Hi, my name is Delphine. It's really hard to know where to start. Early writing was persuasive because I was a debater in high school.(SC state champion twice.) Wrote and won a few essay contests. I loved poetry, read it constantly but limited my own writing to doodling in the margins. I decided I wanted to be a journalist but I was "guided" towards law since I was a debater and counselors didn't encourage a career in writing where I was back in the late 70's. Ended up at Duke University on a scholarship. If only I had fallen in with the writers! I Found the idea of hitch-hiking across country with my new boyfriend far more interesting than political science and economics so I journaled my way through about thirty states the summer of '79. Somewhere along the way I fell out of the passion of politics and social ideas that burned to be expressed and decided to just make myself a better person rather than trying to set the world on fire. Writing a daily journal and nature writing fit the bill. Married that guy I went hitch-hiking with and after nine years we had our first kid, followed by a business, four more children and a thirty-two acre homestead. We were the local renaissance people with our self-sufficient life style, health food store, large organic garden, solar powered home and five happy home-schooled kids so I was asked to write and speak on things like canning, making herbal salves, planning a curriculum, avoiding overuse of antibiotics with kids, etc. Small, local stuff but, I was writing. At some point my family history/heritage started a story brewing. My great-grandmother -- born in 1850 and died in 1958-- was the daughter of an Indian woman that was a slave who had seven children for her master, Captain John Harvey. Interesting. Loved history and knocked around for years studying South Carolina's. Thought I might someday write something about it but would never dream of calling myself a writer. Meanwhile I had an excuse to stay in the literature books, study writing to teach my kids writing. I studied poetry and wrote (on real paper), enough to fill a volume but didn't do anything with them. I enjoyed writing them so that was OK. When the fourth kid left for college I had time to begin serious research. Read a few feel-good books that helped me finally call myself a writer and began writing, with great fear and trepidation, FICTION. I fell in love with the interactions between the Indians, Scots and Africans-- my people-- that joined together in the very earliest days of Carolina. Found it to be a unique time that we have few real pictures of in our minds. I Decided that I had to become a novelist. I love the history texts, could live in them, but I really wanted to see them come alive with characters and stories. I wanted to see this stuff in a format for the enjoyment of those who don't care for academic history books. Last year in June I started both studying the craft more seriously and writing every day. I've written over nine hundred pages; made it to the end. Now I'm in the process of rewriting and editing. Obviously I have a lot of work to do, a lot chopping. I edit and rewrite, study writing and read my favorite authors everyday. I COULD JUST SCREAM at this point because I am most impatient. I can't get this done fast enough. I actually still have another life. I have more stories pushing at me. At the same time, I don't want to be done because I know I will never be in this world as fully as when the creating is going on. I am patient because it has to be right and it has to be good. I'm 52 years old and I think this story started pushing at me when I was in my early 30's. I live in a very rural area, (still married to that same guy after 34 years). We are still very busy and I have never seriously considered going to a writing workshop or hanging out with other writers. But, I think I need the feed back, guidance, help and the communication. Might have something to add too. So, here I am, ready to fall in and become a part of this writing community.
Welcome to Writing Forums, Delphine! I hope you find what you're looking for here, whatever your interests in writing. This forum aims to provide the best workshopping resources on the internet, and to that end we have a few rules which you should familiarise yourself with before you get stuck in. The main section of the site is the Writing Workshop, where members can post their writing in order to receive critique of their work. However, before we allow members to post their work, they must have met some basic requirments. Firstly, you must have been a member for fourteen days, and have made twenty posts on the forum overall (please note, posts in Word Games do not count towards this). This is so that members, when they post their work, have familiarised themselves with the forums and contributed to them (as well as hopefully learned something for themselves). Secondly, members must provide two constructive reviews of other people's work for each piece of their own that they wish to post. This is because we believe that the focus of workshopping should be equally upon giving reviews as receiving them, as they allow a writer to practice and improve their editing skills, which they can then apply to their own writing. Beyond the Writing Workshop, you will find that we have extensive forums for discussion of aspects of writing, as well as a community area for general discussion. We also run periodic short story and poetry contests, which are good for challenging yourself and expanding your skills. If you have any questions or problems, then the moderators (myself, Cogito, Lemex and Dante Dases) should be your first port of call. Any technical problems with the site itself should be directed to Daniel, the site administrator and owner. I would recommend you have a look over the rules so that you know what to expect, and what is expected. But aside from that, I hope you enjoy your time here. Banzai
Welcome, Delphine! You have a really interesting story and it sounds like you've got the makings of a very interesting novel -- congrats on having written so much! The hard part is cutting it down. Liz
Thanks for the welcome and the encouragement folks. Liz, I know you're right. I think it may be a matter of thinking more about what a reader will enjoy than what I want to say so I've been putting on that mindset when I get ready to work. I'm thinking also that I have some areas that, although they are interesting, may not be necessary to move the plot along. Right now I'm frustrated because I've probably added more than I've taken away, in spite of cutting. But I haven't gotten to the areas that I think may need cutting. Maybe I should go to some of those chapters first.
Welcome Delphine I'm new here too so I hope we can gain a lot from eachother. Good luck in your writing.
I'm gonna poke around on the site to become more familiar and take advantage of the wonderful information first. I look forward to putting a bit of my story on soon. God knows I need the feedback. With the way it went down with the Indians of SC it's near impossible to say what tribe my great-grandmother was of. So many are either extinct or mixed with others. Cool that you know!
Thanks for the welcome Andrae. I read on sited but never join so this is really new for me. Good luck with your writing too.
