I am an old lady. I guess some young people would think of me that way. I am in my late 50s and I started writing a childs book last November. I was the dunce of every class at school and I only recently spruced up my writing a little in the past few months. My writing was very bad before. Now I think I may just get by. My vocabulary is not very wide either and my grammar is most certainly not perfect but I am trying. I was browsing the net not long ago and came across this web site so I decided to join. I had a strong desire to write a book over twenty years ago but I had my reasons why I chose not to go ahead with it. Last November when I started writing a book I made up my mind I would not stop until I finish it. I have recently had a few set backs though. Someone recently told me to take out the caps in my book. I was rather upset over that, because I use caps in my book when someone is shouting and I use bold print if someone is talking loud. Well, I may be getting off topic so I will stop for now. My problem is; when I start talking or writing I don't stop. I have been told I am a good yacker.
Hello Gamer Lady, Welcome to the Writing Forums. You're a teensy bit younger than I am. Please read How to Use the Review Room before you post there. Posting your own writing for people to comment on should not be among the very first things you do here. It is worth taking the time to see what other people have done to improve their writing, and see if some of it applies to your writing as well. That is part of why we require members to review other members' work before posting their own for review. On the other hand, there are no restrictions, other than content and copyright rules, on showcasing your work in your member blog. Also, be aware that posting a piece of writing on any public site, including this one, will greatly diminish your chances of selling it for publication. Removing the writing later does not alter that fact - once posted, it is irreversibly considered published. So do not post anything more than a small excerpt of any piece you are planning to submit for publication. If you haven't explored the site yet, you should probably do so soon. Newcomers often gravitate to the Lounge, the Word Games, or the Review Room, but there is much more to be discovered if you poke in the corners. Remember to check out our FAQ as well, and be sure to read through the forum rules, too, to avoid any misunderstandings or hurt feelings. Respect for one another is our principal mandate. As for the Review Room, new joiners often wonder why we do things a bit differently on this site than on other writing sites. We emphasize constructive critique as a vital writing skill. Training your eye by reviewing other people's work helps you improve your own writing even before you present it for others to see. Therefore, we ask members to review other people's writing before posting work of their own. The Review Room forums on this site, therefore, are true workshops, not just a bulletin board for displaying your work (and on that note, please only post each item for review in one Review Room forum). Also, please use the same thread for all revisions and additional excerpts from the same piece of writing. See this post, Why Write Reviews Before Posting My Work? for more information. And while you're looking around, don't forget to check out the RPG forum for improvisational fiction. Also try our Weekly Short Story Contest and Weekly Poetry Contest. They actually run more than one week apiece, but any member may enter, and all members are urged to vote for their favorites. Enjoy your stay here, and have fun!
Hi, and thanks. I may need luck with my book after I read that part about posting some of my book in another web site. I did only post a sample though but it was a fairly big sample. It was around eight pages. Hope that doesn't effect me when I publish my book.
welcome to the club, youngster! [to me, anyway] i'm currently writing children's books and i mentor a lot of beginning children's book writers, so if you want any one-on-one help with yours, just let me know... as for having posted 8 pages, yes, that's a lot more than you should have... from now on, only post brief excerpts of work in progress, if you don't want to harm your chances of snagging a publisher... go back and delete it from the site... that'll be a case of closing the door once the horse is gone, since it'll most likely have been acquired by google and be available as 'archived' content forever, but at least will keep it off the site... is this meant to be a picture book, or a first chapter book for children? love and hugs, maia
Hi and thanks for the tip but after browsing at some of the other peoples book samples my book sample I posted elsewhere was no bigger than that so it should be okay. Some people in her post very big book samples I have noticed. There would have been a lot of errors in that book sample I posted back then anyway. I probably will post a sample of my book in here later on. I noticed I need to make comments on other peoples book samples first before I post my own book sample in here so thats okay. I will do that first. You asked if it will be a picture book. I am not sure yet. I will probably have to find an artist to do a few drawings for me and I also need to put chapters in my book as well. I have not done that yet.
Ha ha, no I ment it in a nice way really. Mature can be any age over 35. I used to call myself mature when I was 30. Everyone has different idea's on how old is old and how young is young. When I was a teenager I used to think my parent's were old when they were only in their 40's. Now that I am past that age group I don't think it is old. If I told an 80 year old man I was old he would probably tell me I am still a spring chicken.
i don't know how it works in ozland, but in the us the publisher chooses/assigns the illustrator and writers are usually not allowed to send in art work, only the text ms... also, picture books don't have chapters... beginning chapter books do have some simple illustrations as chapter heads, but those are also not submitted by the writer... i'm still puzzled about exactly what it is you're working on, since 140k words is way beyond acceptable adult novel size and certainly not going to work as a childrens' book... what age range of kids have you tailored this book for?...
Hi, first of all...if i do decide to have some black and white drawings in my book that will come near the end of my book. I will have to find someone who is an artist. I have seen drawings in books here with chapters in it. I have two books sitting on my printer. I borrowed both these books from my local Library. One is called The Haunted Piccolo and the Authors name is Gene Kemp. She has drawings only where a new chapter starts but the drawings are all the same. The drawings are musical notes. Do you know what I mean? The writter has put those drawings on every single chapter. Here is what it says for chapter seven. Chapter seven First strike. Chapter Eleven Back to the shop. All these chapters have musical notes. The other book which I have right here is called Zagwitz THE LOST ISLE OF TELIJENCIA. The Author is called Inigo Jones. This writter has used a lot of caps in his book. Not all caps but some when a person is shouting. There are chapters in this book and black and white drawings but not very many drawings. The drawings in this book do not seem to be on the same page as the new chapter. Most children's books I have browsed through seem to have the drawings on the same page as a new chapter. I read a little bit of Zagwitz and I did not like it. I could not get into it. My friend told me the writter is very well educated. So that probably explains it. I can not read a book which is written by a very well educated person because I can't absorb it properly. I do not understand it very well and not only that, but the story in this book just doesn't seem to grab me. Lately I have been reading children's books and not very many grab me. Not many keep me reading and keep me interested enough to want to read the book until i finish it. Only two books kept me reading until i finished it. One was Traitor by Pete Johnson and the other is the one i borrowed twice. The haunted Piccolo. Here is a book I bought a few months ago. This one is called The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. LEWIS. This book is written in very tiny print. I would never want my book written in such tiny print as this. This book is monsterous but it has different books put into one big book. There are drawings in this book on every chapter that i can see when i browse through the book. That would suit me fine if a publisher accepted my book and she or he chose the artist for my book. I hope that does happen. Although i would like to be able to have some say on what kind of drawings would be going into my book. I would like to see a drawing on the cover of my book with a little skinny girl with mattered hair sticking up like a birds nest with a Bee on her hand or flying near by. I would like the little girl to be dressed in rags with threads hanging down and torn clothes. One other lady in here made a suggestion I could make my book into 2 or 3 books. I like that idea. I could have part 1, and part 2 and even a part 3. That is something i could keep in mind. Have my book so its continued in a following book. It is certainly long enough to do that. I haven't finished editing my book yet. By the time I am finished editing it, my book could end up with over 200.000 words. Are you laughing? You probably are not! Some people may laugh, they make think that is funny. I recently wrote my offline friend a letter and do you know how many pages it was? It was 104 pages. That was just a letter but it was delivered to her by a courier as a parcel. I thought she would be angry with me but she wasn't. She told me she laughed when it was delivered. "Pheww!" i thought to myself. I was so glad she wasn't angry with me for sending such a huge letter. The age range for my book is at a guess....9 to 13 or it could end up being from 9 to 15. Some of my book may sound rather childish and yet in some ways it may sound a bit mature. It seems to be a combination. It is about parent's who are heavy drinkers and they don't give a damn about their children. They are always at the hotel drinking, or working part time, or at a friends barbecue. They leave their 3 children on their own a lot of the time. This gives the children a lot of time to themselves to plan and plot to leave home. My book is fiction and even though it is fiction a lot of it is real. I have put some of my own childhood life into this book including other people's but a lot is also fantasy. I mean a giant insect taking the children to another planet is made up but it is the way the children go about making all of this happen. It doesn't just happen over night. It happens over a long period of time. A lot of preperations have to be made, the insect has to grow. The children have to do things behind their parent's back. The parent's get a little suspicious just before the children leave but the children manage to escape. The police come into the story as well. I could go on and on and on about what is in the story but i may be giving too much away. The childrens cranky mother chases her children around with a feather duster trying to give them a belting. My daughter thought I should not put that in the book but i have anyway. The mother never actually gives her children a belting but it is suggested that she will do it if they don't behave. Gee.... I brought one book back from the Library and it was far far worse than anything in my book. It was called the Hostile Hospital. That story was about children who were on the run because they were accused of a murder they did not committ. Cutting the story short they ended up getting into this van and were driven away to this mad hospital. The doctors and nurses there were evil. I guess that is the right word, or maybe you may call them sadists. Anyway one of the nurses told a little boy to cut off his sisters head with a rusty knife. He did not do it but the nurse suggested that he do it. This perticular book has warnings signs on the book it is a nasty book and it should not be read. If the truth be known I think children would like to read a book like that because of the warning signs on the cover. It also says a big STOP inside on some of the pages. I know that when i was a child i always wanted to try things which were a big no no or forbidden. I think most children are like this. When my parent's told me not to smoke, that made me want to do it all the more because it was a big no no. I don't smoke now because i gave it up but anything my parent's didn't want me to do i would do it. I was curous about things which were a no no. I will post up a sample of my book soon. I think i have to respond to other peoples book samples first before I am able to put up a sample of my own book. Maybe you are curious how it reads. Am i allowed to put a link on here where i wrote a short story in another web site? If so I ll give you the link to go and look at it. In about a week or two i will post up a sample of my book in here. You will probably find many errors.
it's not a good idea to post a link to another site, since most of us won't bother going there and only critique work that's posted here... from the size of your posts and that letter you mention, i can see why your ms is so over-long... ;-) but it's definitely not going to sell as a single book, period... plus, unless you pay to have it printed, you won't be able to use your own illustrations... you seem to love just writing and writing non-stop, which is fine if it's only for your own enjoyment... but if you hope to ever have your books published and sold in bookstores, you're going to have to learn how write for the market and not just for yourself... that's just a reality of the writing and publishing business... love and hugs, m
