I finished the first draft of my novella!

[Leyrann]

And it's making me so happy!

Edited June 14, 2018 by Leyrann

[Illian Tear]

I would hope so. If you weren't happy then it would be the final draft and not the 1st draft.

[Oddpositions]

Congratulations! That's a huge accomplishment. I've been working on my first novel for the last few months. Don't see myself finishing it anywhere in the near future. It's not easy, so I have major respect for you, Leyrann! Are you looking to publish it when it's all polished and shiny?

[Leyrann]

Eventually, yes I want to get it published, but considering it's the first part of an 8 book series I want to write something more self-contained first, as that would stand a much better chance.

 

As for finishing it, I really needed outside help for that. A while ago I joined a writing guild on Discord, and the encouragement, ability to talk to other people about writing and some tools to focus on it helped out a lot to get this done.

[Mashiara Sedai]

Congrats, Leyrann!  That's such a great accomplishment!  Please keep us posted on your progress and any other writing you're working on!

 

As far as your Discord guild, how's that work?  I belong to a few Facebook groups, and a few chat groups.  So is the Discord guild like a mix between the two?

[Oddpositions]

If you need any beta-readers, i humbly submit myself. Is it a fantasy novel or another genre? And from a writer's perspective, how has the group impacted your writing (if you don't mind my asking) ?

Edited June 16, 2018 by Oddpositions

[Leyrann]

On 16-6-2018 at 11:03 PM, Mashiara Sedai said:

Congrats, Leyrann!  That's such a great accomplishment!  Please keep us posted on your progress and any other writing you're working on!

 

As far as your Discord guild, how's that work?  I belong to a few Facebook groups, and a few chat groups.  So is the Discord guild like a mix between the two?

 

I have no idea how the other stuff works, but the Discord guild is basically a bunch of channels where you can talk about your writing with one another, and there's a check in that you do every week where you post your progress (or lack of progress). The only requirement is that you don't miss 4 check ins in a row, though you are, obviously, encouraged to write, even if only by the lack of your word count going up in check ins.

 

There's also a bunch of other stuff like daily topics to encourage talk about specific subjects or writing sprints (which have personally helped me out a lot).

 

On 17-6-2018 at 1:47 AM, Oddpositions said:

If you need any beta-readers, i humbly submit myself. Is it a fantasy novel or another genre? And from a writer's perspective, how has the group impacted your writing (if you don't mind my asking) ?

 

It's fantasy.

 

As for how the group has impacted me, I've started thinking more about writing and I've started devoting more time to it, which improved both quality and quantity. I went from "having some vague ideas" to "having a 30k novella written and a longer storyline worked out" in 3 months.

[Niniel]

That is great, Ley!!! 

[Oddpositions]

That is so awesome. I'll have to look into some groups. Congrats again :D

[Leyrann]

2 hours ago, Oddpositions said:

That is so awesome. I'll have to look into some groups. Congrats again :D

 

If you're working on something fantasy of sci-fi I could send you an invite link to Inkblood if you have discord.

[Illian Tear]

He does. He was on ours.

[Songstress]

Congratulations Ley!

 

If I could force myself to be a bit more self-disciplined (and focused on one thing instead of 87 at a time) I might finish a writing project someday.  *snerk*

[Leyrann]

4 hours ago, Songstress said:

Congratulations Ley!

 

If I could force myself to be a bit more self-disciplined (and focused on one thing instead of 87 at a time) I might finish a writing project someday.  *snerk*

 

That's what Inkblood is for! (yes I'm blatantly recruiting people)

 

I always had tons of ideas and kept swapping, then Inkblood came along and basically asked of me to focus on one project and every week submit my progress or lack of it, three months later I got a 30k draft done.

 

If you wanna join, just mention it here or PM me and I'll get you an invite.

[Leyrann]

Also Inkblood is probably the best place to go if you want to beta read my stuff because as soon as I'm done with the second draft (which I'm really hoping is sometime before July) I'll go looking for two or three people to give super heavy and detailed feedback on, well, everything, and after that I'm looking for a bunch more people to basically give feedback as a reader, on what they like and don't like, and what their reactions are.

[Talmanes]

Congrats Ley!

 

I'm also happy to read any of your stuff, I know you've been working on your writing for a long time and the bits you've told me previously sounded very interesting!

[Oddpositions]

On 6/19/2018 at 9:10 AM, Illian Tear said:

He does. He was on ours.

 

What he said.

[Illian Tear]

?

[haycraftd]

Congratulations!

[Leyrann]

Well, guess I can get my beta readers from here then... I've already planned everything out:

 

First draft: Finished.

Second draft: Going through it all and fixing errors, bad sentences, etc, plus rewriting some stuff that's incorrect (eg. I made some mistakes about armor that I need to correct).

Third draft: Send to some people with decent writing experience (so people from the guild) to give feedback at a writer level, eg pacing, worldbuilding, etc. These people will typically know some stuff in advance already because I've talked to them about it.

Fourth draft: Send to more people, this time more for feedback on reactions, what is fun to read, etc. These people will know very few things or nothing at all.