You’re not alone. The only things you can do are keep doing your best, incorporate good feedback, and push forward to grow and improve. You can do it!

Me too 🥲🥲🥲💔💔💔

I’m glad it’s been helpful for you! It’s been really cool to see people benefitting from it. I can’t wait to hear about the books you’ve written!

I felt rather scared after today's writing, but I want God to take away the terrified feeling in my book, so I'm letting God take it away from my feelings!

I'm glad to hear that Colleen. Thanks for watching/listening.

Thanks for your note, Michael. I’m glad to hear this has been helpful. Praying for you. May God continue to bless your writing journey and reveal Himself to you in it.

Definitely. The permission comes from you, but sometimes we just need to hear somebody else say it out loud, right? I'm glad this was helpful for you!

I’m so glad to hear they’ve been helpful for you. Thanks for sticking around! :-)

I'm glad it hit the mark! 🙂

If you're willing to self-publish, and you have the money, time, and expertise to do it right, you can create a market for just about anything--novella, collection of novellas, etc. Traditional publishers are extremely risk averse, so it's very unlikely that they'd be willing to do anything with it, unless some compelling factor assuages that risk--like a proven author (Stephen King can get a contract for whatever he wants to write). I might be misunderstanding the last part of your comment, but I recommend that everything you put out, especially in the early stages of your career, should be super high value. Any kind of auxiliary materials (even a complete story, even a sequel!) should be by reader demand. I would publish that stuff because lots of people are reading the first/primary book and demanding more. A common mistake is to plan and write sequels before the first book has shown any potential. There might be a similar principle to apply to whatever you're considering with your novellas. Write a series or build out a universe of materials only because the primary book has proven the concept and there's a captive audience for more.

@@bradpauquette Thanks for the in depth response. It seems I'm in the middle of a common mistake, writing a sequel before my first has been published, but I'll call it a venture for the love of writing and take on something new next time. My cousin, half a generation below me, who was in my target audience loved my first book and asked when the next one would be ready, and the 90 day challenge has been a good excuse to write it. 😅

Glad to help! :-)

For me too!

That's awesome! I'm glad you found something that works!

Sort of. But it turns out we need your brain for that part too. :-)

@@bradpauquette "We need your brain." You know you're talking to a fiction writer, right? That sounds so suspicious... :P

I'm glad you're still following along and found this video helpful, Katherine! We can only put out so much content at a time in this format. In a way, I wish I could tell you all of this before you ever started, but that would defeat the purpose of these videos. :-) Fortunately, I have made practically all of this content available in a number of ways, and so much more. Between The Novel Matrix book, the courses at writers.company, and my articles and newsletter at bradpauquette.com, practically everything I'm saying in these videos is available to you, and more. I encourage you to check out those resources and continue to learn. Not only will that benefit your current project, but you'll take everything you're learning and growing in with you to the next projects, too. I'm glad you're here, and that the content is so helpful you only wish you had it sooner. So don't wait for it to come to you! Go get it. :-)

@@bradpauquette Fair enough. :) I don't remember seeing this in the book, but I haven't done much with the site or the newsletter, so it could well have been there.

That's such a good question! I think this is the time to invite the Holy Spirit to show you whether this is conviction from Him, or if it's guilt. If articulating what you're saying no to brings the conviction of the Holy Spirit, that could be a prompting to help you see that your priorities are out of order. Writing is not the most important thing, and it is possible to neglect other parts of our life and obligations. But if it's guilt from the enemy and your priorities are in order, then I think you can safely ignore those "guilty" feelings and ask the Holy Spirit to comfort you and help you through it.

It's definitely easy to follow into the wrong habit on this one.

I'm glad it's helpful for you. :-)

Awesome! Glad you're here with us. 🙂

Glad it was helpful!

You’re welcome. 🙂

Haha, good analogy.

That’s fair! Practice makes perfect, right?

@@bradpauquette absolutely! 🥰

Thanks! It really does have the power to change everything in your work!

My condolences.

🙂

Thank you!

You’re welcome! I’m just glad to hear it’s helpful for you.

haha, that's awesome.

Thanks! You're right, such a fine line between a good twist and deus ex machina.

That's great, Juli! Way to go!

@@ColleenAlan what? That’s awesome! Way to go! I knew you could do it.

Glad to hear it was helpful. 🙂

So happy to have you on the team Molly!

Not sure it's quite fair to say that Brad's approach to writing is a "get rich quick" scheme. He has talked pretty freely in the past about how much work writing for a living is, and how hard it is to get started well. But the fact is that a lot of writers would like to make at least a little bit of money out of their craft, and it's not a bad thing to have a video addressing that side of things. That said, if the system doesn't fit what you need from your writing, that's fine too. As Brad says, there are many writing systems out there. He likes this one, but that doesn't mean you have to too. But to write it off entirely as a "get rich quick scheme" because he happened to release a video talking about something that a lot of writers are wondering about, that's rather unfair.

I promise you that writing is anything but a get rich quick scheme. haha Absolutely use a system that works for you. I've used this particular system to help hundreds of authors finish their work and publish great books, many of which have won awards or been best sellers. If you have a different way to achieve those results, absolutely use it, and I'd love to watch your channel and learn from you on it.

Hmm, interesting. It's possible that you're using the terms differently than we are here. All of the jargon I'm using in this series conforms to the Novel Matrix writing system. You can check it out here: amzn.to/3zAtWgE or at NovelMatrix.com. What the Novel Matrix describes is very consistent with conventional three-act story structure and what you'd typically see out of Hollywood. So we're either talking about different things, or using the same term to mean something different. 🙂

@@bradpauquette It is possible that we mean different things. To me it sounds like you mean something akin to an inciting incident, that would indeed be around that place in the fiction.

I think the rock bottom moment is also like the "1st Pinch Point" in other 3-Act Structure systems. :) I feel like it's an event that is so bad, it's the last straw that will push the character to move forward and pursue a goal.

We only publish six videos per week, then the seventh is a rest day. So we keep counting, but you should skip days 7, 14, 21, 28, etc. :-)

So true!

Thanks for watching!

That’s a great example of effective universe development. There are so many rules that are new to the reader, but we get it! Excellent note!

That's a great example!

Glad to hear it's helpful for you!

If you're already able to write 1,000+ words per hour and you're accomplishing your writing goals, then I think you can safely ignore this advice. If you're not yet achieving that rate, I recommend experimenting with it. It might not be for everyone, but worth a try! 🙂

I'm glad this was helpful!

Such a good question. I have six kids of my own, so I can definitely relate. To put 100 hours into this will require real sacrifice. Not just from you, but from the people around you. Putting 100 hours into this means that you're going to put 100 hours less into something else. Is it worth it to you? Are you willing to make that sacrifice? (Honestly ask yourself this question, it's ok if the answer is no.) If the answer is yes, you're going to have to do some really hard things to make it happen. There are two things I think are worth considering: 1. Communicate with your family and make this a family goal. When you're in that season, you're going to need someone else to agree with this goal. Communicate what you're trying to do, and emphasize that it's a short-term commitment. For the next ten weeks, mom needs one hour per day. For that to happen, husband, in-laws, whoever, is going to need to agree with that goal. Sorry, husband, for the next ten weeks, 8pm to 9pm after the kids go to bed belongs to this project, no excuses! (Of course, I don't know your family situation, so this might apply differently to you, I mean no disrespect.) But own that goal, be proud of it, communicate, and defend that time. 2. I find that the only time I can "make time" in the day is first thing in the morning. The longer my day goes on, the less likely it is that my plans will work. By the time the evening rolls around, there are too many opportunities for things to get derailed, or my head is just full of distractions, and I'm way more likely to not follow through. If I get up early, before anyone else, I own that time and can put it on target. I know how hard that it is. But sometimes that's the sacrifice it takes. That choice is sometimes what it takes to win. Either way, I think that you can make the time. If this is important to you, don't resign yourself to an unproductive season. But it will take some real determination, communication, maybe even awkwardness, to make it happen. But you can do it! And years from now, it will have been worth it. (But it's also OK to decide that this is the season for this level of commitment. There's no shame in that.)

@@bradpauquette Thanks for your encouragement! I would love to be able to get up early in the morning, but with certain health issues, that's also inconsistent right now. As much as I hate to say it, I do think that if I'm being honest with myself, I have to say "this is important to me, but these other things are more important." Thanks for helping me clarify that! I'll keep learning and practicing for now, and then maybe in a few years, it will be time to try to really push.

@@katherinec2759 That seems totally reasonable to me. In Luke 14:28-29, Jesus talks about "counting the cost." Of course, he's talking about our faith, but I think the wisdom still applies here.

Such a good question! And one I get commonly. Your three acts should be roughly equal in length. In fact, the most common deviation we see is for the first act to be slightly longer, especially in speculative genres like sci-fi and fantasy where there's a lot of world-building to do. Some models teach the plot structure in four equal parts, but the data doesn't really support that. After mathematically timing tons of books and movies, equal thirds is the way to go!