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A Writer who can't Write

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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:

--- Quote from: LizW65 on January 16, 2008, 09:28:52 PM ---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.

--- End quote ---
  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.  :P

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.  ;D

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

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