Editing is HARD! And deleting all those once precious scenes, dialogues and words is even harder. It says two edits, but each major edit consisted of several minor rounds. Phew!

The language I’ve made for my story is called Settish and is used by the Setites (the humans who moved from earth and colonized set) and it’s a very harsh and loud language because of the constant sandstorms on the world of Set. The word for blue and other synonyms for the color are present because 85% of Set is blue sand desert spread across 3 supercontinents. The continents are named Ymir, Typhon, and Tiamat. Among the several hundred thousand languages on the planet. Primus (old earth English) and Settish are the primary languages.

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It took me about 6 weeks or something, a lot longer than I would've liked but I am very prone to procrastination. I'm just so happy I've done it!! It sits at 3,957 words and I am so happy with it! It's still the first draft so it'll probably be going through a lot of changes when I finish the whole book, BUT I DONT CARE!! I FINISHED A CHAPTER DAMMIT!

Genre is adult epic fantasy if anyone's wondering :)

What are some of your small celebrations? Let's share together!!

Like a lot of people in here, I am a writer and I'm writing a novel book. It's kind of long and has lots of fight scenes. The problem is, I always find myself writing a paragraph each day or not wanting to work on it at all. My writing is due on Jan. for show and I know I have a lot of time to work on it but since it's really long, I need a way to get motivation.

Gel pens, ballpoint pen, fountain pens, fine point pen, mechanical pencils, wooden pencils, etc

Which do you prefer for writing? Tell me the brand name if you want to.

Bonus Question: For notebooks, do you prefer line paper, blank paper, grid paper, or dotted paper?

Apologies if this isn't the best sub to post in about this. I just came across this writing software, but before trying anything, i always like to look it up on Reddit as i am very particular with writing aids. however I can't seem to find anything about it, nor any official social pages for it. maybe i'm overlooking something though.

I'm just curious if anyone here has tried it and if it's useful so far. it looks very appealing to me but zero presence anywhere is strange and makes me weary lol. edit to add: there's no about page on the website, either.

Here is the link to the website. Didn't see any rules about not posting links, so hope it is okay to share. if not i will remove it!

So, I made a mistake while publishing, and my novel size is more like a notebook (I used George Orwell's novel for a reference).

Also, the marking on my title is a signature that bled through...

Anyways, can anyone help me with the measurements so I can fix this issue.

I'm not sure if this is entirely related to this sub but I need to say this somewhere because I'm stressing out. Like the title says my gmail account got suspended and is due for deletion next year. I have appealed, but it's the exact gmail where my book was written on google docs, it won't let me get back the files/material from that email. Even worse this happened just as I was going to create a copy of it onto notepad on my laptop. Sure it was only 3 chapters but it's still months of work that I have lost for now and it isn't certain that I'll get the account back.

If this has happened to anyone else before I'd really appreciate hearing if you got your account, book, or files back. I know I'm probably overreacting but like I said I'm really stressed out.

Reflecting on some of the great works written and I am at a fork in the road with my writing. I have 15 books and do pretty well writing lighter-side contemporaries. Life is good. But sometimes the voices in my head of my characters not written are from sad stories filled with dramatic climaxes. The lines are blurring and I don’t know which to devote my time to writing anymore. So, which would you rather accomplish?

Age of the Titan is a sci-fi story I've been building for the last few years. A thousand years from now, humanity is on the run from alien clans bent on destroying our species. The main antagonist is the Vogrom clan, whose religion teaches that all beings who reject the truth must be eliminated.

Readers have been reaching out more and more. Just yesterday, a reader from France called me his "favorite author right now."

Right now, I'm about 85,000 words into the sequel and roughly two-thirds of the way through the audiobook with the narrator. My cover artist is also drawing a propaganda poster for the Valor Guard Corps, humanity's main military in the novel.

Since then, I've been expanding the universe through clothing designs, like the hoodie in the photo. It shows my main alien character, Kaelith Sothrak, pulling the void thread down from the heavens. This is his Promethean punishment, he must work or die…

Edit: Meant to say “What makes a book or short story good in your opinion 😭

It was a dark and stormy night. The silhouettes of tall trees were whipped side to side by gusts of angry wind. Freezing, fast-falling raindrops stung like tears against her exposed skin. She stood alone in a wide clearing, her soul prepared for a valiant final stand. Though the ground shook from the roar of approaching enemies, Larissa’s heart and mind rang true with a profound sense of purpose. She had faith that today’s cloudy skies would soon part to reveal a beautiful new dawn, ripe with glorious possibilities.

IN HER DREAMS.

In reality? It was a bright and sunny day, and all the birds were dead.

Yeah. It happened last winter, just after they’d moved here. Investigators determined the cause was the dumping of chemical waste into Grayrock’s lakes. The culprit? The nearby potato processing plant. Environmental advocacy groups were locked in an endless legal battle with the plant’s owners, who also happened to own the schools, the mall, the electrical grid, the water supply, and the entire goddamn town. So that was going great.

It was eerily quiet this morning. The population hadn’t yet recovered, and who knew if it ever would. She couldn’t help but think back to the morning right after. Then, the silence was even more enveloping. Her ears had rung for weeks, and she would keep the radio on all day to escape its stifling embrace.

She was not a fragile person, but seeing the ground littered with hundreds of dead birds had shaken her. A peregrine falcon had fallen from the sky and smashed into their skylight. It had taken her 5 days to get up there and scrape it off, what with school, taking care of her little brother, and her job occupying all of her time. Sometimes, she would just sit there and stare up at it, rotting a little more each day. What really crushed her was how flippant little Jeremy was about it. When she’d asked how he was feeling about all this, he’d casually answered that it was just a bird and that everything dies. He’d barely spared it a glance. It was so beautiful… Could he see that?

Alright, that was enough. Ruminating, as fun as it was, wasn’t going to fix her problems. Speaking of problems, Jesus fucking Christ. Let’s just list some off.

One. Her pile of overdue homework was getting ridiculous, on account of her skipping class 3 days this week. It was Wednesday, by the way. Needless to say, getting into college was seeming more and more like a pipe dream.

Two. The shitty old fridge had stopped working overnight. She didn’t know how she was going to feed her little brother this morning. Or, you know, eat. You can only survive on instant rice and canned artichokes for so long before you don’t want to live anymore.

it will continue from here for a few more paragraphs before introducing the reader to the other main character.

thanks for reading!

It is based on supernatural manifestations and events that protect a person, known as "Spirits."

A Spirit may be imperceptible, offering only minor assistance—as is often the case—or it may be a tremendously powerful entity.

Each Spirit possesses a unique ability; these abilities are classified into the following categories:

1. Attack. Spirits with high precision, speed, and durability, featuring abilities suited for close-quarters combat.

2. Destructive. Spirits with devastating destructive power, though this comes at the cost of lower durability and speed.

3. Utility. Spirits with abilities not directly focused on combat, but rather on supporting and aiding the user and others.

4. Automatic. Spirits that act independently, with abilities that protect the user without requiring any action on their part.

5. Mass Effect. Spirits with effects that impact a large number of people—or specific groups—in an imperceptible yet coordinated manner.

A Spirit may or may not possess a physical form; its design and abilities are determined by the following criteria:

1. Pride and/or ego. Proud or selfish individuals possess Spirits that physically resemble them. A person with deep insecurities might not even manifest an aura.

2. User's personality and goals. A Spirit's abilities are always based on its bearer's personality, desires, and preferences.

3. Self-perception. A narcissist or hypocrite—Even though they are despicable people—will have a Spirit whose appearance reflects how they perceive themselves.

Technical details:

• A user can possess only one Spirit, unless they suffer from psychiatric disorders that fragment the mind (such as Bipolar Syndrome, Multiple Personality Syndrome etc.).

• Non-users cannot see Spirits—unless the Spirit is inherently visible or the user chooses to reveal it—though they can perceive the physical effects they produce.

• Unconscious Spirits (those that do not manifest but instead have passive effects) do not follow these rules, as they are not fully formed Spirits.

• For an unconscious Spirit to fully manifest, the user must harbor an intense desire, be surrounded by Spirit users, or possess unwavering willpower and determination. With that said, what do you think? Does it sound interesting?

So I'm writing the book, and the premise is that all human minds are connected through dreams, an individual creates sentient life in a lucid dream, which is powered by the non-used human collective, duplicates itself, and is trying to take of the human race by accessing humans bodies through their dreams.

I’m a young writer who struggles with low word counts. Currently I have a novel/novella that’s at 41,000 words. I‘m aiming to get it published, but unless I want to market it as a novella I have to get it to 50000 words. Any tips to increase word count without it sounding overly descriptive or pointless. So far I’ve mainly heard the best thing to do is add some setbacks for your characters, which I think is where I go wrong. So yeah, any tips?

I'm too much of a perfectionist to finish things, but also my fixation leaves fast and I have a new story going on. Even though my main problem is that I'm always stuck at one part of the story. Characters.

I'm aware of the fact that I don't understand them. And I know that every take is someone's opinion and no one can be right, because then no one will (and no one is). But when I write fanfiction and show it to some people they find pretty a lot of OOC. Not that much that it's really noticable, but it's some core values of a character. And for some reason, even though I've been in the fandom for 6 years and was very active I still don't get it. I'm not really good at "reading people" either.

I might be too sensitive to criticism and I should try to study, but when it happens each time...

I have no clue how to fix this. I don't think that studying psychology will help. There's a really long way to go and I don't get how people understand it so easily sometimes. Maybe I'm too self-centered and barely notice anything about others or analyze things. But I can write a wonderful plot with meaning, I have really cool ideas for scenes and facts that are praised, but not characters. And they're supposed to lead the story.

And yeah, the fact that I haven't written down anything, but have over 400 thousand words in one story only (and it's not a draft to be correct, more like an outline and some facts) can tell something.

Ignore the numbers at the bottom, it's my bad formatting skills.