Tag: books

I don’t have time . . .

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

When do you have time?

Everyone has the same 24 hours. You just can’t manage it as well as others.

Last year was my most productive writing phase of my life. I think I literally had ten plus story ideas come to me.And I’ve managed to record them in various degrees from completed first drafts to merely dot points.

There is this excuse that people say, ‘If I had the time I’d write a book.’

Pfft. You have the time you’re just negligent about it.

Look at me, I worked full time and did split shifts and still managed to use the time I had to create various drafts of stories that one day will see the light of day. If you really want to write that book or do something else, there is nothing in the world that will stop you.

What are your writing goals?

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

I have a goal of writing 10 books by the age of 30. That means I have to publish 6 more in the next 30 months, or a new book every 5 months. At the moment I have The Things We Do in its ?fourth? draft (strangely I haven’t been keeping that much of a record). The first draft of Jump Start is done, I’m halfway through two more novellas (Beyond this Little Moon of Ours and yet-to-be-titled novella) and I have a few other incomplete dormant stories sleeping on my USB.

I’m not one to be motivated by self-imposed deadlines. In fact, I freeze up in fear and have a miniature freakout, despite having gone through university and gotten me a BA and Postgrad Diploma. I like to go my own pace and that pace can be all over the place. Nothing for days and then a few thousand words in one sitting.

What I have is what I now consider a short-term goal (I know, I now consider myself getting old). I’m just starting to get into my groove writing and when I hit thirty I do not know what to expect. I hope I will have reached my goal. I’m certainly going to aim for it. But I wonder how much of my life will be the same or different.

What about you? What are your short and long-term writing goals?

When should you ditch a story?

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

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To date, all the stories I wrote for my uni assignments have remained untouched on my USB since graduation. It’s been around five years now and I know that I might never go back to them. And that’s ok. There are a quite a few reasons why I’m probably not going to bother with them and they are:

  • I don’t like them (I wrote them to criteria guidelines and not entertainment).
  • There are other stories I like more or think are worthwhile writing.
  • I know they are bad (Bad, being plot).

Some time ago I opened a short 2,500 word story and tried to see if I could make it worthy of self-publishing. It turned out that my first ever story I wrote for uni was pretty effing terrible. No wonder I barely passed that class. I could make the sentence structure better, but I couldn’t get over the plot holes and it was cliched as hell. Give me an award for reaching the cringe-worthy level of over 9000!

I also have other stories that are not from uni that are currently dormant because I’ve been neglecting them for a variety of reasons;

  • They’ve got a good base, but need more attention and ideas added.
  • More recent stories are taking up my spare time and my growth as a writer has improved their first draft quality to the point of encouragement.
  • Something about it just doesn’t seem right and I can’t quite put my finger on it (Trust your gut guys and move onto something else in the meantime).

What I was interested in a few years ago has changed and it will probably change again. One of the biggest things I can say to other people would be if you think something is not right about your story then you’re on to something. Notice I said not right instead of wrong? That’s because there are more than one way to tell a story or write a novel.

When you come to a place like this, it is best that you take a break of however long you think you might need for you to wrap your head around it. Be it a few hours to a few weeks. I like to think of my stories as I’m working behind the bar at work. It gives me time to plan what I think are the best routes to take. Personality wise, I’m more of a ‘take my time to plan’ instead of rush ahead because I’ve learnt that it is how I make mistakes.

That being said, some stories are just bad through and through. Even as a child I was picking up on things in books that disrupted the entire reading experience. Whether it be a single sentence of being preached to or a single word that is the wrong tense (These were from traditionally published books too). You could have a decent story, but a book’s sense of verisimilitude is just as important. And this could be the thing that doesn’t make it worthwhile and you have to ask yourself, Should I go back and try to fix or just ditch? And the answer is yours and what you think is best for you.