It's always good to read a lot of different things and I still just don't read enough. I always read little, but it got really better by now. I still think there's room for improvement. Still, I'm trying to make my way through both a Song of Ice and Fire and the Witcher right now, so I'm pretty occupied when it comes to books right now I can tell those have influenced some of my shorts when I look back at them. It's funny how you mentioned Xenogears, as it has influenced me many times already, along with other games, not consciously and unconsciously. The two chapters I mentioned are here, if you ever feel like taking a look: http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread....-from-my-novel
I can get behind any story that shifts to post-apocalyptic territory. I'll need to check them out, maybe get inspired to get back to my own novel. Like yours it shifted from a kind of boyish love for Final Fantasy and Evangelion and evolved into my own Xenogears style story spanning thousands of years and multiple character arcs. Still it would be good to read something new and get inspired. I was reading a bit of Lovecraft when I was in my last writing phase.
It's kind of on hold now. I find Eden much more productive now. I think writing out a synopsis of every chapter first was a big mistake in hindsight, since I poured all my creative energy into it and I cannot finish chapter three now, and the story has evolved beyond that plan anyway. Though I have recently drawn some of my characters from that novel again and some of the spark has returned, so I may actually come back to it sooner than I thought Im actually writing it as a YA novel with shifting POVs. It's an urban fantasy story that's supposed to shift into post-apocalyptic territory about midway through. I intend it to start off like a typical Harry Potter-esque "boy discovers magic is real" story, but then develop into something much, much darker. The idea was much simpler back in high school when I wrote a "first chapter", which was very similar, but also very different from the current draft. There was even a period where I considered making the story a comic instead of a novel, but sadly, I am not confident in my artistic skills quite enough to do that Hey, if you're ever interested, the first drafts of the two chapters I have written are in Timber Maniacs Even though I'm on a break with this story, I keep telling myself I'll come back to it. For a lot of reasons, it's very personal for me and I want to see it out there with people reading it, I don't care if they like it or not.
I think so too. So how is your long term novel going?
Sounded really cool, though. I think that ideas that get to mature over a long period of time tend to give the best result in the long run. Just don't give up on it!
To be fair, my novel was a collaborative work from middle school and need to be re-written to not sound like it was written by thirteen year olds. My friend who was working on the novel with me also eventually gave up on it when he dropped out of college. So I've been slowly re-writing it by myself for the last few years when not working on my own stuff.
And I thought my novel was taking long. It actuallys started with a dream I had in high school, which can be anywhere between six and nine years ago. I really hope it doesn't take me that long to finish it this time around. A writing habit is always good I'm trying to come back to mine after the hiatus I had during the break. So many distractions...
I hear you on just needing to get down to work and ignoring the nagging doubt in your head. My novel has been an off and on again project for fifteen years now and it's on it's fourth draft I think. Then again I've never finished a first draft so it still counts as Draft One I guess. I might pop into Writing Prompts again but right now I'm just trying to get a writing schedule/habit established so I can stay consistent. I've been writing some short little thought pieces but nothing substantial.
Ooh, a website. Cool. I have two blogs so far and I just made a WattPad account. Not really sure how it works yet, but it seems cool. Currently, I'm catching up with the prompts in the thread. Since I've finished up the first act of Eden, I need to prepare some shorts for the blogs. It'd be cool if you dropped by there again someday It's nice that you have so many plans with that. I'm writing a novel, two even, but there's always this feeling in the back of my head that I'm going to fail and that it's going nowhere. All that's left for me is to ignore that and just press on. Writing is always fun once you get really into the piece you're writing, so it's a bit easier to ignore such anxieties.
Chances are I'll read it and come to wish I could write romance at least as well as you. I'm pretty bad at it. My writing plans involve getting another hundred pages written for my novel and possibly forcing my old collaborator to come back and help me on it. I also want to seriously work on both of my romance stories and two horror stories I've been mulling over as well. I also need to get back to my website which I'm probably going to make into both a writing project and a portfolio site. What about you?
