Hello, newbie here. Social forums or any forum are generally not what I'm comfortable with, unless you count art forums, I'm a miniature statue maker of sorts. I'm very new to writing. Good punctuation is not a friend of mine. I tend to feel/say too much. Feel like I'm beating around the bush sorry. Ok! So I haven't written anything, literally in 28 years since creative writing class in high school. Things have been changing for me in peculiarly amazing ways. I used to write ever since I got bit by the writing bug in my teens after reading the Never Ending Story. Years go by I continue writing on inti high school, creative writing. All that changed back then sadly when my closest friend at the time read my story and told me I was a horrible writer, that I should give up. i was very gullible then, I believed the lie he told me and the lie I told myself. I stopped writing. I never stopped reading though. My journey from there to here is very strange, almost too strange for someone like me, even though I am as Mad as a Hatter. You see not so long ago I tried journaling, I thought it would be helpful to put into words the loss of my brother through suicide. I could only write two small paragraphs before I froze up. It was then that I thought to myself I most definitely had no writing ability if I couldn't write about things that had happened to me. Fast forward to 1 week ago today, April 25th or there about, lightning struck me in the form of pure inspiration. You see I make statues out of polymer clay, stuff inspired by Beatrix Potter, Brian Jacques, and Richard Adams of Watership Down. I make other things not purely based on mouse adventures. The idea I had running around in my head like a white rabbit, ready to go down the rabbit hole was a simple idea. A vampire and a ballerina, I was going to make a diorama. I probably still am. If any of you has seen the Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows (spoiler-ish) and Robert Downey jr. gets stabbed in the heart with adrenaline, for me the experience was very similar. When I got hit with that much inspiration i shot up like a bolt! I thought to myself oh my god what do I do!?!?! If I make this idea out of clay it'll take months because there's so many scenes! It can't be done... Then I thought, with much apprehension, adrenaline still pumping through my veins. I need to write this down before it disappears! So I started typing out on my iPads note taking app for the next three hours. The words just flowed out of me like water, it felt exactly like how I feel when I work with clay. Natural. I hope this feeling doesn't ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever go away. This ability I thought I didn't have but had all along, I was such a fool. I don't mind being eccentrically mad honey hatter. I'm just starting to love myself again. Maybe that's why. I don't know, sorry. My story is only for adult eyes. It's not too too ahem, maybe it is a little. My own personal opinion is this, the story always comes first(no pun intended... seriously.) An d it's because in the past I read some urban-fantasy but the author after only 3-4 books had went from wonderful story/character driven books to sexcapades... that's why it's so strange for me saying this because I don't read harlequin novels, there was the few lesbian fiction. There was that. Trying not to paint myself into a corner. I mostly read Terry Pratchett (may he Rest In Peace), Jim Butcher, Larry Corriea, Becky Chambers (Great science fiction novel that just happens to have two women in it that are lesbians!), Ernest Cline, Simon R. Green... those are all at the tops of my list. So it's wonderful to me that this story, the writing flowed out of me without any start or stop. So to my point/question, I heard that one should not post there work online, because no magazine or publisher will take them. Also I read that once a writer writes an original work once it is on pen and paper or word processor. It is copyrighted. Now I don't have any friends/family that could read this because *blush* I'm a first time writer, I would like others to read this as I go along with it for there opinions and ideas, no constructive criticisms allowed in this dojo! I've seen far too many avante garde art teachers pass of there that isn't art this is art idealism, for what does or does not pass for commercialism. Sorry just a pet peeve, I love commercial art as a side note, there is some great art on Pinterest that while beautiful would not pass muster under the art teachers critique. So what to do? *If you tell me that I have no skill as a writer, I won't believe you this time*
Ah my apologies, I see the two week wait period, 20 posts, 2 critiques. I think I went on a bit of a rant about critiques, it is a useful tool. Just the thought of art teachers scenario. lol I got myself going. Again apologies, also, I try to edit post but I see it is 20 post thing, that is fine. I see this site is serious about writing and that is what I came here for, I looked around the net at other sites and none seemed to fit the bill even though there are many. Is it ok to have people give impressions of ones writing one the criteria is met to post in workshop? I'm not looking for ideas, just a what do you think kind of thing. I am so new to writing, I feel very self conscious about this story, wondering if it is any good. Oh the last line of my first post I wanted to say was more myself talking to myself jokingly. Hopefully no one took offense, I only thought to myself this life lesson took me long enough to learn. Listen to your heart and good things can follow. Thanks for any assistance.
Hi honey. It helps other forum users if you can include line breaks between paragraphs - the human eye isn't made for reading on screens, and white space helps a lot. When you've met the criteria to post in the workshop, you can ask for whatever kind of feedback you like. Tell people if you want them to be gentle or hard, if you're looking for high-level thoughts or detailed nitpicks. Beware, though, that you can *ask* but not *demand* - if someone chooses to critique an aspect of the work you didn't want critiqued, they're not breaking any rules and their post will be left to stand. If that does happen, please please just thank them and move on. Sometimes authors argue with their critiquers, and there is nothing more unattractive in a writing workshop. You don't have to take any advice given in the workshop, but you also have to accept that you can't control it. I don't mean to scare you - generally, people here WILL listen to what you want and tailor their feedback accordingly - but I didn't want you to get a nasty surprise. Also keep in mind that pretty much all of us were terrified the first time we showed our work to someone else for critique. I know I was. Most of us here are amateurs and putting out writing that we know needs work. We understand how you feel and nobody is here to tear you down or make you feel bad. I'll look out for your piece in the workshop in a couple of weeks!
Thanks for the advice tenderizer, I'll keep that in mind about breaking up my post to add some white space. My story is one big block of words too, I'll do the same there. I need a good word processor either my iPad 4th gen or my laptop. When I do post my piece I'll gladly take any criticism good natured, some of the ideas about the characterization of a character are a little different. Like Schrödinger's cat thought experiment. I'll explain when I post my story. Thanks for the help.
LibreOffice is a good, free word processor. It's the closest you can get to Microsoft Word for free. Or you have Google Docs. The advantage is that's 'on the cloud' so you can access it from any device with an internet connection and switch between your iPad, laptop, phone, etc. The downside is that it struggles with long documents, so you might have to break up a novel-length worth into multiple docs.
