Topic: motivating writing
I'm gonna tell you how to write. Probably nobody will listen. But just in case somebody does, here it is. I really don't understand why people make drafts. Read your own stuff with an open mind. I mean don't masturbate on what you write.
Then reading will give you ideas for the next chapter. Chapters need to be build upon each other leading to the next chapter. Reading what you write will lead you to the next chapter naturally. I really don't like to make drafts. I write a chapter, read it, change it, expand on it, cut out some, before I go to the next chapter. And in the process I get ideas for the next chapter. This making a notebook of ideas seems senseless to me. Ideas come in the process of writing, not from a far in disjointed thoughts. And writing drafts, like they say at writer conferences, is stupid. Why rewrite when you haven't built a solid base? After you write a chapter and have gone through it real well, then before you write another chapter post it at the Big Next Writer and get additional feedback before you go to the next chapter. There have been quite a few reviews that made sense to me and so I incorporated them into the chapter, then I move on to the next chapter. One exception was the Saga of the Mighty Valentine because so many reviewers didn't get what I was writing. So I was forced to rewrite the whole damn book. So if the reviews come in bad, fuck it, rewrite the whole damn thing. If they come in good, then hell, keep building. Chapter by chapter. i went to a writer's conference and paid an agent 100 dollars to read 30 pages for a critique. She read it, and said, it is the first time I never been able to give a suggestion.. It perfect the way it stands. Why? Because my reviewers made comments I took, as well as helping me with proof reading. so by the time she got it, it was perfect. And boy, do I need proof reading. That's the secret in a nutshell.
She asked for my three books. Of course, wouldn't you know it, she ended up turning them down with this famous statement. "Too outrageous for the modern reader."
Oh well, the point is, if you go through the review process and listen when it gets to an agent she'll think you are a professional. Verbose, yeah, but important to say, I think.