I have had a book planned out for over a year and I have so many details in my mind ready to put on paper and have just recently begun typing it out after having such difficulty forcing myself to just start. It was mostly out of fear of not being able to finish or finishing and it sucking. That's not what this is about; it's about having people proofread my work. I have two problems. The first being that I like to have people read drafts that I know still need a ton of work. I know that they will be horrible (by my standards), but I worked my butt off and really would like to get some sort of reward by it even if it's just somebody experiencing what I've taken hours and hours to write. And once I do that, asking them to read the final rough draft (does that make sense?) is tough because it's just a pain for them. My third (yes, I know I said just two) problem consists of finding more people to read it that aren't so close to me that they'll go soft, but not so far that I can trust them and can actually respect their thoughts. Also, just working up the nerve to ask somebody to take time to read something they have no investment in can be a pain. Does anybody else experience this? How do you deal with it? I'd try posting stuff hear if Cog hadn't so strongly discouraged it. Guess I should try finding somebody here on this site, huh? So, any takers?
I've never been able to keep a journal or blog without forgetting it even exists after a few weeks. This might be the first post to something that will undoubtedly disappear from my mind shortly. But we'll see what we can do. I don't find anything in my life particularly interesting, nor do I have a whole bunch of nifty links for the aspiring author's on this site. So, as I type this sentence, I wonder what my thinking behind starting this entry was. Guess I'm just bored and wanna hear (see?) myself talk. Maybe you'll run across this blog and get interested and wanna be friends or critique each other's work. I could go for that, actually. Currently, I'm working on a novel that has been working itself out in my mind for nearly a year. It is a typical fantasy story with a hero, a girl, a quest and extraordinary places and creatures. I wouldn't say everything about it is so generic, though. I'm not going to bore you with it now, but it originally started out as an alternate history book, but when I realized that I'd need to gather so much historical information I was disappointed and wanted more flexibility, thus creating my own world. This might be a good thing considering that, as I've noted before, the best selling and most beloved series are often set entirely in their own world. I'll make it a point to update this blog whenever I can and maybe use it as a chance to lay out my thoughts on writing as well as reviewing books I think you folks might find to be good reads. Since I don't know any of you and am not afraid of your opinions I'd like to tell you I just started reading Twilight today. I had been insulting it for some time and when I heard a little girl in Borders say, "Mommy! Twilight!" I was disgusted until I realized that I shouldn't judge purely off retarded clips of a movie. I'm paying the price for my morals now and don't think I can take more than a chapter a day lest I stab myself in the eye. I'll tell ya how that works out later. And if you are a Twilight fan and just read that, please go throw yourself off a bridge. Aloha!