Mal: Go on. Get in there. Give your brother a thrashing for messing up your plan. River: He takes so much looking after.

'Objects In Space'


The Great Write Way, Act Three: Where's the gun?

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


Burrell - Jan 03, 2011 7:43:05 pm PST #3818 of 6690
Why did Darth Vader cross the road? To get to the Dark Side!

Yipes Ginger, is someone really asking for someone to ghost write their scholarly work? Through Craigslist? Talk about a seamy underside to academia.


erikaj - Jan 04, 2011 5:11:17 am PST #3819 of 6690
Always Anti-fascist!

I've got to write a bio for the website I do editing for...I kind of hate it.(Not, like, Onerous Task hate, but...is there anything interesting I can say about my life?(Given that this is a disability website so they're all over the Miracle Baby thing.)


DebetEsse - Jan 04, 2011 5:58:02 am PST #3820 of 6690
Woe to the fucking wicked.

I hate writing bios. I always feel like I have nothing interesting to say and am bragging, all at the same time.


erikaj - Jan 04, 2011 6:15:59 am PST #3821 of 6690
Always Anti-fascist!

wrod. That's exactly it. I'm proud of my publications, but just listing my markets seems both dry and like I'm asking the hypothetical readers to suck it.(And my editor is all too fricking willing to believe I'm some mysterious Chandler blonde, but to write a bio like that...eh, it feels pretentious.) And as a reader, I sort of hate getting to the end of an article, wanting to find out something about the author and getting:

Raised by wolves in suburban Tacoma, Dave didn't really feel the urge to create until he was bitten by that radioactive tequila worm in Mexicali.

On one hand, I get it...the bio statement is kind of a construct so you create this Origin myth, hoping that only people that are in on it read it.

I'm just not sure if that makes them more clever than I am, or that dick at a party who stands in the corner saying "Don't you hate these things?" all night.


Typo Boy - Jan 04, 2011 8:27:00 am PST #3822 of 6690
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

Maybe you could do something in between. Something along the lines of : "Chandleresque blonde miracle baby with a noir outlook shaped by the mean street life of the Arizona suburbs." Snarky, yet a close reading yields real biographical info to a reader who knows nothing about you.


Ginger - Jan 04, 2011 10:36:40 am PST #3823 of 6690
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda

Journalist, writer and wit extraordinaire, Erika is a Chandleresque blonde whose worldview was shaped by the mean fictional streets of Baltimore. As a resident of Phoenix, she also works to stem the tide of insanity in Arizona politics.


erikaj - Jan 04, 2011 11:19:25 am PST #3824 of 6690
Always Anti-fascist!

Good suggestions, people, thanks.


Ginger - Jan 04, 2011 11:23:29 am PST #3825 of 6690
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda

I need to do the same thing for my !@#$ business website. I feel like writing "Ginger has made a living writing and editing words in a row for 30 years. If she was bad at it, she'd be a Walmart greeter by now."


erikaj - Jan 04, 2011 11:26:06 am PST #3826 of 6690
Always Anti-fascist!

No shit. Nobody reads them all that often, either.


Amy - Jan 04, 2011 11:27:08 am PST #3827 of 6690
Because books.

I hate writing bios. Mine are always completely lame. I usually wind up listing dumb jobs I've had, like a million other people.