[Closed] Any writers on here?

About 70 publications so far but most of them are read by me and two reviewers if I'm lucky 🙂

About 300% more than my readership then (and 70 more publications too).

Not me but my Wife has self published several Children's books.
I help out with the editing and formatting.

I don't myself - like the capn above I do write papers, but you quickly realise that Scientific English isn't the same thing as the Queen's, and it's quite restrictive. It's fun and challenging to figure out the structure of what you have to say, building a narrative for the overwhelming importance of these results to society 😉 but the actual text isn't that rewarding IME. e.g. I have colleagues with a sub-GCSE grasp of English Literature / Language, who write brilliant papers.

Can you get a small reading group on the go who can look at your stuff? That must be an important step - a sounding board of people who know what good writing looks like and can be critical in a helpful way.

I suppose I am - both academic and otherwise. It all started with academic papers, then a monograph. Now there is a second monograph in the works, dozens of articles, entries, and chapters written.

Perhaps more interestingly, though, this branched into being asked to do editorial opinion pieces for a few outlets, which is now moving in the direction of a narrative history, and another book of popular theology (mostly inspired by you lot on here, actually!).

Currently trying to get some words together for an agent... even while I have an eye on STW.

you quickly realise that Scientific English isn’t the same thing as the Queen’s

I relish the times that I, a humanities guy, get to act smug in front of the science guys. 😉

90% of my current job involves writing.
I am a content creator for a bike shop, so lots of blog writing and E-mail creation.
I am massively underpaid though for the amount of money I bring in and what I bring to the table, and I can't see a way of making any more money in the same area unless I move down South.
In the past I have worked for magazines and start up companies writing about Film, my experience is unless you get a publisher and get lucky it is not a business you can make real money in.
Plus there are hundreds of places that expect you to work for free.
So even though the pay here is crap I can at least live on what I get.

dirkpitt74 - you're not married to Debbie Champion are you? Someone on here mentioned that they were when she'd published her first book a couple of years ago. I subsequently ordered it for my son and he loves it and the other three books she's written since. I get asked on a weekly basis if she's written anything else as my son enjoyed the books so much.

Hi Salad_dodger, no that's me! Just sent her a link to this thread on her train commute home, where she tends to write, and she was really pleased to have a name check.
Debbie's currently working on a new children's novel with an Egyptian theme, still lots of action, magic and adventure. If you PM me your son's name she says she will try and include him as one of the characters, if she can, as a thank you for his loyal support.
Amazon self publishing still not leading to untold riches but it is paying a small monthly amount and providing interest and motivation, with small spikes of sales all over the world.

I threw out around 50,000 words of a mess that I called a novel last year. I found I was quite disciplined when it came to cranking out 1500 words of readable prose per day (and no, I didn't word pad) but some good ideas for some scenes and some tenuous threads to link them together didn't do much for the structure of the story.

Apart from that I used to write a weekly book review for a local paper and recently wrote an article for a website. I'm thinking about returning to reviewing books but for my own website this time.

Now I'm starting again with a new novel and this time I have bits of paper with things written on them to guide me. I'm told this is planning so I'm sure this time it will go swimmingly.

A mate who I shared an office with was, did well out of it but did much better reading the trends on mills n boon/50 shades style mucky fiction and editing ghost writers work!! Apparently a snowy Christmas and the yanks go mad for it.

It also made most holidays Tax deductible as research

I’ve published 3 cycling books and am failing to write a further 3 more. I’m famous as STW featured one on Fresh Goods Friday but deliberately obscured my name due to Mark hating me.

and no, I didn’t word pad

What does this actually mean?

My wife has self published her novel but it's not really ready for the big time. I was going through and editing the prose as much of it was quite clunky, especially the early bits, but I got about 70 pages into 300 and got side tracked

What does this actually mean?

When you start adding unnecessary words just to pad out your word count. It's quite tempting when you set yourself a word goal (as I have to do because I'm really lazy).

Plus Mrs Grips has about a third of part 2 written, which will run to another 300 pages, but the story really doesn't stop after the first 300 so it really needs to be in one huge tome, it's that sort of book.

I'm a journalist and editor. I write for a living but wouldn't call myself a "writer" by choice.

Never had any interest in writing a novel but my former business partner had just published her first, on a very good imprint and is getting some great reviews.

She says it's much harder work than freelance journalism.

I wrote a phd thesis, its quite literally shit.

I actually write quite a bit for work too, and have done for a few years - blog posts at the moment, but I used to write product descriptions (mostly very, very dull) and write music reviews too, though that was for free CDs back when getting a CD in the post was quite exciting rather than just an annoying faff.

I've always fancied writing a novel, have loads of half formed ideas in my head and like a lot of people I've just started writing to see what came out. Never worked for me - I just ended up with something messy and barely coherent, so got annoyed with myself halfway in and went out for a bike ride or something instead.

So over the last few years I've spent a lot of time (lunch breaks and whilst the Mrs is watching Strictly or Bake Off, mostly) hashing out a huge outline for the story, with lots of history that won't make it into the finished thing but helps me to understand how things are working in the world I've imagined. I'm now steadily converting that into prose (and discovering that new story threads are presenting themselves constantly) which is a slow process, especially now Strictly has finished, but I don't really have any goals other than I'd like to finish it one day, and maybe read it with the imminent MiniMonkey some time.

At some point I'd definitely like to set up some kind of reader / writer group (I've actually proofed books for friends before, and supplied them with plentiful feedback - one of them even still speaks to me!), but I don't think I'm anywhere near 'there' yet. I'd like to finish this first draft, then have at least one round of rewrites before I show it to anyone, I think. Although maybe sharing sooner would have benefits. We'll see.

I kinda view writing (for myself) in the same way as photography - I'm probably (definitely) never going to make and money out of it, but it's a process that I really enjoy and there's a definite buzz to creating something that other people get some semblance of enjoyment or thought out of.

@noshki - Your wife has now been added to the MiniMonkey list, although since s/he hasn't been born yet it might be a while. Might have a read myself, they sound interesting!

@BruceWee - be interesting to hear how the planning process goes for you, I found it really useful and I keep going back to my notes (all handwritten because I'm a glutton for punishment) to cross things out and add things in and try to keep some vague track of what's going on, without having to read through thousands of words of prose. It's working. Kinda.

only online stuff such as.. https://advntr.cc/do-you-need-a-gravel-bike/

I posed the same question to this parish many moons ago. I believe MG's missus was embarking on her novel at the time.

Me, I started my first proper attempt at a young adult novel in 2002. Had everything in place in 2004 to complete it but didn't. Far too ambitious a project. Elected to pursue other YA/children's novel ideas over the next few years ... and here I am today, still working on a series I dreamed up 2 years ago. The beginning is in place, as are many ideas, characters, scenes etc. But working FT, having a long-term poorly missus (4 months thus far), being a dad and generally juggling everything else in life, I just don't have the time.

The only chance I have is to take some time off after my current contract finishes and smash through it. Feasible? Ish.

FTR, I use Scrivener on Mac and laptop.

I'm compelled to see this through. No rational explanation. I just need to do it.

I used to write travel and technical stuff for water sports mags and even edited one. Now I do newspaper features. A 10000 word article is dauntingly enough let alone a novel. 😲

I’m compelled to see this through. No rational explanation. I just need to do it.

Yep, same here. I think it's mainly to prove to myself that I can. Good luck - sounds like your situation is not the easiest. If you (or anyone else) would like someone to read / offer constructive criticism then I'd be more than happy to oblige.

I've heard of Scrivener - what's the advantage? I'm currently using Google Docs simply because I mainly write on my old iPad which won't run the more featured software I'd like to use - ie Evernote or similar. Will Scrivener sync between devices?

@flyingmonkeycorps, I'll answer those questions later today. Currently have a 5pm deadline for a piece of work.

FTR, I use Scrivener on Mac and laptop.

She mostly gave on on that. I think Scrivener might still be the tool of choice for early in the process but then she moved it all to Word.

I’ve heard of Scrivener – what’s the advantage?

Scrivener is just a word processor that lets you write stuff in chunks and sections and shuffle them around. It also has (I think) a timeline feature and stuff like character glossary and supporting material (e.g. maps). It allows you to write bits separately in an ad-hoc fashion then assemble and re-assemble them later, like video editing for text.

There are a number of tools like it but the problem is that they all have good features but none of them has all the good features 🙂 Scrivener is hand written apparently by some bloke in his bedroom and it shows. It doesn't have a sync feature, so you have to use some sort of cloud sync. She was also using Scriptito for a while which is nice, and it's a Chrome app so you can access it anywhere, but the issue with that is that it saves stuff on an AWS storage account that you don't have access to, so if he decides not to pay his bill one day you're stuffed.

Scrivener is hand written apparently by some bloke in his bedroom and it shows.

Very harsh and IMO unjustified mate.

Yes, KB started off as a one-man band many years ago. Over the years he has gained a support team around him and Scrivener has become more refined.

Syncing is absolutely sound so long as you follow the recommended procedure.

OOI when did you last use it properly?

IME it does a lot of things very well. Some people love that so long as it suits their workflow.
Others see it as actually offering too much functionality and they opt for something more simple.

Back later.

OOI when did you last use it properly?

Hmm. Maybe 18 months ago. But she was using the PC version which looks like it's recoded from the ground up, and by all accounts was less polished than the Mac version.

And when I said 'it shows' I didn't mean it's a pile of junk; more that it's quite simple and to me as a developer it looks like it's had limited resources to cover the whole range of functionality. So don't expect MS word level of features.

Might have to have a proper look at Scrivener some time, though at the moment my scrawled notes and Google Docs 'system' is more or less working. Sync is definitely something I wouldn't want to go without now.

I've enjoyed writing reports/blogs on web forums for a number of years, especially about canoeing. Mostly, that was words to go along with pictures.

A few years ago, I started writing articles. This was more interesting, as the pictures were in my head at first, rather than writing around them. I'd then add a smaller number of the relevant best pictures. I was reasonably successful in getting them into the pretty small paddling media market.

Eventually, I started my own blog, and built a website to highlight the best of my images and the articles. Its still just a small start, and a new job has got in the way recently so its a couple of months since I've written much, but I enjoy it. Its a mix of outdoor subject, with the vague theme of being about finding pockets of natural beauty and wildness even close to home, though mostly its about hillwalking and canoeing trips. There is, though, a bikepacking one on there too!

If anybody's interested, blog is here: https://www.wildernessisastateofmind.co.uk/blog

Publications linked here: https://www.wildernessisastateofmind.co.uk/published-articles

Web page: https://www.wildernessisastateofmind.co.uk/

Its been an interesting exercise learning to write specific articles on a chosen subject, learning a bit about structuring them, and a lot about editing and shortening! I'm still not very good at keeping things short and concise. I enjoy the process, though, even if not many people every read it!

Yep, same here. I think it’s mainly to prove to myself that I can. Good luck – sounds like your situation is not the easiest. If you (or anyone else) would like someone to read / offer constructive criticism then I’d be more than happy to oblige.

I’ve heard of Scrivener – what’s the advantage? I’m currently using Google Docs simply because I mainly write on my old iPad which won’t run the more featured software I’d like to use – ie Evernote or similar. Will Scrivener sync between devices?

Ta for offering some CC. I may take you up on that when I finally get my shizzle together.

Re Scriv vs GDocs vs all the other writing apps out there, it's going to (IMO) come down to personal preference.

Scriv has a heap of features. Probably too many for most people. Check out the official page for proper insight. The things I like most are:

- the ability to easily dump any research I find on the interweb
- word count targets (mainly per session)
- being able to easily drag n drop ideas/scenes/chapters/similar
- multiple views
- tags and all other meta data stuff ... this can get complicated and a PITA to manage
- the number of output options
- sync'ing between devices via Dropbox (I think other methods are available?)
- loads of support on a very active forum

Scriv was the reason I bought a secondhand MBP c 2010. Irrational ... yes. Worthwhile ... unsure. But the look n feel of it just feels right to me. And the Windows version is a close match these days too.

As for the iPad version, I have that too. It's handy, but for me the inability to quickly/easily manage formatting/copying/pasting etc is a no go. I have the Logitech keyboard but it still doesn't suit my workflow. You might get on fine with it. Not sure there's a free iOS trial version though?

Re GDocs ... One of my mates self-published his first novel 2 years. He's now writing his second and third concurrently. All completed start to finish in GDocs.

As above, have a play with any free apps you can find.

Shout back if you need owt else. And good luck!

Interesting. Looks like Scrivener will run on iOS 9 which means that I could use it, but of course no iPad trial version. Next time I'm going to have some time to write on a grown up PC (or I manage to get my old Macbook up and running again, which is another pipedream at the moment) I might have a play with the trial and see how it works.

That said I'm happy enough with GDocs at the moment, not having had the opportunity to try anything else, so there's no hurry to change I guess.

@malgrey - had a scan through your blog, and bookmarked it for proper perusal later on. I love reading about other folks adventures, especially when I'm stuck indoors. I must make the effort to get a couple of camps in this year.

I did something similarish when I wrote about my Coast to Coast ride a few months ago, but to be honest it was very much bashed out quickly - at some point I may revisit it (and the notes I made on the journey) and rework it into something a bit more coherent.

“I’m writing a novel.”
“Oh yes. Neither am I.”

My niece has her first two books coming out soon, in fact they are the first two books she has ever written. So not a bad start.

In case anyone's interested she also offers a critique and development service. Not sure if I'm allowed to publicise her or the books? So I won't!

@mercuryrev I'd say that was a pretty amazing start. I don't see why you couldn't recommend her books on here, after all there are whole threads dedicated to such things...

Have to be honest, publication is not something I've given a great deal of thought to, which may be different to a lot of writers, I dunno. I think if I set myself goals which are out of my control (ie getting published) I'd just stress myself out, whereas at the moment I'm just enjoying for the sake of writing. Bit like I am with photos, really.

My main goal at the moment is to finish a novel; once I've done that I'll probably look at sticking it up on the Kindle store and see what happens, but that's post-endgame rather than part of the endgame.

That said, obviously I've daydreamed about quitting work to write full time, but I don't expect it'll even happen.

I sometimes have to write emails explaining quite subtle technical points to overseas customers whose grasp of English isn't great so I spend quite a long time re-reading and editing while asking myself: "Is that really clear?" It's a process I do enjoy, especially the miracle of word-processing where a small change can make so much difference.

Reckon it must be really interesting (and challenging) writing for an audience whose English isn't brilliant, all those little quirks of language that we take as give must suddenly become a real problem.

I'm back to scribbling notes on paper at the moment, writing some scenes made me rethink some narrative choices so I'm resketching a bit of a plan rather than trying to make it all up in prose (which usually ends up with me waffling and extending simple scenes so I don't have to move the story on - because I don't know where it's going!).

Well the Mrs launched another book earlier this week, I quite enjoy the editing and compiling of the books - gives me something different to do every now and again.

Link to her books on Amazon [u][b][url= https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_nr_n_7?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A266239%2Ck%3Atamsin+wood&keywords=tamsin+wood&ie=UTF8&qid=1547632812&rnid=1642204031 ]HERE[/url][/b][/u]

On a side not has anyone actually managed to get a publishing deal?
She's been approached by a couple of vanity publishers - who expect us to stump up cash to get them published - but very little success in getting any feedback from proper publishers.

My sister has modified a story I used to tell her when she was young and turned it into a book. It was based on actual events that impinged on our family. I helped her research it, and went on the book launch tour.

I didn't particularly like her version, but that's the beauty of authoring a story, you get to tell it your way. She writes it from the viewpoint of her heroine, a young woman.

On Amazon here

She's now working on another story I told her. 🙂

I recently left a very large publisher. It’s over simplified somewhat, but essentially in order to get your work looked at you’ll need an agent who has an editor network. Very, very few publishers will even look at unsolicited work these days. PM me if you have any questions.

My missus is a writer - many years of writing and editing for magazines and has had 2 novels published - the 3rd is with her agent.

Cheers @DirtyLyle, if I ever reach that stage (unlikely tbh, but you never know) I might well give you a shout.

My dear old Dad now spends his retirement in his writing shed. He used to work in publishing and negotiated the UK print rights for Catch 22 for his then employer. As a "reward" he was sent on a book signing tour with Diana Dors
I think 3 weeks travelling the world with "the British Marilyn Monroe" was part of the reason why my parents are both re married 😉
If anyone is interested, here's a Link to his novella and collection of short stories. It's the best 99p you'll ever spend.

+1 for going to agents rather than publishers

The publishing industry appears to outsource the new manuscript reading bit to then.