Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I have been writing my whole life. For me. Never with an audience in mind... until recently.
I have two books a'brewing.
One: a fictional autobiography which has been my focus these past few weeks
The other:
A fantasy sci-fi type thingy with a workable plot line.

I keep going back and forth... do I want to write the auto? do I want to write the fantasy?

Do I want to stop my autobiography at starting high school (My life weirdly has a logical stopping point, following a 3 act structure at this point, with potentially 3 more acts from high school to present)
Do I want my autobiography in 1st or 3rd person... I've worked a couple scenes both ways, and they both work, one gives a little more distance and allows me to play with the other characters' motivations a bit more.

See how indecisive I have become? I believe it's a fear issue, my psyche playing tricks on me. If I can't make any decisions I can't finish a book. If I can't finish a book, I can't fail. Seems reasonable to me.

Any suggestions?

First of all, breathe. It will be ok.

I don't think it's a horrible thing to write two projects at a time, but it is difficult. I'm working on a novel, and a full-length dramatic play that is my Grad thesis.

It sounds generally from the post that you're more intrigued by the autobiography. But I don't understand the phrase 'fictional autobiography.' That's an oxymoron.

Also, why do these book suddenly have an audience? What's changed?

CV

cozycoleman wrote: One: a fictional autobiography which has been my focus these past few weeks

What's a fictional autobiography?

I think you can write two books at once, like Charlee says, but I wouldn't recommend it. You'll probably end up favouring one over the other.

If I can't make any decisions I can't finish a book. If I can't finish a book, I can't fail. Seems reasonable to me.

That, my friend, sounds like the symptoms of a procrastinator. "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." Anais Nin. If you can't finish the book, you'll be stuck in the same place forever (dramatic, I know.) Check out this guest post on Nathan's blog: http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/08 ... ns-of.html Check out the comments, where I think people will be going through the same thing as you.

Yeah, we've all been there at one time or another. So, first take comfort that you aren't alone in feelings like that. It's perfectly normal. Take some deep breaths, relax, grab some tea and a cookie (or whatever you fancy) and tell yourself it'll be okay until you can sorta kinda almost believe it.

I do have a few other tidbits of advice, for what they're worth:

-First of all, don't let fear and doubts stop you. We all feel them, but the writers who break through them and keep working are the ones that become authors. Shut them up in a closet somewhere and don't even let them into your mind. Writing is scary, it's terrifying, and we're constantly afraid we're doing it wrong, but if you give in to those fears you'll never get the books written. Push through them. Use them to motivate you to make this book the best you can. And whatever you do, keep writing.

-Writing for an audience isn't bad, but first and foremost you should be writing for yourself. If you constantly wonder what other people will think, rather than how you think/feel about things, then the writing won't be true to what you want it to be. (I know there are a lot of folks out there who will disagree with me here, that you should have an 'ideal reader' in mind at all times and write for them, but personally I think that until you are looking at a publishing contract in the imminent future writing should be about you and exploration of craft and feelings. At the moment you're still testing your wings, learning the steps, rehearsing your lines. That isn't the time to perform for an audience.) So I'd advise you to not worry about an audience and simply write because you want to.

-There are many successful writers who can work on two projects at once. You may be one of them. If you are, kudos and know that the rest of us are jealous. But if you're wanting to just focus on one for now, I'd take a look at which one you feel more passionately about. That seems to be the autobiography. Then work on that, and don't let the Shiny New Ideas pull you away. Write them down so you don't forget them but stay focused until you finished. That's 40% of the battle to finishing a novel. The other 60% is just sitting down and working on the darn thing, when you're overflowing with passion and when writing is drudgery and you feel like you should just quit now. Taking time off isn't a bad thing, as long as you come back to the project and pound it out til it's done.

-Questions on POV are really difficult, because no one can really tell you what's right for a project. You have to kind of feel it. Take a look at the benefits of each. Would the close, 1st person POV help with identifying with your protag? (If you're going for a lot of empathy and for readers to feel the journey with the character, this is a good choice.) Would a more distant 3rd give extra tension, action, or intrigue from seeing other people's motivations and actions? (If you're wanting readers to see the whole picture, watch the threads of the plot weave together from all sides, and pick their own favorite characters, this is a good choice.) Only you can figure that one out.

Those are my two cents. Good luck, and keep posting any questions you may have! We'll be happy to answer, give opinions, or just encourage.

I hereby wave my mighty magical pen. Yabba cadabra. Yabba abra dada dabba do. All doubt will disappear in time, after much hard work and much learning and development and discovery. The personal growth journey will be the reward.

Composition, the entire gamut of writing, involves three phases: concept development, raw draft writing, and reworking for audience appeal and accessibility. That's winning writer's strategy. Struggling writers skimp on the first and last phases. Time on task for the whole divides into at least equal parts, though more advanced writers exert a majority of time and effort on the reworking phase, about half. Still writing, composition, but also known as rewriting and revision. The average published novel written by an average established author consumes six hundred hours of composition time.

Autobiographical fiction or fictional autobiography is a misnomer. On the one hand, all fiction is to a degree autobiographical. At least interests and intent and meaning coincide with a writer's personal life. On the other hand, part of the art and challenge of fiction is to step outside the box of personal reality and into a fictional secondary world. What's true may not be adequately dramatic; what's dramatic may not be true though adequately credible.

I know the term used in the marketplace for autobiographical fiction as autobiographical novel. In simple terms, the narrative relates a drama part true-to-life, part dramatized to suit the needs at hand. Wikipedia lists an extensive index to autobiographical novels and defines the form as best as the slippery beast can be.

Which to focus on, a fantasy novel or an autobiographical novel? Either. Neither. Both. It's all good as long as composition skills develop. The average breakout author spent ten years of dedicated time reaching a craft level with sufficiently broad audience appeal to justify publication, and wrote three trunk novels, and wrote a million words. Rare exceptions notwithstanding.

I can write two separate novels at one time. I thought I was weird, but it seems that I may be some mythical being? Just kidding, of course.
I do write romantic historical fiction as a rule, so it's not very hard for me to work on one novel for a while and then put it aside for the other. It's a matter of changing eras and it's fairly easy for me to keep everything seperate.

I do agree, write for yourself. Something I've been struggling with for over a year now is completing anything. I think it's because I've lost the joy in writing--simply because I shifted from writing for myself to writing to get published. I used to write as a hobby, as something to get the stories out of my head. But when I finally put my work out there and the feedback was relatively good, I caught the getting published bug. And now I'm in the purgatory known as "good story, can't be marketed." It's frustrating as all get out.

So my advice is do what you makes you happy--write--and when you finish, start looking into publication.

Thank you everyone for the encouraging words and useful tips.

Yes, the autobiography is mostly for me, cause I need to get it out. Almost everyone who has ever known me well enough to hear about my past has said "you should write a book." After hearing this for over 20 years (OK, a little more than 20 years), I'm finally taking them up on it. I figured I can use my first book as practice, to see if I'm any good at this writing thing. As far as adding fictitious elements, well that's mostly to change up the characters enough to protect the innocent (and the guilty) and to add things for mood and setting, and maybe a little cake too.

I perhaps worded it badly when I said "writing with an audience in mind". (See, I'm already proving that I'm not great at communicating in writing! ) What I meant to say is that, since finishing college, I haven't really bothered to polish or edit my writing, though I have continued to write.

And yes, polymath, I'm aware that it takes many attempts at writing a completed novel to get one worth publishing, but it is nice to be reminded about being humble. Who knows, maybe I'll never reach the necessary level of craft, maybe all my books will be good for is lighting fires (if I had a fireplace). Or maybe I'm one of those rare first time out of the gate types... after all, I am a mad creative genius

Really, Thanks again for being so supportive.
I'm liking this forum a lot so far.

Sharon

oldhousejunkie wrote:I can write two separate novels at one time. I thought I was weird, but it seems that I may be some mythical being? Just kidding, of course.

At the same time? Like each hand on a different laptop? Then, yeah, I'd say mythical being all the way.

MattLarkin wrote:

oldhousejunkie wrote:I can write two separate novels at one time. I thought I was weird, but it seems that I may be some mythical being? Just kidding, of course.

At the same time? Like each hand on a different laptop? Then, yeah, I'd say mythical being all the way.

Haha, Matt.

Not two laptops at a time, but I have been working on one WIP and then gotten an idea for another. So I'll open the other and start working.

Yeah, I have NO discipline.