Hi everyone, As an avid science fiction reader and half-decent communicatory, writing has always been at the back of my mind, but I've never had the fortitude to formalize my efforts. Being a new year and all, I'm embracing "no time like the present". My goal is to harness the power of fictional stories to inspire people to challenge the status quo and build a greater future for our non-fictional world. I know, I know, it sounds grossly cliché to me too, but hey, everyone's gotta have a reason to get up in the morning right? Beyond work, I love to spend time in nature while hiking, skiing, running, surfing, golfing, etc. So I'm a SciFi nerd and a nature nerd. Rare combo? I'm an absolute newbie. I haven't wrote more than a chapter or two of fiction, so I'm looking forward to absorbing as much wisdom and support from this community as possible. Thank you in advance!
There ya go! First bit of wisdom, or support, whatever. Grammar Nazi-ing I suppose. Lol sorry, I'll stop now. Welcome aboard!
You'll find lots of help here. I sure have. And I applaud your goal regarding fiction versus the non-fiction of real life. To quote my own view... "Some people think stories aren't true because fiction is inferior to fact. Yeah, stories are made up, so fiction can be just an entertaining way to escape reality. We live in a world with problems that are often beyond our ability to solve. So, it can be reassuring to read a story with problems we know will be solved by the hero in the end. But people who write books, compose poems, make movies and sing songs seed their imagination with what they see and hear in the real world. So, fiction can also be a powerful way to change reality. In other words, storytellers use fiction to tell the truth, and that empowers you and me to find something true about ourselves. We live in a world that makes us too busy to look back and see our own lives as stories, too busy to connect the dots of cause and effect and paint our own story with a plot and a point. Stories give us that look back. We become the young hero, the wise old woman, the transformed fool, the boy who becomes a man. The story becomes truer than if it had really happened, and that makes fiction psychologically valid, emotionally realistic and loaded with clues for shaping and navigating the sticky web of real life."
Welcome peripheral, you've come to the right place. Take a tour of the threads, answer a few questions, try a few critiques in the Workshop, and enter the writing contests. All excellent fodder for growing the writing muscles.
