So Susan suggested I check this thread out several weeks ago and I just finished catching up.
Wow.
I have to say, while I was in the middle of reading all of the drabbles and whatnot, I was feeling kind of inadequate about my writing, particulalry with my current WIP. I've chilled out a bit now, but I still have to say I'm in awe of the quality and vividness of much of the writing here.
As for why I'm here, after a long dry spell (in the area of 10 years) I've decided to try my hand at writing again. I wrote the first 3,000 words of my current WIP back in March, then life happened and I didn't write anything until the last few days of July. Picking it back up again, I've got around 34,000 words done as of last night.
The WIP is actually a re-write of a book I wrote when I was 17 and revised when I was 19. When I re-read it now, I still love some of the characters (my internet handle is even derived from one of them) but the storyline is crap and quite a bit of it makes me groan in embarassment. So, the WIP is a completely new storyline, with some of the old characters dusted off, some of them reimagined and a lot of them flat-out axed.
It's a modern fantasy, which I realize way too many people are writing these days, but it's the story that wants out right now. Overall, I feel like dialogue is my strongest point, while scene-setting and description seem to be my weakest.
That's about it about that for now, before I bore you all to death. Overall, I've been enjoying the thread immensely so far and have appreciated the insight into the industry.
Well, it's okay...I write in a form without artistic merit, after all.
Well, it's okay...I write in a form without artistic merit, after all.
So does that mean mine has negative merit? I'm not sure where fantasy sits on the totem pole in regards to detective stories in critical thought, but my impression from critics has always been if you're not Tolkien, you might as well be a monkey flinging its feces at the wall.
Welcome, Kalshane!
Thanks, AmyLiz.
I'm thinking of putting together a little webpage for my book with the synopsis and chapter descriptions. I don't know why, I just sort of need to do something while I wait. And then if no one buys it, I can just release it all on the internets or something.
Welcome, Kalshane!
And Allyson, that's a good idea. That way once you sell, you'll already have your website started to help you promote your work.
Picture ten drabble
[link]
Mom was so proud of the white parlor. Shoes were banned, and God help the person who brought food anywhere near that expensive white wall-to-wall carpet.
Then came The Day Aunt Trixie Brought Her Poodle.
When the air cleared, Aunt T. had sworn anathema to us and five generations backwards and forwards, the poodle was shivering under the driver's seat of Aunt T.'s Buick, and Mom was at the rumpus room bar with a big scotch and soda.
"We need a long-haired white Persian," she said, sipping thoughtfully. "It will match beautifully. We must get it before Trixie arrives for Thanksgiving."
"Aunt T.'s allergic to cats," I said carefully.
Mom smiled. "Pity."
snerk
That's a good one, connie. "Pity." Hee.
eta: Welcome, Kalshane! It's nice to see new faces around here. Come be an old one with the rest of us. Take that as you read it.
Picture One.
Christmas 1949.
It was the last Christmas we spent together as a foursome. I was so happy. Adolphe had asked me to marry him and we were going to tell the family on Christmas Eve after mass. Look how happy I appear. Rita and Bernard had been married just the month before; I thought life could only get better.
Now, I can see signs I didn’t see then. Rita and Bernard had become so serious. They hardly laughed, or even smiled, anymore. Even Adolphe was hiding things from me by then.
Ironic, isn’t it, that Rita and Bernard named her daughter Celeste?
Thanks for the welcome, all.
Come be an old one with the rest of us. Take that as you read it.
It reads very much as a compliment, and reminds me of an old "story in the round" setting some of my friends created in their Creative Writing class back in high school. (I didn't take the class because until I started on my first novel, I actually had very little interest in writing. I was very much a math/science nerd with little interest in English until at some point near the end of my junior year when I did a complete flip-flop. Also, it was taught by a teacher I hated at the time, but as I've grown older realized was one of the better ones.) In any case, the setting was a sort of inter-dimensional poetry bar and the regulars were called "Old Friends". Which is probably only interesting or amusing to me.
Right. So let's hope I'm less rambling if I try to write something in earnest around here.
