Fears

[misscousins]

Hi, I'm wondering how some writers handle their fears when they are writing?

What I mean exactly, is; when you are writing a story you've been working on a while, but then after months or a year or two down the line you find a show on TV or another book, which has almost an identical plot to your work in progress, do you lose heart and stop, or do you continue anyways?

Also, I thought of a great name for a character and it doesnt feel right to give her any other name, but a friend of mine said that the name was too similar to a Jane Austen heroine and she felt this was a problem.
The name of my character was Amber Woodhouse, and the name of the Jane Austen heroine was Emma Woodhouse.
Though my story is not a victorian romance, but a children's fantasy, should I rename my character, despite it not feeling right in my heart?

There's been lots of times I thought I have thought up unique titles and character names and creature names in my stories, but I always somehow find out it's already been done. Are names something to worry about? Are names copyrighted, not story titles, but names of creatures etc which are not mythological.

I have a story I have been working on for years, and I felt it was original, and it's about a race of people who turn into ravens in order to ambush their enemies and I decided to call the race the raven warriors. They have a matriarch who is called the raven mother, however, this seems to have already been done in a 1970s comic - well the name of matriarch has been done, and I've heard from a friend that there is already a story about raven warriors. Is this something to worry about?

Am I right to panic that my new ideas have already been done, or is there room for my stories as well?

This is one of the main reasons why I've not approached a publisher yet, I worry all my work has been done in some way or another. And this is my biggest fear.

I love writing, but I do get very disheartened when I hear it's been done or that after I've finished my work, I find something about 80% exact to the plot of my story.

Another fear of mine is, I type 80wpm when I know what I want to say on the computer, but I do make a lot of mistakes, (so typewriters aren't an option) and my computer is known to update microsoft word so much that it corrupts my documents; I've lost hundreds of pages of stories, songs and poems over the years because of this problem.
How do writers avoid that?

I thought I would be safe with a floppy disk and a USB key but it doesnt seem to be safe. The safest method seems to be printing everything I do, but I tend to have so much scrap paper of ideas anyways, that I would need another house just to store ideas ha-ha!

All in all, I've finished a lot of work, and it's those fears above which has made me stagnant in approaching agents and publishers.

I worked out a way of getting out of my fear of being known and famous, with creating a psuedonym. I just love writing, and I want people to enjoy my stories and talk about them, and be inspired by them.
That would make me really happy! I'm just not into the idea of being famous anytime soon, as I am afraid of having my personal space invaded too much!

Tina xxx

 

[Theleb K]

Wow! That's alot of worries! My advice for what it's worth - Don't! You clearly enjoy writing, the process of writing, creating characters and plot lines etc.. Do it for the enjoyment and forget all the other stuff. When you've got something you're pleased with then why not approach an agent or publisher with it? Don't worry yourself trying to second guess what they're going to think of it. If they like it -then great! If they don't then the chances are you're not going to find out why anyway! Do it because you want to and don't let anything stop you.. and who knows?

 

[dustinzgirl]

First off, set your computer to NOT auto update. Depending on your OS you can set it to request permissions for updates from you. I had to do this because everytime my HP Vista decided to update, my OS had to be reinstalled.

Set up a gmail account and email yourself copies of your documents.

Write for yourself.

Most bridges you can't cross until you get there, anyways, so why freak out about them?

 

[Nik]

Couple of notions I've picked up along the way...

There's only six plots and eight jokes, the rest are variations.

If a name sounds 'familiar', insert middle initial(s) to distinguish from all the others and/or mention character was named for relative who was named for...

First write for yourself. Then for friends. Then for money.

Kipple.

 

[misscousins]

First off, set your computer to NOT auto update. Depending on your OS you can set it to request permissions for updates from you. I had to do this because everytime my HP Vista decided to update, my OS had to be reinstalled.

Set up a gmail account and email yourself copies of your documents.

Brilliant ideas, thank you xxx

 

[chrispenycate]

Silly idea for the 'Oh, word has changed again' syndrome; when you save, double save to .rtf at the same time (and backup frequently onto something, like CD, that word can't modify later (but there again, neither can you edit it; it's only a way of not losing everything)

If your character has a name, then it is part of him/her/it; to change the name is to modify the person. And in real life you meet people with identical, let alone similar, names; it happens. So art imitates life; that is, after all its principal function.

As for the rest, I'm voting with the majority; write it, and if it's not outright plagiary, make it as good as you can manage before showing it to those who might possibly want to distribute it. They have enough reasons in stock to reject things that the fact someone has written something somewhat similar is practically irrelevant.

Of course, if it is only for your own satisfaction that the story should not resemble another then you have an awful lot of reading to discover all the themes that have already been explored before you can have total confidence in total originality, and this will, if nothing else, demonstrate that many ideas have been explored by numerous different authors in as many different guises.

 

[jeff.s.p]

Your fear is understandable.

Nothing more devastating than to discover an idea that you labored over has already been done.
Yet there are so many movies I see with a similar plot made 30 , 40 years earlier.

I agree that there are no new plots/ ideas.. just variations.

If you see a similar story to your own, my advice would be to take your idea a step further.. Add a new element or twist somehow.

 

[Aes]

I love writing, but I do get very disheartened when I hear it's been done or that after I've finished my work, I find something about 80% exact to the plot of my story.

As others have said already, every general idea has already been done, so what will set yours apart is the detail given to your characters, how likable they are, and how they fit into the story. If you're the type to wad your idea up every time you discover that somebody else has done it, then prepare to never finish anything. Ever.

I thought I would be safe with a floppy disk and a USB key but it doesnt seem to be safe. The safest method seems to be printing everything I do, but I tend to have so much scrap paper of ideas anyways, that I would need another house just to store ideas ha-ha!

Don't use a floppy disk, ugh. Of all the storage media I've used in my lifetime, floppies have proven to be the least reliable and at 1.44mb with an unholy read/write delay, don't expect to hold much and expect to have to wait every time you save.

Your best bet is to keep a copy on the hard drive -and- on a usb drive while you work on writing. Printing may seem more reliable, but you can't as easily edit a document printed on paper as you can a saved document.

 

[dustinzgirl]

Floppies are unreliable because they get moist, they are tape ribbons, basically. I still have floppies from the 80's. I think I even have an OS. Well a sorta kinda OS. Awesome. I don't have anything with a floppy drive tho, mabye in storage?

Oh, and I forgot to say earlier---

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE VALUE OF A CHEAP BLACK AND WHITE PRINTER.

And hand written notes.

 

[misscousins]

Only recently, in fact a few days ago I lost over 200 poems, 2 half finished novels, and 6 songs, I've written, just because microsoft word decided to update. I saved it all on both the E: drive, and a USB memory stick; I was advised by a friend to spend £29.99 on some software called "recovery toolbox" it would help me retrieve previous documents. I downloaded the software and was dissapointed that it hadn't replaced the documents, because the software only works if it was installed before the documents were lost, so that was no help at all!
What is so frustrating, is with the software I downloaded, I can actually see a window where they have my documents and it says that they are copies of original documents and are corrupted. So I'm at a loss.
Along with the stories and poems that have gone forever are my various non-fiction projects too.

Other than having a notebook which isn't connected to the internet, or a typewriter, I was wondering what other writing tools I could use, which is as simple as typing, without the worry that a virus will delete it all, or your files may become corrupt.
Please don't mention handwriting, I am very slow at that!

Tina

 

[dustinzgirl]

Only recently, in fact a few days ago I lost over 200 poems, 2 half finished novels, and 6 songs, I've written, just because microsoft word decided to update. I saved it all on both the E: drive, and a USB memory stick; I was advised by a friend to spend £29.99 on some software called "recovery toolbox" it would help me retrieve previous documents. I downloaded the software and was dissapointed that it hadn't replaced the documents, because the software only works if it was installed before the documents were lost, so that was no help at all!
What is so frustrating, is with the software I downloaded, I can actually see a window where they have my documents and it says that they are copies of original documents and are corrupted. So I'm at a loss.
Along with the stories and poems that have gone forever are my various non-fiction projects too.

Other than having a notebook which isn't connected to the internet, or a typewriter, I was wondering what other writing tools I could use, which is as simple as typing, without the worry that a virus will delete it all, or your files may become corrupt.
Please don't mention handwriting, I am very slow at that!

Tina

I'm pretty sure that your documents are still there, just where you can't reach them.

Try your TEMP file which is usually depending on your OS accessed through

Computer>Applications>Folders>Temp

If not there try

Word>Preferences>Save

Or

To really help you, which version of Word are you using and which Operating System?

You can also try Hard Disc Drive Recovery.

And, to recover corrupt documents, try RESTORE on your OS.

 

[Aes]

This is the first time I've ever heard of this happening, so I almost want to say you have something else, possibly viral or otherwise, on your computer. Consider getting a full system scan going with a virus scanner and even an adware/malware cleaner. (avg's free version for antivirus, and ad aware or spybot s&d for adware/malware)

That aside, a free and simple editor can be accessed via notepad or (for more formatting features) wordpad (start -> run then enter either "notepad" or "wordpad"). Notepad is as simple as they come, but if you use it, be sure to turn on word wrap or you'll lose your mind.

 

[dustinzgirl]

This is the first time I've ever heard of this happening, so I almost want to say you have something else, possibly viral or otherwise, on your computer. Consider getting a full system scan going with a virus scanner and even an adware/malware cleaner. (avg's free version for antivirus, and ad aware or spybot s&d for adware/malware)

That aside, a free and simple editor can be accessed via notepad or (for more formatting features) wordpad (start -> run then enter either "notepad" or "wordpad"). Notepad is as simple as they come, but if you use it, be sure to turn on word wrap or you'll lose your mind.

I have to write some stuff in notepad because of formatting in word is dumb, and yes, this is true. Use word wrap. Otherwise you get one very very very very long sentence.

Misscousins, if you give us your OS and Word program names/editions we can probably put our heads together and help you out.

Oh, and another way to do it, going the long way, start a google blog, make it private (so nobody can see it) and type right in there then post it. Then you will forever have forever stuff.

 

[misscousins]

Thanks! xxx