Thread: Hi everyone - from a new writer in Australia

Hi everyone - I'd just like to introduce myself - I'm a writer in Australia - I mainly write films and plays, but have gone back to working on a novel - which is what I'd like to discuss most on the board. Film writing I find very easy and natural, novel writing less so. Although I do enjoy the complete control you have over everything - I find when I make films there's just so much out of your control and it can be very frustrating when those things let you down and you can't do anything about it -- so I guess with novel writing you've got enough rope to swing by or to hang yourself with!

I'm in my mid 40's now - and in my early 20's I started a book which was basically a love story set in the mid 21st century - I got about 80% of the book done and basically just burnt myself out on it, so stopped. And it's this book I've come back to now. I think now I've got more distance on what I was writing about - which gives it more perspective and a bit more objectivity - but the stuff with the romance was written quite passionately so I'm hoping to retain all that - just frame it in a less affected way. And of course the future of the world now looks alot different than what I ever could have imagined in the late 80's and early 90's - so I'm going back over and adjusting the technological parts of it all.

The main story line is remaining the same - I've got to write the ending and work over the first 80% of the book. If I can have it all done by the end of next year I'd be happy. Right now I get up early to snatch an hour or so on it before the kids are awake! At the moment I'd say the book will be around 165,000 words.

In simple terms I'd guess you'd say it's a romance set in the future - possibly erotic science fiction - although it has a serious message about the environment.

Anyway I look forward to discussing it here - which subforums would people suggest I use - I guess the fiction/romance and fiction/sci-fi one? I'm also interested in people's thoughts on publishing - I'm thinking of ePublishing at the moment

Thanks,
Scot

Hi, welcome to the forum. I have often seen the advice 'Leave it for a bit and come back to it', I am not sure that I have ever met anyone who left it 20 years before, the number of times you can do that is limited.
Hope you have a good time here, Olly.

Thanks Olly - in fact it wasn't till I read somewhere recently that Boris Pasternak took 40 years to finish Dr Zhivago that I actually felt alright about going back to it. I think the thing is if you're writing about stuff that's really close to you personally sometimes you need alot of time to get some perspective on it

Scot

Welcome to the forums, Scot.

if you're writing about stuff that's really close to you personally

My experience is that is the hardest to write, and the best if you pull it off properly.

Well hopefully I can pull it off - hopefully the 20 year break will help!! The thing I've found so far is I was writing a pretty intense love story at the time (based of course on what I was going through) - and I was largely writing then to understand what I was experiencing ~ so that made the dialogue and plot development very emotive and realistic, but the narrative voice way too subjective. So now I've got the distance and can be more balanced in the narrative voice - but there's very little of the dialogue and structure that needs changing - and the truth is if I had to write such a relationship now I don't think I could.

Anyway we'll see how it all unfolds - there's a few thematic points that I now see it needs, which I couldn't then either, and that adds alot as well

Scot

I would like to give you the Warmest of welcomes to the Forums

Hi and welcome to WF, Scot.

All the best for your book; you'd find the Writing Discussion forum helpful for your discussion, the fiction forum is for posting creative works and getting feedback on them.

You've mentioned that your work is erotic science fiction. The site works on a PG-13 level, so please keep that in mind when you post your work.
Please also take some time to read the rules of the site; you'll find the link on the main tab at the top of the page, or in my signature.


Hope you enjoy the site.

Thanks for all the well wishes everyone. Candid I'll make sure I keep it PG-13! And thanks for the tip on the writing forum - I think at this stage I'm more interested in discussing writing techniques than posting examples of my work

Thanks,
Scot