My first book (novel) - The General's Cafe
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Hi to whoever may be around! I thought I?d start this thread to talk a bit about my first potential "novel" I?ve been working on for the past seven months, and have almost completed. This thread is basically a way to keep myself enthusiastic and finish this thing! As some of you may know, I write songs / song lyrics mainly, so this is my first fully-fledged attempt at something longer - well the first that has actually been put into practice properly. It?s basically a social commentary / dystopian story, which could be set in the future, although this is not specified as such. It depicts the hypothetical prospect of a ?new? kind of dictatorship, and various disastrous events that occur and affect the two main protagonists. I mainly wrote this story for myself, and to see if I could, but if anyone has any experience in writing, or even having work published etc., that would be good to hear about. Anyway, thanks for reading! Vanessa
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Very good, Vanessa. Try to get some others to read your novel when you finish it to get some feedback. If all goes well, consider trying to get it published. Why not? It's worth a try. You could have a happy future just around the corner! You obviously care about writing. Good Luck!
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Congratulations Vanessa for getting this far. Most writers don't make it past the first chapter. Be sure to join a local writers group as well as online groups because that's where you'll find a lot of support for your writing. You'll learn a lot from other writers. Good luck and keep us informed on your progress. Zane
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I'm I blooming author myself. I'm writing about a detective in Sherloch Holmes time who models holmes in every aspect and gets the chance to meet him. But I frequently have writers block ops: ops: ops: -mrspmccartney
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Thanks for the comments. I'll definitely try and finish the story sometime and decide what - if anything - to do with it then. I didn't think I'd have the patience to finish anything of great length, to be honest, but now I'm getting there, it's interesting to see how the progress went. Vanessa
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Gosh, I just came across this thread again whilst looking over some old posts. It's more than a year later, and I've pretty much got a whole lot of chapters written - well the first draft of them anyway. That's not too bad, considering that I've been working full-time until recently (office) and spending much of my free time with family, friends and music. Anyway, I'll probably have a look through what I've got so far at some point and then see where to go from there.
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congratulations on getting to where you have gotten so far many talk of doing such writing .... to actually write and have something is a very good place to be as a writer .... I like the idea of letting a few people see some of your ideas for feedback ... (nobody says you have to listen to their words ha ha j/k ) it is a good idea .... when you get to a point of wanting to publish ... to do some small research ... so you send things the proper way to the right person and place (not wasting your time or theirs) ... and even the best selling authors have gotten rejections (when they reached the best seller list .... those rejection companies knew they made a bad decision... so some of it is random) .... keep trying and good luck to you .... success in getting published
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Good suggestions, chuffed. Vanessa, stay the course. You can do it. Keep trying!
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Wow, almost three years to the day since I started this thread. In the meantime I've let this whole project go for about a year, came back to it, left it behind and finally earlier this year have decided to edit the whole thing and sent it out to a couple of publishers for feedback which has been generally good. Maybe nothing else will come of it but that's really okay. The project's done.
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I always tell people I'm "writing a novel", just to impress them! Ha! Ha! Ha!
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Hello world It seems that this is my online tracker of my writing journey. Late last year I decided to re-write this project, and am currently editing it. It's now a pretty decent length. I joined some writing forums and generally kept up with reading good books. I've learned so much doing both of these things. Once I'm done editing, I will give this another serious go. I'd be open to further explore self publishing as well. Anyone have any experiences to share in that regard? It's a road my cousin (a 'traditionally' published writer/illustrator) and I have decided to take for her latest projects. I've edited one of her children's books and adapted another into English for her. If anyone is interested in having a look, these are the two books: http://www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk/bookstore/author.aspx?authorid=300362 http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Maria+Shkhyan Best wishes Vanessa x
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This old experiment is turning into something real. I've had the invaluable advice of a writer I know, and now I'm almost done with my novel & looking into publishing it. Any other writers around, please check in and say hello. Cheers
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This is it: http://www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=301194 It's been a long but interesting road.
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Vanessa, Congrats. Keep writing everyday whether or not you have anything to write. Half the battle is sitting down at the computer and forcing yourself to write, at least for me it was. Set aside time to write everyday and stick to it. I have written numerous short stories, and attempted to write a novel on many occasions but always gave up. But a few years back I finally hit on a a group of characters that I really enjoyed writing about. It did take me a year to write the story, and another three or four months to edit it, but I enjoyed the project. Whether or not it's published enjoy the process. Good Luck, Don
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Thanks Don. It was certainly a worthwhile project and seems to have turned out all right. I'm still writing & recently have been working on a few short stories as well. Which writers do you like or influence you?
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My biggest influence has been Stephen King. For me he is a master storyteller. He is much more than a horror writer. He also created a love for reading, that I really never had with any other author. I also enjoy reading: Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Nelson De Mille, John Steinbeck, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and many more. How about yourself?