Well, that's what practice is for. :)

I know. :-) Thing is however, I had a particular manual especially for touch typing in greek/with greek characters (it was a copy of a set of handouts a friend of mine had gotten in her typewriting lesson in high school -this was an optional lesson offered in our high school -I hadn't taken it but she had, and in that lesson they learned some advanced features of Word and also touch typing) and I seem to have misplaced it somewhere. I have an idea where it might be, but I don't think I'm going to try again to learn touch typing until next Xmas, because learning it sure is going to be somewhat time consuming and I just don't have all this time right now... I think there might be some free online greek touch typing lessons, but again I won't google for them because of the aforementioned reason...

I would tell you that it's your procrastination tendencies speaking, but I think that Xmas isn't that far off, so just find these lessons and try to learn that again.

Ever considered giving the National Novel Writing Month a go? Basically you have to write 50000 words in the month November. It's a lot of fun and it's the only thing that can actually motivate me to finish a book. If you have any more questions or if you'd like to try it out with a writing buddy/mentor, just shoot me a message.

Answering both of these in 1 post, as both probably pertain to some sort of procrastination:

I did mention procrastination was the problem in my trying to write. I just found a couple greek lesson sites on touch typing on the internet, but apparently I also don't have the patience for this kind of stuff. Tried to write a series of "asdf jkl; adad j;j;" etc and I had to have my fingers practically planted on the keys and all cramped together there as I feared I might lose my bearings otherwise, which was uncomfortable too. Maybe I should try to have my fingers less planted on the keys and instead try to find my position based on the little lines underneath f and j I just now noticed exist on my keyboard (thanks to wikipedia mentioning it). Thank goodness for these I guess... Maybe I'll spare a few minutes each day (I do have some of these!) and see how this goes...

I've seen about the NaNoWriMo on the internet before, but I don't know, I just don't like deadlines. Not to mention that the whole month of October I'll be having my midterm exams (I'm a uni student) and after that, in November, I'll be trying to finish a paper to be delivered in the beginning of December, so I'll be practically having a non-fiction WriMo (my paper will be 20 pages long, I don't know how many words this is...). At least, the positive side of not having a deadline on the novel will be that I'll be later able to set the novel aside for a while if need be in order to finish the paper, which I wouldn't be able to do if the novel had a deadline too!
I guess I found yet again an excuse to postpone writing later on in the semester, but at least it will be to my mind fine for me, as I consider finishing the paper on time in order to get a good grade important enough to work less on my personal project in the near future...
Maybe I'll tackle the NaNoWriMo next year after graduating, I'll see...
edit-on another note, why did they choose November as the NaNoWriMo month anyway? Was June/July/August, even May (though I have my final exams for the 1st half of that month, at least I could hurry like crazy during the other half when I'd be totally free or something...) so way less convenient than a packed month like November?

That's the thing, NaNo is that kick up the butt I so desperately need. November is the busiest month of the year for me. I'm also a university student and I'm absolutely swamped that month. And of course there are a gazillion birthdays (including my own) as well, and so many other things to take care of ... But the trick is just letting go of that. There's never going to be an ideal time. You're always going to be busy. If you can get past that and just write ... well, it's awesome. And the more you practice the better you get. I can now do 2000 words in 45 minutes provided I have a good outline, so it doesn't even have to take that long.

There's camp Nano in July or August I believe, and that one also allows you to set your own word count. Basically you get divided up into small groups for moral support. I've never tried it, but it might work for you.

@treasure, thank you I corrected the word Novel in my message.

btw, you can check my free writings in my website.

http://www.disteryankalesi.com/en/writings/

Robar is the story that made me start writing 15 years ago just to make people read something. I translated the first volume into English and its only 11 page long. I am halfway to translating 2nd chapter. The story in Turkish is 4 volume and word count 45K. I never published this story tho. It will remain free forever.

ps. The writing could be crap.

Well, I guess I'm not the kind of person that would self inflict myself kicks in the butt then. :-/ I might need them, but to my mind I also need good grades on my uni degree ; not so much for the job market admittedly -way too much competition-, but mostly because I have the potential to be a good student and wouldn't want to let that go to waste (same reason for which I'm trying to get on with writing-having 2 potentials is difficult at times). Anyways, atm I can write 10-11 pages (notebook pages, not sure what they'd be in A4) in an hour and a half, and I don't know, is there any reason for overhurrying the matter? Usually, having deadlines makes me feel of the task at hand as if it's a chore, and if this happens to writing (it's in the verge of happening but hasn't yet), I don't know what would even be the point of trying to write.
As for camp Nano, if I got it right, I'd need a local NaNoWriMo center in order to do that, and good luck on me trying to find something like that in Cyprus -closest one might be in Athens, but I won't go there just for something like this.
I'd be better off making a NoWriMo by myself at some point (aka setting myself a goal)-only problem would be I might not feel the urge to keep the goal, but anyways, I'll see...
edit-also happy birthday in advance I guess, I'm having my own birthday in about a week or so...

You're welcome - I had thought it'd be a typo, seems I was correct. :-)
Anyways, thanks for the link to your stories. Will probably check the Robar story later, looks interesting, as for the possibility of your english translation not being good enough, well, you needen't worry about that, as long as the general point of the story can be understood, it'll be just fine.

edit- I might have jinxed your site, as the english version of robar currently shows a 404 for me, and the turkish version (which I could read with google translate I guess) shows the cover but then I can't see a way to turn the page...
edit2-oh wait accessing them from the side column rather than the main content column at the center works so nvm the edit1...

No, if it doesn't work for you it just doesn't work. I just felt like mentioning it because it really helped me to get past my procrastination and to actually get some writing done. :) (And for the record ... just because I'm investing time in NaNo does not mean I'm a crap student ... ;))

And no, you don't! NaNo is completely online. As I understand it, you get divided up into a group with people with similar interests/writing genres, after which you're assigned your own 'cabin' - a subforum for you to chat on. Physical presence is definitely not necessary!

I'm extremely competitive, which is why NaNo works for me. I especially love word wars (trying to write as many words as possible within a predetermined timeframe). The urge to win is so strong that I push myself to extreme limits. On really great days I've written as much as 11000 words. This way of writing might seem insane but it's the only thing that works for me. The trick to writing is figuring out what kind of writer you are, and using NaNo is just one of the many methods available to you. It's completely all right if it's not your thing, I just wanted to put it out here as a possibility for you or other people.

Happy birthday to you too! I hope you have an excellent one. :)

I was tempted to post the prologue to my partly written novel, and since Engerek01 posted a link to his work, I decided to post it on my site here. It's the first new thing on the site in a while (though it's very old, the original version is about 20 years old now, this revision probably 10 years).

I've thoroughly enjoyed reading through this thread. It makes me feel like I'm at a Writer's Group meeting. Thanks for sharing your ideas and advice about writing. My hobby is writing and when I was a teen I did get 7 non-paid articles published in the local newspaper as well as one poem.

My passion lies, however, in fiction writing. One day I may try and get my fiction published, but I haven't yet.

Everyone has a different writing style, but when writing fiction I've always found that you have to really love the story and be excited about it. Write your favorite ideas, maybe layer several good ideas together if you can mesh them coherently. A great amount of satisfaction can be derived from finishing the story you wanted to tell. Then, once your story is written, rewrite it. Revise it, edit it, and make it better.

Happy writing!

Here's a question.

What do you think will happen to writing once the future comes and people are telepathically beaming words and images into each others heads? Will we come to that Brave New World society where no one wants to read or write any more?

I fear for the day when Big Brother beams a Playboy magazine into my head and says, 'read the articles.'

I'm just popping in to annonce that I probably will be a writer at some point. I've got enough ideas to choke a pack of dogs or fill a novel if I ever get round to clobbering shit up into a reasonably coherent whole.

Either that, or I'll write down my life lessons in the medium of short children's stories and get those bound in a cover. Still not a bad deal if you ask me.

I see I'm late to this topic, but my advice is to start small. Starting with a novel is almost never a good idea, and it's why a lot of beginning writers get discouraged. If you don't know your way around a story, you can get lost in the sticks very quickly while writing a novel (4-5 chapters is actually kind of a normal point for that), and the result is that you stall and stop working.

My advice: write a scene, write microfiction, write a short story. Experience the satisfaction of creating a complete story that all fits together properly. Show your work to people you know and get their (honest!) feedback. Once you get a feel for shorter-form storytelling, you'll be better equipped to navigate the big wide ocean of novel writing, which just overwhelms a lot of newcomers.