I am, therefore I write

[meg_evonne]

Okay, so I'm taking this class.  Yep, you all just groaned.  Here's the thing, it's an internet novel class which has been helpful in forcing me to get those pages done weekly.  Last week someone was talking about how first novels are usually autobiographical.  I was floored.  Not because this isn't something you hear all the time.  I was floored because the simple majority of these people were literally working on their first novels. 

Writing for me is compulsive.  I'm driven to write and have since grade school.  My damn computer is chock full of stuff, some of it crappy (okay a lot of it crappy) but the last few years there is some pretty good stuff in there.  I consider that I left my "first" novel in the dust, published or not, years and years ago. 

I checked with my office manager, who holds a Masters in English, and she has a computer stuffed. So I'm curious and thus the poll.

These classmembers are professionals in the writing field, mainly editors etc and I think most of them are in their 40's or later... and they are just now writing a first novel? Am I the wierd one out there?

It really is a great class....   

[Yeratel]

So far I've resisted the temptation to get started on a novel. My patience level is more of the article and short story variety.

[Tasmin21]

None completed, but I feel obligated to point out that I'm currently working on two (simultaneously) and that I have four completed in my distant past. (talking high school/early college, and not fit for private consumption, much less public)

[meg_evonne]

I'm counting "shitty first drafts" as completed... thanks for the input

[Kiriath]

Much much stuff that I don't want to think too much about; I say they're "shelved" but they all suck.

The newer stuff, I have 1 40K contemporary fantasy novella, 1 100K fantasy novel, 1 90K science fiction novel, and I'm working on a 80-90K novel, of, I like to think, increasing quality.

I'm planning on writing a 50K Nano in November and another 90-100K novel this year.

... It sounds like a lot when I say it that way. It isn't, really. 

[Uilos]

1 novella (my first work), an inprogress novel, and I've written two episodes (broken down into about 11 chapters) of shorts stories based on the Matrix Online, so those count as 4. Then I have more short stories based on the novel than I care to think about

[LizW65]

One here, plus a three-act play (only they're lurking on paper, not my computer, since I wrote them at a time when I didn't have one - the mid-to-late 1980's.)

[meg_evonne]

LizW, you are the first to mention a play.  E-mail me and fill me in (or post here) what your play was about.  I've a close family friend that is in charge of the play-writing at Emory, profesional lighting friends on the west coast and a couple professional actors based out of Seattle. I've tried it only once and would be interested in what kind of difficulties you ran into writing.  OR since it was the 80's maybe you don't want to pick it up and be reminded?  My attempt was about 2000 and it absolutely s<<8*s if you get my drift.   

[LizW65]

LizW, you are the first to mention a play.  E-mail me and fill me in (or post here) what your play was about.  I've a close family friend that is in charge of the play-writing at Emory, profesional lighting friends on the west coast and a couple professional actors based out of Seattle. I've tried it only once and would be interested in what kind of difficulties you ran into writing.  OR since it was the 80's maybe you don't want to pick it up and be reminded?  My attempt was about 2000 and it absolutely s<<8*s if you get my drift.   

It is a comedy/murder mystery set in an out-of-the-way inn in the French Pyrenees in the 1930's (on a dark and stormy night, natch.)  At the time I was writing I was heavily influenced by Agatha Christie, and it spoofs a lot of the cliches of the genre.  It's been quite a while, but as I recall I started out by writing a general outline, which gradually got more and more specific until finally it was broken down by French Scenes.  Once I knew where everyone was and what they were doing, it was a matter of filling it in with dialogue.  I remember reading much of the dialogue aloud to myself to see if it "flowed" properly.  I was 16 when I wrote the first draft; about a year later I picked it up again and discovered a glaring hole in the plot that needed to be fixed, and it went through a number of re-writes after that.  It's never been produced, which is probably just as well  although I occasionally pick it up and think, "Hmm, I really should make a clean copy of this."

[Spectacular Sameth]

Counting all the rough drafts not finished, I have over 16. I've completed about three or four things and only one of them made it to the editing stage.