Hello again!

Continuing on my previous week’s post about my worries and my daily word limit, I’m happy to say that I managed not only to reach my daily goal but to go beyond it! I’m very excited about it. I even had enough time to fiddle with another short story that, if it gets finished, will have the title At Horizon’s End. I say IF because I’m working as hard as I can on my novel and whenever time allows it, on an outline for another book (not serialised). I never thought I could get so much joy out of writing!

In other news, I got a rejection for a short story I’ve had problems with and to a certain extent still have. I can’t say I was surprised to see the “Unfortunately…” email. I have been battling with this story for ages. I have re-written the last scene of it more than five times, each one with a different ending yet I have never been 100% satisfied with the result. The funny thing about that story is that I had made the most extensive planning for it, whereas the one that will be published by Beyond Imagination had had very little of it. The theme of the one that got rejected is based on ancient Greek mythology (no surprise there) and the whole Hades – Persephone myth. I like everything about it, except the ending; something seems to be missing. Since I’m trying to publish it, I can’t post it here but if you are a Scribophile member, you can see it there (http://www.scribophile.com/authors/chris-sarantopoulos/works/when-hades-felt/). The title is When Hades Felt but I have to warn you the story is a bit long (5000 words). You won’t be able to critique or anything, as it’s been there for some time now but you can read it freely. Let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions.

I’m thinking of ways to improve this blog and I had an idea. I was thinking of starting a new section where you and I could share ideas about our stories and discuss how a story could progress. If you are interested in something like that, let me know by leaving a comment.

Hello everyone,

This last week has been the hardest for me, as far as writing is concerned. Though I had material to write about, I just couldn’t write it the way I wanted to. For some reason, the words just slipped my mind, the moment my fingers started typing the first word. Everything that followed the first word seemed dragged, forced and blunt to the point where frustration took hold of me.

You know that inner voice that stems from lack of self-confidence and usually screams at us when we try something new that is big or something we try for the very first time and we don’t want to mess it up? Well, that voice inside me, had a party going in my head. I hadn’t heard that voice since the first month or two when I first decided to write. I thought I had quelled it, especially after the email I got from the magazine that wanted my short story. I was wrong. It’s still there and it’s getting stronger.

For the past 40 days I have been following a new daily schedule and I have set a new word limit per day. I decided to follow Stephen King’s program that I read on a book of his, titled “On Writing, A Memoir Of the Craft”. In it he suggests that writers should aim for 2000 words on a daily basis, 7 days a week. I thought it was an ambitious goal, one that only pros would manage to do. Nonetheless, I tried it and, as it turned out, I too could do it. With the exception of 4 or 5 days out of those 40, each day I wrote 2000 words, which really made me happier than I can describe. Alas, this last week I have only managed to write no more than 3500 words. It was terrible.

I don’t know what the problem was. Probably my characters and my plot lack that certain something, which in turn makes me unwilling to write. I know I have to correct my characters and my plot (for some reason I seem to have a really hard time coming up with minor events that happen to my main characters that will make them more real to the readers – myself included – and at the same time never drifting off from the main storyline). Quite frankly, at this moment I’m at a loss.

Tomorrow I want to wake up and write 1500+ words of decent prose. I want to continue this for the rest of the week. That’s my goal. I want to succeed in this.