I hate to think how many weeks I’ve been working on my current book. To begin with I sent synopsis after synopsis to my editor, only to have her find something wrong with each one of them. I was really beginning to feel that I had lost the plot (no pun intended) until I finally got the go ahead.
But then everything conspired against me, my writing time appeared to be non-existent; I’ve only written about 4,000 words in over two weeks. I’ve firmly convinced myself that this book is going to die a painful death, either that or become a raving bestseller. Ha, ha!
Does anyone else have these problems? If so I’d love to know.
How can I go from always having another book in my head waiting to be written to – this? I don’t even know how this story is going to work out. I’m writing into the mist. Which is what I always used to do until editors requested synopses. The only good thing I can see about writing a synopsis is that it prevents writing a whole book that is ultimately going to be shredded to pieces. So it works like this, I get a synopsis approved, then the first three chapters (two in this case – which should tell me something!) then the whole book is sent in. After that there are usually revisions.
I’m writing this in the hope that it will tell newer writers who are perhaps struggling, that it still happens to even seasoned authors like myself.
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Pop over to my website and answer the simple question there. The draw is taking place on October 1st so you have plenty of time.
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Margaret, I really hate the idea of having to submit a synopsis and write accordingly. I’m a pantser, though I plan extensively in my head and have a thorough knowledge of my characters, where I want everything to start and where I want it to finish before I write ‘Chapter One’ at the top of a page. My books almost never pan out the way I’d imagined, though. I used to religiously write a plan beforehand when I just started out, but found I had to rewrite the darn plan so often that I just gave up on it, and found the writing flowed for me wonderfully once I did that.
I would honestly prefer (if I ever make it to that kind of league) to write the book first and then tell my editor I have something for her. I have quite a high output – are some writers allowed to work like that?