Hello all! I have joined this forum in hopes of finding a cool community to share my new found hobby (and career in progress!) with. When I was in highschool, creative writing was my favorite subject and I always got good comments from the teacher. One note I received was that my stories were never dull. Now I am 30 years old and I have recently co-authored and self published a couple of ebooks as well as a paperback. I promise, I am not here to advertise. I want to improve my writing and become motivated more and more. I plan to be really active here. Also, I have read the forum rules so I am all caught up there.
Welcome to Writing Forums, Nick! I hope you find what you're looking for here, whatever your interests in writing. This forum aims to provide the best workshopping resources on the internet, and to that end we have a few rules which you should familiarise yourself with before you get stuck in. The main section of the site is the Writing Workshop, where members can post their writing in order to receive critique of their work. However, before we allow members to post their work, they must have met some basic requirements. Firstly, you must have been a member for fourteen days, and have made twenty posts on the forum overall (please note, posts in Word Games do not count towards this). This is so that members, when they post their work, have familiarised themselves with the forums and contributed to them (as well as hopefully learned something for themselves). Secondly, members must provide two constructive reviews of other people's work for each piece of their own that they wish to post. This is because we believe that the focus of workshopping should be equally upon giving reviews as receiving them, as they allow a writer to practice and improve their editing skills, which they can then apply to their own writing. Beyond the Writing Workshop, you will find that we have extensive forums for discussion of aspects of writing, as well as a community area for general discussion. We also run periodic short story and poetry contests, which are good for challenging yourself and expanding your skills. If you have any questions or problems, then the moderators (myself, Cogito, Lemex and Dante Dases) should be your first port of call. Any technical problems with the site itself should be directed to Daniel, the site administrator and owner. I would recommend you have a look over the rules so that you know what to expect, and what is expected. But aside from that, I hope you enjoy your time here. Banzai
Welcome to the forum. I am also fairly new here, so I am finding things out for the first time. So far, the community seems quite diverse both in interests and expertise, which I believe is a good thing. Anyway, I hope you enjoy your time here. I'm sure your established background will be invaluable to the community. Welcome.
Hey, welcome to the group Nick! A teacher help pushed me in the direction of writing, too! Only it was third grade and my book was mainly pictures - I was still thrilled by the process!
Hello Nick. It's nice to know that someone who has also taken the plunge of self publishing in this new era of reading devices, is available for comment and input. I just recently stepped into that creaky canoe myself. Everything is going well so far. But I'll see what kind of traction my work actually has once the friends and family stop baying the book. lol
So far, my experience with it is very limited. I like the chance to get the stuff out there, where people can actually read and give feedback. On the other hand, I have mixed emotions about the process of self publishing these days. It seems to be the new way for struggling vendors to make money from prospective writers. There are also some very established writers (The likes of J.A. Konrath) who encourage newbies to put some effort and polish and work into their stuff, get peer reviews to vet manuscripts and go for it full boar. You'll find out if you can write something that sells, by literally going to the consumer and trying to sell it. Overall, the process reminds me of watching my older brother in his garage metal band trying to land gigs and build a following. Companies like Amazon and iTunes are more than happy to feature the new artist without the process of submission and the machine of editing/producing. The marketing of the work is entirely up to them. On the downside, "self-published" usually conveys a spirit of being so desperate or vain that one simply MUST have their name on the cover of a book. That book being so poorly written and conceived, that no reputable publisher would touch it. ::shrugs:: I guess we will see how it all ends up.
