iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 9h

When I started writing years ago, I felt the need for a holistic tool, so when the opportunity arrived, I didn't hesitate to take it. 👇 We're starting the closed beta today. Apply at opaopa.app and get free access until the end of the year.

000

Reposted by Florian Kirchner

opaopa @opaopaapp.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

opaopa is German for "grandpa grandpa." The name comes from our founder Florian's son, who one day started doubling his words and stuck with opaopa for days. Our rebrand builds on that spirit: a visual language that celebrates all novelists. 👉 opaopa.app #WritingCommunity #amwriting

041

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Ever wondered how to plan a novel? When I started, I pretty much didn't. The first version was terrible, so I started over with a plan. In the article, I write about best practices and how strict a plan should be. opaopa.app/blog/how-to-... #WritingCommunity #amwriting #amplotting

opaopa.app

How to Plan a Novel

A good book feels rewarding. The questions raised in its very first chapter follow the main character all the way to the last page. But how do you get there?

000

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

My novel, "Die Pearl" started with a what-if question that isn't even in the books anymore: what if Earth survives only by draining other planets? That question built Hemera and everything around it. The story moved on long ago. Funny how the first idea ends up as scaffolding. #WritingCommunity

000

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Writing turns out to be more than drafting. When I started planning, it only held as long as it didn't. It's more like a hotel booking: fixed points, and everything in between stays open. What's your approach to planning a book? #WritingCommunity #amwriting #plotting

040

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Writing. Putting thoughts to paper. Nah, it's more like: get an idea, think about it until you're a nerd of a universe that doesn't exist. Write a story until you rewrite it, and discover things in your own book so well crafted you're astonished at yourself for a second. #WritingCommunity #amwriting

040

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

At least no reader of your future book can ever complain the bread is overpriced.

110

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Literally on the last sentences of my first-ever book (it's actually the third, but let's not count the two versions that were just meh). Couldn't be more excited about what comes next; still want to take a moment to celebrate the last three years of work. #WritingCommunity #amwriting #IndieAuthor

140

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

The mind is free, the body relaxed, and somehow the creative energy checks out with them. I feel this. Turns out I do best with a daily routine, so I talked my family into accepting an hour of writing even on "holidays", just to keep the engine warm.

000

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Ever made plans just to change them a day later? Lately, family responsibilities kept cutting across my writing routine. It feels similar to what my main character is going through, and it made me realize how much of my personal life I process in my writing. #WritingCommunity #amwriting

040

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Yes, 100%. That's how life works, and those books are usually the ones I remember most, because they surprised me. Fully with you on the journey too. We need to see someone fall before the getting up is worth cheering for.

110

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Kudos to all the plotting nerds out there making this happen. Tying up every open thread for that one final "that's why" is brutally hard work.

010

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

A good reason to keep a notebook next to the bed. Half of mine is written in the dark, barely readable.

000

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Good one. In Die Pearl, Atlas is drowning in the growing cost of his mother's care. He takes the only option left, a shady gig at a local bar, not knowing he just set off a chain of events that will forever change the city the trilogy is named after: the Pearl.

110

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Yes, absolutely. I'd say the craft itself, and the way I think about a book. When I started I was hooked on the plotting and all the possibilities. These days I see the professional side more, and what a huge part editing actually is. How about you?

020

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Routines allow me to be creative. Every time I open the laptop, I know I'm going to write. There's no discussion, just me and my stories. Word by word. (5/5)

000

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

All of this grew out of a simple challenge. 200 words. Every day. Since then I've barely missed a day, and I've expanded the goal, changed it. Half a chapter, every day, writing or editing. (4/5)

100

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Writing a book is an act of pain. Lovingly, I called my characters the bastards of my psyche. So much of them rested deep inside me, waiting to break out. Each of them speaks in their own voice, and yet they feel like little plants I've painstakingly grown over the years. (3/5)

100

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Much of what I got to experience these past three years resembles my time in art. The failing. The many hours of thinking. Raising my own standards. Again and again. (2/5)

100

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

I'm new. A blank page, if you will. An author without a publication, and still I feel a sense of belonging, like I last did in my youth. Belonging to a group of people who all express themselves. Their feelings. Their stories. Past, present and future. (1/5) #WritingCommunity #amwriting #IndieAuthor

120

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Routines allow me to be creative. Every time I open the laptop, I know I'm going to write. There's no discussion, just me and my stories. Word by word.

000

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

All of this grew out of a simple challenge. 200 words. Every day. Since then I've barely missed a day, and I've expanded the goal, changed it. Half a chapter, every day, writing or editing.

100

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

100

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Much of what I got to experience these past three years resembles my time in art. The failing. The many hours of thinking. Raising my own standards. Again and again.

100

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

The library is a dangerous place, full of stories waiting to unfold, only a page away.

010

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Same here. Tea and a heatwave just don't mix. Give me rain and dry fingers over sun and a sweaty chair any day. Good luck finishing the chapter!

110

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

At least the evenings are kid-free. A coach once told me you'll always find an hour a day somewhere. Most days she turns out to be right.

010

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Sounds like your characters carry a piece of you, and now they're handing it back right when you need it. A review like that arriving in a self-doubt phase is no small thing. Keep going.

000

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

When the story has to be told, it has to be told. Brace your keyboard, those characters need another session.

000

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

The moment your favorite sentence breaks across two pages and leaves a single word stranded at the top of the next one.

010

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Absolutely. Children's books take the harshness out of the world without dodging the big emotions. My son gets to feel grief and anger in his books without ever having to fall himself, so when it happens for real, he has met it before.

010

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Sounds like the right call, especially if creative freedom is what you're after. And the query trenches take a real toll. Not sure how anyone keeps that up alongside a full-time job and a family.

120

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Fair point, hardly any first novels make it (self-pub aside). Though moving straight on to the next book skips the part where you learn the most. Editing is where the weak spots in your craft actually show up.

110

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

As a trained designer, ten years in the field now, I can only second that. It's rare that a cover genuinely surprises me, but when it does, I feel an instant connection to the book.

010

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Good luck with the plotting. That view almost makes me want to step outside and take a deep breath.

110

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

The rain drumming on the car roof while a freshly printed cover gleams on the seat beside us. The smell of ink in the glow of the small lamp that carried us through all those pages. Books = love.

020

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

That's a lovely way to work. And sometimes the why was there from the very first line, it just takes a few pages before it shows itself.

110

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Writing a book is a valley of contradictions. I hate discovering the same mistake over and over, and in the end I sit there again, writing the sentence like I've done hundreds of times before. I hate that I love writing. Fuck. #WritingCommunity

050

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

That's a hell of a fact. 30 out of 1000 finishing, and only 6 of those publishing, is brutal. Honestly, you have to be a little crazy to write thousands of words and polish them day after day. When I started, editing turned out to be the hard part, not the writing.

020

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Just the volume you'd need to sell to earn back all those hours at a fair rate is unrealistic for most indie authors. Sure, we write for the love of it, but going full-time on $3.99 a copy simply doesn't add up.

050

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

It feels like getting to know someone new. Each meeting reveals a little more, and sometimes it takes hours before you even know whether you like them.

041

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Rough week. But reading isn't time away from writing, it feeds right back in, so that's not nothing. Lonely Ship will still be there when things ease up. Hope next week gives you some room.

010

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Really relate to this. Music sets the basic tonality for me too. But the moment I swap the playlist, the whole thing reads like a different book, haha. Loved the rhythm anecdote, almost a song in itself.

020

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Self-publishing pulls me the same way. It feels closer to why I write, making the dream real, while querying adds a more professional stamp. Either way, having a finished book of my own is what counts. What's tipping you toward indie?

220

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Yes indeed. Working on my debut, and building a tool for writers on the side, where my profession and passion finally meet. You just wrapped yours though, congrats. What's next for it, querying or going indie?

010

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Welcome, Josh. One day you'll step back through that portal just to land on this exact post.

110

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Agree. And even if someone takes your idea, it was only ever a starting point. Two people could never write the same book from it.

010

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Wait till you face the Goddess of Social Media Spelling Critiques. She shows no mercy.

110

Florian Kirchner @floriankirchner.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Solid advice. Finding your people is the tricky part though, any tips on how you did it?

110