"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island." - Walt Disney

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

IWSG: Writing Books, Character Creation, and the Proust Character Profile Questionnaire

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs. You can also join us on twitter using the hashtag #IWSG, or on the Facebook page.

Now, IWSG hosts have changed up the format in an effort to make it more fun and interactive. Every month, they will announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say. 

Don’t forget to visit others that day to see their answers. Want to join, or learn more? Visit our - Sign-up List.


APRIL 5 QUESTION - 
Do you remember writing your first book? What were your thoughts about a career path on writing? Where are you now and how is it working out for you? If you're at the start of the journey, what are your goals?


MY ANSWER - Depending on your word count requirements, I probably have not written a book - yet. I write short stories. The longest work I've written is about 60,000 words. However, few have seen it. It needs major work. It's a story that I'm still passionate about, but I have to find the time to do it justice. In the meantime, I need to finish the myriad of projects and obligations currently on my plate. I hope to return to and finish it one day. Maybe I'll even give another book length story a shot. Until then, I enjoy trying new things and honing my craft.

If you're struggling with your current manuscript, you might check out my article "Character Creation and the Proust Character Profile Questionnaire" over on the IWSG blog. Click the link to the right to check it out. I have found this process extremely beneficial when I am stuck.

How about you? Have you written a book? What are your future plans? Have you tried the Prouse Questionnaire?

5 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

That word count isn't far from my shortest book. I struggle to write long pieces as well. You should revisit it sometime.

Natalie Aguirre said...

60,000 words is in the range of a middle grade and young adult novel. Maybe you should revisit it sometime like Alex suggested.

Diane Burton said...

Writing what you're passionate about is great. Take the time to do it right. Best wishes.

Karen Baldwin said...

Schedules and "to do" lists help focus my days and I have a sense of accomplishment, though small each day, they add up.

Jemima Pett said...

Most of mine are less than 60k, but then technically they are listed as middle grade. But I think you'd be fine for anything not thriller, maybe a tad short for scifi, but not much.

Keep going, that's the main thing :) But don't pad for the sake of wordcount - that's what Dickens and several others did because they were paid on wordcount!

Jemima