@PensiveQuill please tell me your profession. 80k and 25hrs peer week is my dream. Just realized you live in Australia. Nevermind
It is a dream job actually. But I'd rather not say, we can get fired if we are identified online and not basically spruiking the company. One of my coworkers was stood down for exactly that. I like the freedom to say whatever I like outside of work.
That's quite sad, actually. It's horrible to have no positive family connections or friends. I do hope this is a temporary situation. If you have a lot of time to spend alone this can be good for writing (I wish I had more of it, to tell the truth) but if you are isolated or marginalised, that's going to impact on the way you feel and what you write about. I hope you find some good friends in the near future. People who support you and encourage your writing.
Here you are: http://www.sfwriter.com/ow05.htm I don't agree with everything Heinlein said, but the basics of write, finish what you write, don't endlessly tinker with it, and send it out (or self-publish) while you work on something else are pretty much guaranteed to make you a better writer in the long term. If all else fails, write and self-publish some smut under a pseudonym. It sells pretty well, it's good writing practice, and it's fun. Edit: oh, yeah, and based on your posts here, there's no way you could write something that reads as bad as the worst fan fiction. Edit2: Talent is over-rated. I had a very talented writer girlfriend who could do magic with words, and all her teachers said she was going to become a famous writer and do great things. Twenty years later, she finally sold a book, with about five hundred words in it. She had talent, but wouldn't actually do the work required to turn that into a book people wanted to read.
I'm going to advise along the same line as jannert. Just tell your story as if you were telling a friend (and yeah, I've made up friends just for this purpose ). Also realize that you will write thousands and thousands of words before you feel comfortable with your own writing. And finally, get some novels similar to yours and read them, taking note of how those authors did things. Get different authors, though, so you don't get caught up in trying to copy one author. oh, yeah, one absolutely last thing - understand that becoming a good writer takes a lot of time and practice.
As others have said, your writing on this forum is just fine. I strongly suspect that when you're writing "on purpose" rather than casually and comfortably in a forum context, you're working too hard to achieve specific stylistic goals, goals that may not work with your natural writing voice. Are you able to make any guess as to how many words, or hours, of fiction writing (assuming that fiction writing is your goal) that you've put in? Me, I'd guess that I've written a couple of million words of casual nonfiction blathering, and perhaps a couple of hundred thousand words of fiction writing. I don't expect to even know if my fiction voice can be any good until I've written, and thrown away, a million or so words of fiction. So I would give the easy-to-say, hard-to-follow advice of "just write". The analogy I've used before is that if you were trying to learn to play the piano, you would practice for dozens, hundreds, probably thousands, of hours, and you wouldn't stop practicing because what you were playing wasn't worth recording and releasing as a CD. You would realize that you were starting out as a new pianist and that you were going to produce a whole lot of very bad music before you produced good music. In the same way, you're going to produce a whole lot of very bad writing before you produce good writing.
There is more than sufficient vision in these two chapters alone. No matter how we see the world, and no matter how unique we think ourselves, there are people out there who can relate to our story.
I thought the piece you posted in the workshop was pretty solid! But, since we can always improve and whatnot, here's my (fairly obvious and not terribly original) thoughts on the subject. Not sure if anyone suggested this already (I scanned the thread kind of quickly), but maybe it would help to spend less time reading about writing, and more time just reading. I strongly believe that getting familiar with a wide variety of authors, and forming opinions about what makes their writing work (or not work), is the fastest way to develop your own voice. If you feel stuck, it might help to try reading something that's outside of your usual wheelhouse; odds are good you might learn something. Anyway, plenty of people have the opposite problem -- lots of voice and no ideas -- which is arguably worse!
I have also had that same feeling, and while I have eyt to actually finish my story, I did have a great amount of trouble getting it started. Strange thing is I started running the story in my head like it was a movie, then started typing out the scenes as they flowed into my head. While it looked pretty bad at first when I read back over everything for polishing I was able to see things more clearly than teh first time and I changed it all accordingly. Now I don't seem to have trouble at all once I got over that first hurdle.
I dont feel as if I've got my style at all. I've only got a vague idea of my style and every now and again it pops up in a sentence and I go...yes! There it is. Then everything falls flat again. But what I do know is that this uber modern, simple straight talking style of modern novels just isnt me, it lacks the way I naturally use words. This is where I struggle because I keep trying to pull my words back into a very minimalist style and then it gets clunky on me. My sentences dont have any kind of flow and I end up with chunks of text that appear to be unrelated and read shittily.
[QUOTE="Edward M. Grant, post: 1268097, member: 36778] If all else fails, write and self-publish some smut under a pseudonym. It sells pretty well, it's good writing practice, and it's fun. [/QUOTE] Ha! It was writing a bit of smut that sparked off all this angst. It doesn't seem to matter if the subject if frivilous I felt an even greater need for that writing to be better, probably becasue erotica is widely regarded to be poorly written, so I had a need for those words to exceed expectations. They didnt. It just made me feel even more tense about getting words on a page and more disappointed at what I'd produced.
Who says you don’t have talent? If you have ideas, if you have characters jumping up and down in your mind screaming pick me that’s a talent. Writing is a craft and learning is constant. If the passion and then muse is there then keep at it! Do it for yourself and do it because you love to and you can’t think of any other thing you’d rather be doing. I imagine your style will change and grow as you write so give yourself time to evolve as a writer.
Most of us probably have the outer polished version of ourselves and the inner version which nobody else sees. That's very normal. What's not good in your situation is that it seems extreme, based on the situation with your family, which wasn't your fault. Just escaping any toxic situation is praiseworthy, so you've already taken a good step. It will take a while to establish a different reality for yourself. Don't be afraid to let people in, but wait till it feels right to do so. I like what you implied, that you're writing fantasy and not just rehashing your own uncomfortable life situation at present. It's very healthy to take yourself OUT of a bad situation when you write, and fantasy may be just the ticket. (It's also very popular these days, which can be a bonus when you go to sell your work.) It can be theraputic to change whatever you think is bad about your life when you write. I don't mean you write Pollyanna every time you sit down at a computer, but if you feel powerless, give your character power. If you feel isolated, give your character a loving family and friends. Do this at the STARTING point of your story and see what happens then. Trust me, that works a treat. Give your characters what you want and don't have, but do it at the start of a story. Don't make getting these things the story goal, give them what YOU need yourself, right at the start. Give them story problems, big plot problems, but let their starting point be different from yours. It's amazing what your insight into the lack of these qualities or circumstances will bring to a story like that. Your characters will probably not take these gifts for granted. They'll be aware that they are lucky people. That will give them a subtext to their personalities that will make them easy for the reader to like.
Not half as sad as coming to the realisation that actually you were always alone. In fact, worse than alone, you were often casually thrown into the path of known dangers in the expectation that the worst would happen. All so a hollowed out narcissist could reap the sympathy and attention of being the mother of a victimised child. Chilling in both its intent of harm and the premeditation required to ensure blame would not be laid at her feet. A bit of loneliness seems a good trade to me.
My lord. That is horrible indeed. Have you managed to speak about this to anybody who can help give you a perspective that will eventually make you feel better? Nothing can erase a past completely, but a new life can certainly help. And you're right, loneliness is not always misery. But sometimes other people—friends, therapists, lovers—can jog you into new scenes and new ways of coping. I have a very close friend who grew up in a horribly broken home, filled with rancor, neglect and all the bad stuff that can happen when two adults do what they want and ignore the needs of their children. He was badly traumatised by this, but has since married and had children of his own. He said that having a normal home life as an adult has done a lot to erase the feelings of helplessness and being unloved that he had as a child. I've never forgotten this lesson.
So you're writing with the intention of publication? If so... well, if so, MAYBE you have to adapt your style. (Or you could be the writer who bucks the trends and carves out a niche). But if you're writing for pleasure or for therapy or for anything other than publication, who cares what the modern, minimalist style is? Write what feels right to you.
l I got my 3,000 words that I've been working on out again after reading this thread and taking in suggestions. After 2hrs at the keyboard I've come up with something much better than was there. I threw away the rule book and just wrote it how I wanted it to be. It's very prettily written for smut but hey, whatever makes me happy right. I guess I just have to keep going in this direction and drink heavily in the timmes when I get frustrated with it. Good thing I'm heading overseas next week. I can stock up the cocktail cabinet on duty free! Summer is coming fast here and I'm thinking margherita's and gin and tonics are in order. I'll stay away from the angst ridden rants though.
I read and mulled over these this morning. I can see why they are advised. Its true often the first idea is the best one, although the writing initially may not always reflect this. The loss of momentum is a huge problem, as I've found from my many interests that once you put a project aside for more than a few days the impetus to pick it up again wanes considerably. The further away from it you get, the less likely it will ever be done. In the spirit of this I've picked up my erotic novella again, I think the story idea is workable and damn it I'm going to finish it. I'm going to print ese out and put them up in my study. Cheers
I'd say passion is far more important than skill. Take music for example. Some of the greatest music is extremely simple to play. I think you probably do have the talent and skill to write but you are to hard on yourself. Maybe it is because you are attempting to defend your ego by speculating what people will think about your writing. Don't care about what people think. Just keep writing. Maybe you're right. Maybe writing isn't for you. Maybe you would be better at telling stories through a different medium e.g. films, music, painting etc etc. If you want to write, keep trying. Just remember to keep an open-mind and try new things.
Simple to play, yes. Simple to play well enough that others will want to listen? Probably not. As a beta, I've read a lot from people with passion and little skill. It's painful. Really painful. If one is writing only for themselves, only for their own pleasure/gratification, sure. Go Passion! If you want to have a significant audience, passion is definitely down on the priority list (it isn't even on mine).
Then that's probably why you feel you have no talent. It's not that you have no talent, but you're trying too hard to write in a way that isn't "you", if that makes sense. It's like this - if my natural inclination is towards literature and yet I am determined to make myself into a mathematician (even though I suck at maths), then yes, I'm gonna fail, and I'm gonna think, "Crap. I'm just really dumb, aren't I?" You're essentially doing that. It's no wonder you think you have no talent. Key word there though - think. You think you have no talent. Doesn't mean you actually have none. Why are you trying to make your writing minimalistic? Because that's what's trendy? It's what bestsellers are like? It's what sells? Why? My advice - just write. Write in your natural voice. Write with the words you would naturally use, that you would actually want to use. All that hype about "Too descriptive! This is purple prose!" is nonsense. Sure there's always the risk but that goes for all manners and styles of writing. Truth is, if you write well, no one's gonna care what words you use. There will always be haters - but you write for those who would love your particular style. Take Kafka's Metamorphosis - just these past few days, members on the forum have been saying they think Kafka's writing is all over the place. Kafka, for goodness' sake. Yet he's a classic. There're certainly people who love his writing, and there're people who love his ideas and what he has to express regardless of his writing. Or look at Twilight and 50 Shades - frankly, you don't need to be writing like a literary genius to sell. The average audience really don't care how well-written something is as long as it gives them what they're looking for (usually a good story, or perhaps some food for thought, or both). And seriously, at the end of the day, would you like to see the world with only one type of writing? What if everyone were, I dunno, JK Rowling? Stephen King? Come now, wouldn't that be one heck of a DULL world? Reading wouldn't be half as much fun. If minimalistic isn't your style, then stop writing it - or rather, stop trying. Relish the use of all the words you can think of and just have some fun!
