive in a harsh environment. 95% of the story is one person against a landscape.

Nathan Lowell’s clippership books are about playing the markets and rising in rank. Much of “Wool” is about the mystery of the setting. All books I loved.  All books with little to no actual struggle against good and evil. No main bad guy. No saving the world. Just quietly making their way in their own fashion.

It goes against conventional wisdom . I hear so often that you may “write to the market” but which market?

The times are changing. What makes a good story isn’t always good verses evil. Sometimes it’s just a man verses the environment, or the subtle hint of a mystery to be solved. Sometimes it’s just good old fashion economics.

This shows me that I need to be true to the story, no matter where it leads. No one knows what will make a hit book some day. No one can predict what will catch on and what won’t. You can only be true to the story, and make it the best that you can.

And it isn’t even just in books. The Anime “Spice and Wolf” is about a wild goddess learning about buying and selling between cities and countries. It’s fasinating. “Hetalia” is a funny way of teaching history. Then you have nerdcore music about games, history, computers, etc. Or we can go into games were thousands of them are just about solving puzzles, or just surviving.

Write what you love. Do what you love. Be friendly and open. Show your work to others. SOMEONE out there will like it if it’s interesting. You just have to keep working toward finishing it, whatever it is.