Am I still writing?

Literature & Writing I'm a writer!
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Am I still writing? Can you ever actually stop?

Hi,
Short catch up. Still writing historical fiction/fantasy/adventure/ action called Cranmore Saga.
I have already stopped asking how long is too long. My safety net is still how long I have been writing and dividing with three and a half books and I think I’m still winning the appropriate time frame.

They say that writing is learning. True. I have learned that I love writing, hating editing. Prologues apparently aren’t popular starters for books?! Still have not figured out how to keep up with the plot and happenings thru 3 books. Learned to do a “murder board” aka meager attempt to understand the complex plot that time to time is in order and next even I can’t get head or tails from it. Learned that you don’t always need to write and feel bad about it and fortunately Writer’s Fatigue is as real as the Writer’s Block.

Yes, that’s about it. Keep your safe in these mad times and keep writing. The world needs your words to be out there.

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Prologues apparently aren’t popular starters for books?! Why?!.

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Because often prologues are used to explain what the story is about, instead of just getting on with the story.

(OTOH, who am I to argue with George R. R. Martin? Game of Thrones has one, and it’s actually useful.)

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Same for Lord of the Rings.

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Probably because they’re yet to figure out how to fit it into the great and be end all “structures” that are pouted about. In other words, lazy editors.

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I use prologue for dream sequence or inner thought of main character, creating a link with previous book, before jumping to the climatic action sequence in the first chapter…

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I have never understood the “does the reader really need to have this info?” test for including a prologue.

I mean, unless it’s a medical text book I’m assuming things in books are being read because they’re fun not because they’re “really necessary”.

———

Policies and Processes to Follow in the Event of a Medical Emergency

by pigfender

Prologue

I remember fondly my first day of medical school. It was a wet and chilly Wednesday with a statistically unlikely pollen count. My shoes, a high school graduation present from my maternal grandmother, were…

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The problem is that explaining the story before the story begins – as many prologues do – can render the book much less fun.

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In those cases that’s poor writing, and poor writing is a problem wherever in the book it occurs and not the prologues fault.

———

… tightly grabbing the fleshy part of my toes in a way that caused both minor discomfort and major nostalgia for more comfortable shoes and more pleasant relatives.

I was met in the lobby of the reception of the entrance hall by a man who I would later discover was going to be very important to my education. His friendly but not too welcoming…

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this is one of those things that sounds sensible, but in my experience doesn,t tell the whole story. while i agree that bad writing is bad writing wherever you find it, people make mistakes in prologues that they don,t make in other places in their books. if you see enough of them – especially in unpublished works – you start to appreciate the type of things katherine is talking about that makes me wary of them too.