Open channel: Thank you for taking time in reading this. It may be similar to my profile, but I do intend on changing that through time. A record of this transmission shall be maintained for history. Or until the Bloxars invade us for our galactically sought after female wall sockets. I usually am careful in how I word profiles, because of what I like to call "chat room syndrome" even if this is a forum. Basically I've done so many things, so many careers, been so many places that people tend not to believe me. So, I'm single, and I'm into...oh, wait, wrong type of forum. I do have a sense of humor that even in serious situations tends to show. Life or death or facing homelessness it's still there. So, to the point now. I have always written, at first poetry mostly because of music, and lyrics, in many different styles and meters (and several languages). Heavy Metal, progressive if you were wondering. No? Ok. I've jumped into the deep end of the pool, and have been writing a sci-fi novel with no experience, not even a plot. 107k words and counting, and it will have at least two sequels. I will go into details in the appropriate forum, but the book idea came after my own research in math and physics, and after I designed a few starships, not in the "looks pretty" or has "quadruple quantum Heisenberg lepton cannons with optional peanut butter recoil dampers," but in designing the ship based on my own research as well as continuations of others' work, such as Dr Alcubierre (non relativity violating warp theory). They usually take years to design, and go down to not just each room, corridor or hall but down to duct work, wiring, plumbing, and all in 3D. It’s one of the many hobbies (insanity really) that I've allowed to consume my life. (No, I still have time for that too). So while I like to consider my style to be hard sci-fi, I've found out that my plot is character driven. In time I'm hoping to get some feedback, but at this point, I'm not holding my breath waiting to be published. I'm here to learn mostly, as I'm not educated in the humanities. I have taken some English courses here and there and a poetry meter classes which have helped but I was in for a shock when I delved into the rules. Punctuation comes to mind. If not for some attention to detail, (counting rivets in a starship or learning cartography just so I could map Venus) I would have been up that oh so familiar nebula without a fusion powered duratanium paddle. Ok, I should stop here, lest I start on an autobiography. “Oh my God, he’s still typing” “Shut up, and get back to deck twenty-two. That ore won’t grow tentacles and jump its way in reactor by itself!” “Can’t get good droid help these days. I swear to providence. Where was I? Oh yes…” I’m actually quite excited about joining this forum, after looking at a few others, and deciding that this one may be the best. I would like to publish, but I’m not in a particular hurry to be critiqued so bad I’ll need Betazoid therapy. I do look forward to knowing others and exchanging ideas and teachable stories. P.S. I am fairly private, so my name and other issues such as politics (I hope you guys don’t find out I voted for the M33-an, emthreethreean, guy from M33?) are private for now. I'm here for the literary aspect first, some fun and decide maybe if it’s time for a new career change. P.P.S. I was thinking of coming up with a laser-pen name. I’ve read that so many factors are important in moving books off the shelves from cover art (that I do myself) to gender, both author’s and characters within the story and pen name. I’ve noticed the trend for initials and since my name is an alphabet (both are half a parsec long) so maybe that along with a cool short version of my name. I bring this up now, so I can sign using that name, to get used to seeing myself as a AB Droidmeister P.P.P.S Last one I warp core swear. I have written a few short stories, some not even science fiction. Some just a big ole can of crazy others of the Adult (not YA, Old Adult?) but then again, haven’t most us? The sad thing is that I've received feedback on those and I’d for my literary career to amount to that. Thanks for putting up with it, AB Over an’ out
Welcome to the forum! I love your intro; very creative. Here's our New Member Quick Start to get you started. If you're planning to post your writing for feedback, make sure to read the Workship bit extra-carefully. See you around! -Kat
Thank you. It will be some time until I post anything. For now I'm rewriting things. Found some plot holes, and found my style midway through, so while my initial style might be good for poetry or other lyrical prose, for a novel I think not so much. I do plan on posting in some threads, and getting to know people around. I should post when I'm in better frames of mind, even at the risk of sounding like I'm on powdering my donuts. Reality is that nobody needs to much reality.
Hello and welcome! I'm new myself, but I love, love, loved your intro! I now feel a bit inferior to know that your quality of writing is out there... but oh well, I already signed up and they warned that they would never delete my profile name, so it's out in the wind. I just wanted to say that I agree with you in being private. I'm not here to share point of views on life, but point of view on fiction. I look forward to reading your work when you post it!
Thank you so much, Morgan, I truly mean this when I say I am humbled by that. If you knew me and my ego, well, of course you know it, it only contains the universe. (It's why it's expanding, by the way lol) I do not consider myself a writer. In fact I found that in the other posts submitted I refer to myself as a mathematician. Which is what I used to too (long story, part of that privacy thing). I do have to keep from getting so familiar than I just let things out. Some things I'm perfectly fine with sharing, others like politics I will not get into. I too often disagree, and at the very least just depressed me. I will keep an eye out for your work too. I look forward to reading it. AB
I wouldn't just throw around the "I'm humbled by you" thing to just anyone, especially not me. I am an amateur's amateur, or maybe I just clean their toilets, lol. I always love watching sci-fi but am not intelligent enough to write about it, and so your writing to me is so intelligent and witty and whatever your profession in life, I never think it defines a writer. Sometimes we work to pay the bills, but find our passion in other things, like writing. There aren't enough jobs out there for everyone to do what they love and make money doing it. There are other jobs that have to be done, like cleaning toilets, lol. What I love about your writing style is how imaginative you are and that you can include humour. I have a sense of humour in real life, but I can never implement that in my writing, so the fact that you do just blows my mind. Anyway, don't be humbled by me, I am a nobody in this massive writer's forum, I don't even know what I'm doing here now... I've only been reading intros so far, and I'm already realizing how vastly inferior I am here. I wonder, how will I know when you've posted something? Will I have to keep searching by your username?
Well, I still feel that way. Maybe it's a phase, maybe it's the meds. I don't know. I don't know why you say this about your writing. I got the opposite vibe to be honest, but then again, the smartest people aren't the ones touting it. As far as posting my work, I dont know how, yet. I probably will post something in this thread here. I figure the people that posted here to begin with might be interested and would see the notification. I have a ways to go. I spotted a big plot hole and I'm re-writing, and then after that I need to re-write and fine tune the dialog. Techno babble isn't my issue, but its creating new jargon that can be readily understood. Another issue I have is that retched word count! They say between 90k and 105k. Or somewhere in that area. Im at 110k and I still have an entire chapter to go. A chapter isnt that long, is it? It is when each chapter has 12 or so episodes (what I call scenes) It might be a while too because I have a nasty surgery coming up (spinal, sounds awesome, right?) so either I come out bionic or....well, I'll have more titanium screws in my neck than an SR-71 AB
Harrumphs at the girl smelling the pretty flower...because any want wants to be called you amusing sci-fi person Thank you for noticing though. I do appreciate it. I guess I am feeling quite welcome and comfortable here. Now, all I have to do is FINISH MY BOOK! Bows tilting my head sideways (like they always nod in Star Trek) and beams out
So, I was writing, re-writing, and re-writing some more today when I decided to take a break. I found some older stuff but one stands out even now. It made me think of how to do the cruteek thang...I know I dont meet the time requirment, but still am curious. I figure I'd rather have that shot down and burned at the stake than this novel! That's a short story/essay/thing. It's odd, but I still like it. It's one of those things that I never felt moments of hating it, which seems odd now, after I've felt all manner of emotions regarding my novel. Then of course there's the question if each category has its own critiques. I do have a screen play too that I'm curious to put under the microscope but more to see how well I picked up the format. Screenplay writing is definitely odd, with lots of standards and rules that do make sense. You need to know what's spoken and what's emoted. (Meds must be kicking in, because emoted sounds like what eking would do to eprotect his ecastle online) AB
So I'm sorry I didn't respond to your earlier post in response to me. I somehow missed it with all the alerts I was getting. Maybe I've taken on too much too soon? I really should be writing my story, but this forum has my full attention right now, lol. That and laundry... <sigh>. Anyways, now that I'm sore and ready to take some meds, I thought I would take one last look and noticed you posted something to me last night! How did I miss that? Where did you see the thing about the word count? I've been reading over some submissions and even for the novels, most are posting one chapter at a time. Is your surgery less than two weeks away? If not, maybe after the two weeks, and the other requirements are met, you can post an early chapter or two to get feedback. Just a thought. Or you could submit your essay... but again you have to wait those two weeks. The submissions are broken down by types. You should be able to find one that fits your submission. As for me, well, my sad story continues in that I spilled coffee all over my hard drive two weeks ago and am currently doing all of this via iPad. So I can still write... but recovering my work may be an issue. I did email it out to my husband in pdf format, so it's not totally lost if my hard drive is completely unrecoverable. But it means I will need time to re-enter into Word. I'm having trouble with this site with technical things like creating an avatar, or using the emoticons, so I have a feeling, submitting my work from the apple "Pages" app won't work so well either. So it may be a while before I can submit anything whether I like it or not, lol. It's ok. I wasn't in a rush to submit anything when I signed up anyway, and it gives me an excuse to rewrite my work before I hit the submit button I hope your surgery goes well. And hey, best case scenario, you can be the new bionic man, or Robo-Cop or something, lol! Uh-oh, did I just date myself?
Ha, well, I dated myself too, somewhere I made a RoboCop reference. I think it was about annoying things in sci-fi, one of them being the dystopian sci-fi. I agreed with the exception of RoboCop, because it was awesome. As far as being Robocop, I have to pass. Been there done that. One of the many careers that left with with the taste of peanut butter and sour dill pickles in my mouth. (ie bad for anyone pregnant with odd cravings) I wouldn't worry about the hard drive. You can salvage just about any hard drive, even one that has been shot, or run over by an airplane...(I plead the fifth on how I know that little tidbit) I still dont know under what thread or category the submissions are. I did find out story, and it just occured to me now to backtrack the thread path. Oh well, next one I check out. The problem is that my chapters are long. I go by episodes, which are closer to scenes, but it's not a rule. Then I have from ten to thirteen episodes per chapter, so they can get long. I cant (or wont) split them because of flow and momentum. I have the surgery soon, so the two week thing wont be an issue. I wanted to finish my novel before, but I dont know if that will happen. I'm just preparing for the worst (although there are times when I feel that croacking on the operating table might not be the worst, paraplegic and homeless would be...or paraplegic and homeless would be while I get blamed for it and told how there are so many wonderful social programs that will help, but they dont, because they're useless for somebody like me. I tried and tried. A person can only take so much stress, running around and being put down and stereotyped) So I did write today, and came up with the idea of a new book, so once I'm done with the final chapter of this one, and write an outline to the sequel I will start on that. That new idea is about a reporter that gets a journal. (shockingly original, I know). The journal details research done by either a grad student or a young PhD that discovers faster than light travel. It's not really a sci-fi and the FTL is a McGuffin, although it's something I do care about and can pull off the technical side of it. The reporter finds out the researcher was shot down during peer review, time and time again. Even when he tried going to the military he was shot down. But the journal does show he was followed or at least the scientist thought so, and now the reporter feels he's being followed, so it turns all action/spy/thriller with this reporter trying to find the second journal, the actual scientific notes. (Written after the turning down by peer review. He spotted his mistake). I dont know yet if the reporter finds the log or not, or if he will meet the same fate as the researcher. Some open details there. Even genders etc. It depends on the personalities the characters develop down the road. Ok, that was the more positive note to end on. AB
Well I'm sorry my sci-fi references put a bad taste in your mouth, but happy you can joke about it! That new story sounds really exciting! I hope I'll get the chance to read it. Maybe if you focus on that, all will go well in the OR. Just think about your story when they ask you to count backwards, and then you'll wake up and need someone to type it out for you because you'll be so excited about it! P.S. Did you get my other alert?
No no no! Please, don't take it that way. Despite how I felt that way and still do, I wouldn't take that experience away. I learned a valuable lesson. Yes, unpleasant, as it made me feel that a lifetime of what I fought for seemed pointless, but I am a firm believer in all knowledge and experience is good. I will probably worry or go into a dont give a sh... mood. Whatever happens happens. I had a nasty surgery before. Forty pounds was cut out of me, and I still get the feeling that I actually died that die or should have, so all this, it's just gravy. Yes, I got it, and replied. AB
I forgot to explain where the story submissions are, as I had a hard time finding it myself. One way to get there, is to go to KaTrian's message to you above, click that link, and then scroll down to the bottom where it speaks about the Map to this Forum and each section in blue font is a link to that section. Another way to find it, is simply go to the Home Page. You'll see at the top of this page is a series of light blue chevrons, and the first one is "home", so click that, scroll down and voila! you are in the sections that is described in the Quick Start guide. The section with the submissions is the third one and it's called The Writing Workshop. Below it is just all the categories. Hope that helps!
Its under the dark blue "The writing workshop?" I think I found them by type, as in poetry, screen plays etc, but not by type? (again. Im tired) like sci-fi, romance, klingon opera... Some things I just cannot read, therefor I cant critique, but that is ok, my opinion on YA vampire or zombie stuff would be useless anyway. How does one keep track of the twofer? I wrote one, so does it get logged in somewhere automatically or do I have to use my white board to keep track? I read somewhere that moderators keep track and will ask a forum member to do a review if they have a deficit. Maybe something pops up after the two week mark? AB
lol, Klingon Opera may be under Sci-Fi. I've just stuck to the "Novels" area and found all kinds of stuff there, and now that I think of it, Klingon Opera would probably be there. I have no idea about the two week thing. I just see my date started on my profile and will count down the days...
With my surgery that won't be an issue. I already critiqued something, and hopefully it was useful. Right now I'm on a writer's high, as in I feel pretty good about what I'm putting out, here, other threads, my work. Just give me a moment, I'm sure the crippling self doubt will barge in like a steam-roller any...moment...now... Did I say steam-roller? No. I think it's more like a Borg cube. Your writing distinctiveness and literary flair shall be added to our own. Resistance is futile! Uhoh, I think I'm picking them up on sensors. I might have to go hide in a nebula and power down everything but life support. In other words, I'm off to bed! AB
