so, How do you retain focus on your writings?

[capncnut]

Maybe I jumped the gun there. But what I meant was that every book I've read thus far (maybe 10 or so), I've enjoyed immensely.

[Danny]

im looking forward to duma key as it apparently ties into some of his other stories like the dark tower ,rose madder and the road virus heads north. but on the horror topic i picked up dean koontz AKA "the antiking" (remembe rthe family guy sketch, brain runs over a guy, asks if he stephen king, he says hes koontz, brian shrugs then revrses over him) ...anyway, i picked up for 99p "the taking" wich i read 200 pages in a good 20 mintes i can totally recommend it, its about this unnatural rain starts, power goes out, in mirrors people seee creatures, but they dont know if its aliens or something theological in nature, well worth picking up.

[capncnut]

im looking forward to duma key as it apparently ties into some of his other stories like the dark tower ,rose madder and the road virus heads north. I'm looking forward to that myself as it happens.

[Danny]

its allready out,i just didnt have the cred's to buy it yesterday, plus i bought his other new one, blzae the other day and have yet to read it, i got kim newmans warhammer novels in one anthology "the vampire genevieve" and havent been able to put that down yet. ...until i go this dean koontz one, if your a silent hill fan youll love it.

[Relic]

The premise behind Duma Key is a person has a near death experience when a car hits him and almost kills him. Okay. Isn't this like the third novel in a row where that happens to the main character? I know a writer is supposed to write what he or she knows, but Tabitha needs to slap Steve silly with his using his near-death experience as main source character development for his new novels. Blaze was written back in the '70s with his Bachman books. Damn good read. Old King. When his writing was lean and razor-sharp. Anybody read his kid's fiction? Joe Hill? He has a novel (heart-shaped box) which is outstanding, and he also just publizhed a short story collection (2oth century ghosts) which I own but haven't read yet. Just like his papa...

[Deadman_Deluxe]

how do you established and unestablished writers do this? Well, i WAS going to answer you, but then i read that, which made me have second thoughts, until i got to the very end and read that Anyways, if i can offer you some advice that work's for me, i would say just write WHENEVER and WHEREVER you can. Could be a single word on the back of a bus ticket or anything. Sometimes i grab a single word, write it down on my hand, and think about it while i am getting on with whatever else needs to be done, then i add to that word whenever i have time to sit down with an actual pen and paper (or wordpad) *which could be anything from one hour to one week, depending on what else is going on. The point is, you always have that scrap of paper/bus ticket/napkin as your "starting point" for when you DO next sit down and "try" to write! Whatever it is your writing project is, it should almost always be bubbling away at the forefront of your mind, something that is always there, always occupying a small section of your consciousness and just looking for inspiration. Case in point: I got this prose style entry from the word's "empty" and "afterglow" ... both word's i had barely any memory of even writing down, on the back of a lottery ticket, by the time i had found time to sit down and look at them! *Im not saying that this is great writing or anything, but the point is that it makes it easier for me to write "something" as opposed to "nothing at all". 8:40 AM - Update 236 : Monday, November 28th, 2005 Empty. I am empty. A forced smile in a broken mirror. .rorrim nekorb a ni elims decrof A Running on empty. The past nine months have been hell. Worse than any of the previous years since it all changed. I have struggled in an ongoing fight, in this fight, the fight with no rules, with no meaning. And now it seems more evident than ever that i alone have suffered this cruel and ironic twist of fate. No one else ... Yet no empty bodies are destined to be saved. And so maybe i will break through. Maybe i am breaking through right now, picking up the pieces and embracing the new ritual. Slowly integrating with the other side ... relatively unscathed and soon to be bathing in the afterglow. Reborn under a full moon. One cursed night. Soon.

[Neil]

I have a had time sticking to any story for a length of time. I can't sit down and type it out for a long period (and I hating writing things down tbh) but I like writing itself. My problem is my inability to focus on one project. how do you established and unestablished writers do this? With 'The Midas Touch' I literally just did the story in bits - having an idea of the stepping stones of the story - and then the bits inbetween basically just filled themselves in. I am by no means a 'writer' but just found writing whatever bit I was thinking about at the time worked for me. I would then revisit those bits changing/adding, and join those sections togethor when I could... I actually wrote the first chapter, and then the final couple of lines of the story... Then big blocks in the middle... Finally I joined them up...

[Danny]

With 'The Midas Touch' I literally just did the story in bits - having an idea of the stepping stones of the story - and then the bits inbetween basically just filled themselves in. I am by no means a 'writer' but just found writing whatever bit I was thinking about at the time worked for me. I would then revisit those bits changing/adding, and join those sections togethor when I could... I actually wrote the first chapter, and then the final couple of lines of the story... Then big blocks in the middle... Finally I joined them up... yeah vie done that and had it work out a fair few times for me too. i cant rmeember exactly but in film class we were allways told to do this..6 points i think thing with a reason fro the story, what happens to trigger it, a challenge, a middle piece, overcomeing a challenge and a return to normality.