h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I sit here trying to begin typing my novel.
I have written it in pencil across endless sheets of notebook paper. I have whispered it to myself in the car, in the shower, in boring meetings, my vision of the kind of book I would like to read, written my way by me. A moral, a message of Good triumphing over Evil even in fantasy, to a world that doesn't believe that either exist. An uplifting creation, but still a message from a place that doesn't exist to a world that doesn't care.
In other words, endless pages of nonsensical garbage.
The question is, "What am I trying to write?" and "To whom?" or "Why am I trying to write this?"
To entertain people, certainly. To create something new and exciting to influence a genre gone awry.
There is still the question of who the narrator should be. I've tried the main character writing his own journal while trapped in a cave with nothing to do, but after a while that merely became a long and boring history of how he got to that point instead of a suspenseful plot. I tried to be the narrator: to sort of be an independent objective viewpoint from any characters but still have my observations follow the main one. That seemed to be working except when I stupidly try to be funny, but it lacks the uniqueness I want to shine from this work.
I must not make the mian character too powerful. Near the point I've gotten to in the notebook paper version, the main character discovers a room that he will revisit several times in his life. A powerful evil sorceror's workshop containing secrets from his unknown (to him) past. However I had it still filled with the treasures left there by the sorceror, and then realized that my earlier plan to have him leave the continent he grew up on would raise questions as to why he did not take such treasures with him. I want him to have money when he leaves, but not much money.
Also, the notebook paper version left out important characters I had sketched in my head and forgot to write about. A tall shadowy stranger without a mission from his superior who guides the main character without knowing that that was his mission all along. A greedy fool trying to capitalize on the situation who sells the main character the means to leave the continent, possibly actually paid for by the guide-person menioned earlier)
Whats more I cannot allow this version to be funny. I'm convinced that the bits I got a chuckle over must be the worst bits and should never see the light of day, or the eyes of an objective proof-reader.
Will I ever be able to publish this thing? It's not long enough yet but sometimes I feel like I may sit on it for years and never publish or if I ever try to publish it I'll get turned down along with 30,000 other SFF writers.
Or worse, I will get it published and somebody will hire an illustrator and copy editor I don't like who'll arrange market the book only for children or only for adults. *shudder*
Yeah, well to explain all this, some web site, I think it was something I picked up randomly from Everything2.com, said if I typed this I'd become a better writer, and of course, if it's on the internet, it must be true.
And on that terrifying note, I conclude my first posted excersize in free-writing.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=938851
Nerd42

I have officially decided that everything2 is on crack.
Nerd42

*gasp* You JUST realized that?

...although Everything2 does have some rather... interesting articles...

As for the writing... sometimes it's just plain difficult. I've been stuck for far too long on my 2/3 finished novel, because occasionally I don't know how to get characters from Point A to Point B.

If I had a bit more time to sit down and make myself work on it, it would probably help.

Best advice I can give -- write down all your little scraps, in no particular order -- computers are really good with helping keep it sort of sorted-out, and that way you keep getting progress done. So even if you're not precicely sure how you want to start the story, but you have this great fight scene in mind, or the ending, or anywhere, really... write it out. Keep writing fragments down when they come to you, and pretty soon you've got enough to piece together the framework for your story.

Let me know how it goes.

Corrupt!? You're alive!!
Nerd42

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F91169?thread=1185981&post=13561935#p13561935 I thought I'd already posted this to your article "Tips for Writing your First Novel" ... but just realized that I had not, or that it has mysteriously disappeared. so I just typed it up again. This version is vastly inferior to what I was originally trying to say all those months ago when I *thought* I had posted this ... Nerd42

YES, I'm still alive...

As for that article... who knows when I'll update it? But yes, grammar is indeed very important, and any poor soul who's seen my *formal* writing style can attest to that...

Inspiration seems to be the MOST important thing, though.

*stares at the dragons around her desk, trying to get inspired...*

So I guess we agree somewhat then.
Nerd42