Hello one and all, I'd like to introduce myself to you all, my name is Jon, I'm originally from the UK however I chose some time go to broaden my horizons and left to spend some time in various other places. After some time meeting new people and experiencing new cultures I met a lovely German girl and we ended up very much involved with each other, this lead to my decision to make a move to Germany and 8 years later I am still here, married with two children. As lovely as Germany is I spend most of my spare time reading, writing or pursuing some of my other creative interests which include building custom motorcycles, painting, independent game development and Podcasting, though I won't be revealing what the name of my podcast is as it has little to do with writing. I hope to meet some like minded people here and try to take what is undoubtedly a fairly average writing skill and try to hone it into something with a little more craft and structure. I enjoy reading a wide range of fiction, but I find that when I take to writing I very much tend towards Science Fiction, the fantastic and surreal. Some of my favourite authors are Douglas Adams, Michael Marshal Smith, Jeff Noon, Stephen King, H P Lovecraft, Wilkie Collins and Raymond Chandler. I look forward very much to getting the chance to interact with some of you in the future. Jon
Sci-Fi! Yay! Just some guy, here. Take it from a three-month-old, the people here are great! Very diverse, and all levels of experience. My advice is explore everything! Read the rules for critique and participate as much as you can. Read as many critiques as you can to get the feel. Leave posting stories for later (see the rules) and just absorb the environment for awhile. I am an impatient person, so I paid the money to post right away, and I still should have waited. Happy to give em more money to keep em going, but wait and explore is better, even in the short run, I must say. I visit 'Lounge' most everyday, so that's a place to see the lighter side. I'm just an old duffer, but I love batting ideas and concepts around, so PM me or start a thread and see you there! Welcome (Yay Sci-fi)
Hello to both of you. I totally understand and agree. I've seen that a lot of the smaller, less active sites are so for a reason. Most of them are full of people posting work for people to critique and no real community or will to put something back. I'm a believer that by reading more and more you absorb information, often without really understanding the rules but being able to follow them none the less. I'm looking forward tom getting used to critiquing other work because I'll be learning from their mistakes, and successes, and also picking up what others have to say and seeing how that stands against my own ideas of how things should be done. I'm really looking forward to whatever is going to happen here. I should also say that Jon J Smith is absolutely not my real name, it's not a pen name, it's just a way to remain anonymous. Sci-Fi is something I always fall back to, it's what I grew up reading and watching (and listening to, the BBC was great for radio plays when I was a wee'n) so you could say it forms the bedrock on which nearly all of my stories end up sitting, written, spoken or imagined.
Michael Ende is a German children's author that I'm currently reading. I pretty much only read children's books at the moment but it's a great way to break into a new language, even if you think you are good enough at it already. Anyway he wrote a book called Momo in which there are grey men who turn up steal people's time, it's very enjoyable and one of those books that you can feel prickling your inspiration. I'm actively avoiding Goethe and Schiller, I've made a rule that I'm not going to consider writing anything in German until I've at least understood how to best use my own language.
Welcome! May I suggest you look into the contests, short and flash. We have at the moment a small dip in the number of voters/posters. We could use a new voice there. Until Sunday midnight you can vote on a short or submit a flash. Monday we get to vote on the flash and a new prompt for the short. See you there.
