I wanna hurt you, but I can't resist the sinister attraction of your cold and muscular body!

Buffybot ,'Dirty Girls'


The Great Write Way  

A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.


Beverly - Feb 16, 2005 7:44:50 am PST #9972 of 10001
Days shrink and grow cold, sunlight through leaves is my song. Winter is long.

I think it flows better. I don't know from lyrics, so I can only give you my impressions, though. The changes are subtle enough I can't define them without putting the two versions side-by-side, but it seems tighter, less rambly, and less reachy for a rhyme--and I love the slant rhymes. Personally, I don't have a problem with the is/are dichotomy, and I got that you were talking/singing/writing about one specific person whose smile is like cop sunglasses.

ed, becyuz I rilly can speel


Jesse - Feb 16, 2005 7:47:11 am PST #9973 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

On washingtonpost.com right now, they are having a live chat with copy editors. Here's the blurb:

Bill Walsh and Don Podesta, Post copeditros, talk about the challegne of producing an errot-free neswpaper.

Hee!

Edit: Here's the link to the discussion: [link]


Connie Neil - Feb 16, 2005 7:48:56 am PST #9974 of 10001
brillig

Though I do think the kernel of good advice within the bad would be, "don't give a character anything you won't be able to tell a story around."

That's a very good point. A detective in an old-fashioned Iron Lung is doable, but probably simpler to give him some mobility.

Think we'll kill the thread today?


Topic!Cindy - Feb 16, 2005 8:30:06 am PST #9975 of 10001
What is even happening?

Also, is there a problem with the "smile is"/"sunglasses are" dichotomy? I could've gone "smiles are" but I stuck with the sibilance, and because I mean that one particular smile, not the all the smiles your face can smile.
Not for me. I tried subbing in smiles are, and I didn't like it nearly as well. I just wish I could hear the music. Well, I do hear it set to music, but the odds of it being the music you're hearing are low.

wrod. The best advice I heard on the whole premise/goal thing was "Write the story in your head first, and odds are by the end of it you'll know what the underlying themes are."

Personally speaking, I agree with this. But I do know people who are just the opposite. They need to know where they're ending, why and how, before they even get started. I have to start, and have no clue where I'm going, 'til I get there or the characters tell me. My mother tells me that when I was a kid, I was always asking, "Go fried? Go fried?" rather like a puppy who could speak. I didn't ever have any place in mind, I just wanted to go for a ride. Anything I write--fiction or non, just tells me it wants to go fried.


Liese S. - Feb 16, 2005 8:45:27 am PST #9976 of 10001
"Faded like the lilac, he thought."

Heh. I laid down the vocal tracks on the recorder today. If I get ambitious, I may do up some ACID files that I could rip and post. Mebbe. If I'm brave.


Topic!Cindy - Feb 16, 2005 8:59:42 am PST #9977 of 10001
What is even happening?

I don't have sound hooked up on my P.C., but that might get me to badger the dh into hooking it up. It's been almost a year and a half.


Amy - Feb 16, 2005 9:33:14 am PST #9978 of 10001
Because books.

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965)

Heh. I just stumbled across this on another site, and thought it was strangely pertinent.


lisah - Feb 16, 2005 9:36:13 am PST #9979 of 10001
Punishingly Intricate

I may do up some ACID files that I could rip and post. Mebbe. If I'm brave.

Do it! Do it! I'm so curious.

I wrote a lyric the other night that will make no sense to anybody but me and a few of my friends. but i'm really loving it. I haven't written anything new in a while.

I'm thinking of getting a friend to translate into spanish and then I'll sing it once in English and once in Spanish. In the great tradition of the Clash and the Pogues -- singers who (I'm pretty sure) don't actually speak Spanish singing in it. (I did take in HS and have pretty good ideas of how things should be pronounced though.)


deborah grabien - Feb 16, 2005 11:23:59 am PST #9980 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Those lyrics make me extremely happy right now. I'm still waiting for Nic to find the time to upload the Saturday Sessions tape with Ghosts on it up to the computer, and then down onto CD.

Really, look on writing books as your minions--they are there for you to use for your own purposes and only if you want to. If not, ignore them.

I totally agree with that in principle, but there's a problem, Robin, and it's the same one I find with "so, you're a new parent? Here's a book alllllll about parenting!" Basically, someone who is new at it, or unsure about it, and vulnerable, is going to believe every single damned word on some level, because there's nothing to tell them how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Most people don't possess that skill or talent, on either the intellectual or the visceral level - that's why they're reading the books in the first place, usually.


§ ita § - Feb 16, 2005 11:26:53 am PST #9981 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

someone who is new at it, or unsure about it

Where would you recommend this person go instead? Someone with a sound head on their shoulders but no actual experience needs to know what's out there, and can reap value, I suspect.

I don't use how-to writing books, but have a complete addiction to art and photography technique books. It never occured to me to take any one of them as gospel, no matter how loud they were about it.

And I was new and unsure at art and photography myself -- that wasn't the issue. I don't believe any book 100% just on principle.