A Writer who can't Write

[Quantus]

So here's my hangup, Ive been working on this novel idea off and on since High School, and while over the years Ive com up with an incredible amount of detail, I can never seem to sit down and record it, which inevitable leads to me loosing things to the annals of time (and for a while the alter of college drinking).  Im at best an average typist, and my handwriting is barely legible even to me.  Neither of which seem to keep up with the pace of a given creative brainstorm, so when I slow down I end up loosing the momentum.  Any suggestions?  Ive looked into dictation software in the past (though not recently), but they all take soo much training to even get 50% accuracy, and you throw in common enough sword and horse fantasy terms, and it all goes wonky.

[LizW65]

Don't know if this will help or not, but I've taken to carrying a notebook everywhere I go, and when I come up with a bit of detail or dialogue, I write it down ASAP.  This is especially helpful as I tend to think up my best dialogue when driving, and if I wait to get home to the computer it's gone.  If your handwriting is illegible, maybe one of those voice-activated tape recorders would be a better bet.

[Quantus]

Don't know if this will help or not, but I've taken to carrying a notebook everywhere I go, and when I come up with a bit of detail or dialogue, I write it down ASAP.  This is especially helpful as I tend to think up my best dialogue when driving, and if I wait to get home to the computer it's gone.  If your handwriting is illegible, maybe one of those voice-activated tape recorders would be a better bet.

  I kept a little leather journal notebook in my pocket for years, and while it works great for those quick little details (world-building and stuff) I could still never get anywhere with the actual text   

So far the only part of the thing Ive actually written out (midnight run in college outside my dorm with a cheap cigar) is a prologue that takes it right up to the birth of the main character 

[Paige]

Writing isn't easy. If it was everyone would do it. Seriously. EVERYONE. The easy part is coming up with the ideas. The hard part, the part that makes a writer a writer, is the actual...ya'know...writing. 

If you want to write the book then write it. There's no pill, no trick, no magic to it. You sit down and write, or you dictate and have someone else type or have a program do it. You find the time, you make the time, you DECIDE to write.

The difference between someone who wants to be a writer and someone who is, isn't whether they ever get published it's whether they actually write. And the only thing that will put you on one side or the other...is you. How bad do you want it?

I'm worried that sounds harsh and I don't mean it to be. It's just that there's no other answer. You have the desire, you have the story idea, you've proven you CAN make yourself write by writing the prologue. You just have to put your butt in the chair and your hands on the keyboard (or pen and paper) and write.
It's not easy, but you know you can do it. So just do it. 

I sound like a Nike commercial. 
Good luck!!!!

[blgarver]

Man, this is exactly the issue I'm having with my big work.  Had the idea since I was in high school, started and restarted countless times, have written segments of the middle, parts of prequels, and so on and so forth.  It never goes anywhere. 

I even have a big elaborate color-coded map of the world, that is actually pretty awesome as a map, and took me like two weeks to create, but it hasn't helped me write the story like I'd hoped.

After starting and stopping so many times, I realized there must be something wrong with the plot or the characters or something, because it just wasn't working...and still isn't.  So, I set that one aside and focused on a single book, instead of a trilogy, for my first major undertaking.  I'm almost finished with that book now, and all the time the trilogy simmers in the back of my head.  I've struck a few good ideas that improve the plot, but there is still something fundamentally flawed with some aspect of the trilogy.  I can't figure it out yet, but I plan to concentrate on that when I finish this stand-alone book.

Perhaps you should try that.  If the book you're trying to write is, in your mind, your magnum opus, then you may be feeling some fear about not doing it justice.  Set it aside, write a stand alone book.  So far doing this has done two things for me:

1) I proved to myself that I can, indeed, write an entire book.

2) Through writing this stand-alone, my writing has improved A LOT.  Now I'm not so afraid of disgracing the trilogy with shoddy writing.

3) Now that I've been through (nearly) the process of writing an entire novel, I have a better grasp of how to approach my next project.

It all just adds up to confidence I guess.  The task of writing that gem of a novel or trilogy into which you've poured a good percentage of your youth is a daunting one.  I would say try something of a smaller scale.  I don't necessarily mean fewer pages, I mean a project that hasn't been sitting on a pedestal for a decade, accumulating all kinds of assumptions and expectations of you, its creator.

That's my advice.  Best wishes on your project.

BLG

[Quantus]

Thats actually probably very good advice blgarver.  Thank you.   

I do have a few lesser projects floating around back there, and I've been wanting to try something first person. I find it easier for me to write, flowing more conversationally.  But my original story had too many characters to work it well.

Side note, I too have a crazy map.  I adapted a lunar map from like the 14th century that I found in a calender 

[meg_evonne]

Hi, I know what you mean.  Frustrating as h***. Don't overlook the simple task of taking a typing/keyboarding course.  Nothing slows up the flow faster than hunt and peck typing.  You'll see a payoff in everything you do. Cheap mavis one out there to do on your own.

Give this a try...

1. Set your keyboard to Centered, rather than left side.  That way you'll TRICK yourself into not being overly concerned with format. The goal is getting the structure down.
2. Skip ALL description and keep stage directions to a minimum.  (They'll come back when you flesh it out.)
3. Get the dialog down (don't worry about the voice of each character),  it won't be pretty but it will be fast paced.

It looks like a script.  I can't tell you how fast you can get the bones down while they are hot if you do it this way.  I'll try a sample below:

(Cha'dilly enters mac's, trouble with the door, scans the room, eyes one particular person, crosses and sits)

Cha'dilly:

Man it's cold out there.  One ale.

Guy in trenchcoat:

Yeah, really cold.

These five sentences could break down to a full page of manuscript by the time you add the details in. It works for action sequence/fight scenes as well. Does that make sense?

This is the ONLY TRICK THAT I've learned to deal with my memory problems.  i used voice recording typing programs, i've used dictaphones (little taperecorders), but they weren't as fast as my fingers.  I've tried paper---forget it, you can't cut & paste and then you spend your life transcribing.

I hope it helps!  A few key words will unlock the real memories if you trust your mind.  If you trust the system, that beautiful dialog you wrote in your head will pop right out again at the memory jogger.  i think you can train yourself to be better at this with practice.  Keep writing!

[blgarver]

Hmm....I think I might just try that too, meg. 

[Cresent Genisi]

What if it isn't so much the story your writing but how your writing it that you can't process correctly from you brain to writer's hands?
Like I already know I stop writing before I start because I can't sit down to write, if I do I leave out a bunch of important details from my head while if I write the details I forget where I'm at beyond the scene I am writing. So usually I record my voice and talk myself threw the story. Then I will write down key detail that will happen later on in the story that I want to put in or think more about. So when I sit down with my notes and my tape from it I end up just writing stuff that sounds like something a fifth grader could write, but coming up with some very interesting dialogues, scenes, characters, and scenarios that would seem to be the perfect base for the next bestseller if only someone with real talent was writing it. Then I start doubting myself as a writer only to "throw down the pencil" and come back to it months later. That's pretty much the cycle to my attempt at a writing career.

[meg_evonne]

That's a pretty nasty bear in your room, Cresent.  I wrote a thread called, "There's a bear in my room, does it ever go away?" about self-confidence.  you might want to search for it---some great ideas from people.  For your own reference, check out Jim's journal on the first page of jim-butcher.com---I think he has a bear also, but he's probably better at whipping it into a corner and telling it to behave!  Why a bear?  Ever hear that line about sometimes you eat the bear and other time the bear eats you?  Just concentrate on increasing your odds of eating the bear.   

1. You obviously have put some hard work & time into your storylines AND I suspect the characters haunt you to get them down.  So you end up frustrated, your characters get edgy in there and you end up repeating the process over and over.  If I've mis-read STOP READING!  hee, hee..

I took a couple on-line classes with professional writers (including a NYTimes Columnist, copywriters, editors, past agent, authors, etc)  All were excellent writers in their fields (I was the duffer) and guess what?---same problem or they would obsess about making each line perfect and never get the past the first few pages.  You are share your problem with other writers.

Finally, all writers, as far as I can tell, write a lot of pages---to get to one great paragraph.  Remember, you don't have to share it with anyone, but you might be your own worse critic as they say. 

Lighten up, let yourself write crud--just so the story gets out.  Your soul will be happy with that for now.  I suspect things will improve with time.  That storyline isn't going to leave you alone until you get it down anyway, so give in and do it.  Try that short script idea----was that great dialog?  GAG...but i remember what was in my head and it's pretty good.  You can go back and let the triggers remind you.

Keep writing.  It's good for soul and for the heart and your characters will thank you. If it helps buy a whip and make that bear behave itself... 

Edited for one more idea.  Try drawing it...  Just an idea, maybe your strength is graphic?

[Cresent Genisi]

Wow, my problem is a bear ..............just kidding'
I never thought that it could be my self-confidence that could be an issue in my writing. And my characters do haunt me....especially on the road or in the shower. Writers write a lot of pages to get one paragraph that is very interesting.

Your idea about drawing?...I should have thought of that...I already got ahead of myself with designing the book covers and the official site layout...I feel...dumb now.

You've given me a ton of new things to think about, not to mention you advice has inspired me to hurry and get back to my book. Thank you for the advice.

[Murphy's Stunt Double]

Here's another thought, a bit different from the rest. TELL your story to a digital recorder and then hire a high school kid to transcribe it. These days high school kids have mad typing skills, they work for cheep, and always need money.

[Noey]

I've had the same problems, because goodness knows it's daunting to look at a whole book and think holy crap. I have to write all that?! It'll sound odd, but what helped me get into it was gaming. I've always had a story in my head, but never could get it started until I started running an online roleplaying game, with just me and a friend. It's on a text based telnet system, so the words matter. The game turned into a story, and it taught me how to structure a scene, how to string those scenes together, make it matter, juggle characters, and a lot of stuff that went right over my head during college. As a bonus, the player is my captive audience and co-conspirator. After putting this together, I feel like I have the tools to be able to plot out an actual novel, and even better I kind of know how to use them.

Putting together the plot as a Story Teller or Dungeon Master or whatever your game system calls it is a lot like writing your own story. It's got training wheels, because you only need to put together a skeleton and let the players do the rest, but in cases like this it's putting together the skeleton of the story that matters. Once you have the basis, the rest is just filling it out to bring it to life. It worked for me, and might not for you, but it couldn't hurt to pick up some dice and see if you can shake out some of your creativity, you know?

[Quantus]

My college Gaming buddies have been trying to get a game together.  I was going to try to swing them over to the Fate system...  This could work. And if it doesn't I still gt to Game 

[Murphy's Stunt Double]

Once you have the basis, the rest is just filling it out to bring it to life. It worked for me, and might not for you, but it couldn't hurt to pick up some dice and see if you can shake out some of your creativity, you know?

It's working for me, too. Last year I spent every day in writer's block, now I can't get wait to get online and writer with my co-conspiritors. There's something about playing with another live person that both inpires me to get at it, and inspires me to get creative.