Anyone up for chatting about writing or kidlit or publishing? I'm happy to answer questions or just shoot the breeze for a bit. I took a late nap because I'm trying to avoid getting sick (had a sore throat and headache all day), so I'm wide awake but not in the mood for tv or reading books. - ThreadSky

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michellewitte.bsky.social • 97 days ago

Anyone up for chatting about writing or kidlit or publishing? I'm happy to answer questions or just shoot the breeze for a bit.

I took a late nap because I'm trying to avoid getting sick (had a sore throat and headache all day), so I'm wide awake but not in the mood for tv or reading books.

Comments

spquigley.com•97 days ago

The "dead end" drafts have been interesting lately-- where you're working on a piece and suddenly it's like "oh crap, this piece is beyond me", or "this piece would require a part of something I don't quite have in myself yet".

michellewitte.bsky.social•97 days ago

So what do you usually do when you hit that point? Set it aside for a while? Push on through? Look for someone who has the part that you're missing?

spquigley.com•97 days ago

I think everyone's different with it-- for me, it's usually symptomatic of the story's purpose being underdeveloped. Usually I will throw the (short) story in the proverbial trash and salvage its imagery/ideas in a later piece.

michellewitte.bsky.social•97 days ago

Ah, I was thinking of novels, which are so hard to toss if you're already 20k or 30k words into it. But I have been known to set novels aside for a time if I'm struggling to get past a certain point.

But a short story I can see tossing if it's underdeveloped or not shaping up like you'd hoped.

spquigley.com•97 days ago

For novels, it feels a lot trickier (for me)-- I'll usually backtrack to the last "stable" place of the novel, where I feel I have a handle of where to take things. I'll cut all the stuff after that point, as usually it's indicative of major structural issues.

spquigley.com•97 days ago

That can be rather painful, so I have a "Writing Extras" file where I dump all the stuff that didn't work out. Softens the blow a bit and nine times out of ten, I won't revisit any of the stuff I cut.

michellewitte.bsky.social•97 days ago

That’s a good tactic. Go back to where you know it was working and build from there.

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