I like being polite, so I'll introduce myself : I'm a teenage girl of 17 who loves writing, but I won't post anything, I'm just here to read what you guys made, and to try to give you constructive comments, it always helps improving. Here's a long story of why I've come here, so you shoudn't read if you're not patient or if you can't stand seeing spelling insults. I warned you ! Remember when you actually thought in French, in your mother tongue, your native language, the one you grew up with, the one you listened to when your mother was singing you songs? Because I do not. I don’t remember. And how am I supposed to look for some French words from a distant past when all that come to my mind is a bunch of English words caught in English structures? I have no idea. There are so many people in this world who feel like they weren’t born in the right place that I wouldn’t be that original if I said I was convinced I wasn’t born in the right place too. It’s a little bit of shame here, because my country is pretty cool. Come on, we’re talking about France. Living down here is quite okay, isn’t it? Big houses, big gardens, some poor people lying on the sidewalks, I concede, but any important survival problems. My concern is the language. It’s always been the language. Would it sound awkward to anyone if I told you that I had always felt like French weren’t the language I was fated to speak? Of course, I love it. I love its wonderful irregular verbs coming out as if the conjugations themselves weren’t hard enough to learn, its grave tone, its uncountable mute letters … but all of that doesn’t feel like home to me. I can’t help thinking in English. Oh, I make a lot of mistakes because I didn’t have the luck of being raised among English people, and I totally assume it now even though I’m trying hard to improve. English is a passion for me. Do you imagine wandering into the darkness for a decade searching for someone who could actually understand you, guide you, and express how you feel? Because it’s pretty much what English is to me. My special someone. One day when I was ten or eleven, I switched on the television and discovered some show my mother was watching: I couldn’t understand a word these people were saying, but I found myself lapping up everything they said. Their accent sounded normal. The way they were ordering their words sounded normal as well. It was what I had secretly dreamed of my entire little life. Feeling something. Being moved by the beauty of a language no matter what the content is. I realized then that there must have been some mistake. Maybe I had been kidnapped as a baby, or maybe my parents were spies sworn to silence by some secret agency, forced to speak to me in French, but Moliere’s language wasn’t mine. That thing on the TV was my language, the only one I could understand with my heart and not my brain. So now I look like a crazy disturbed child affected with an outrageous personality problem, and I wish somebody could at least try to comprehend, but let’s go over it. I wish I was born in America, sometimes. I swear I could have been a really, really good citizen, a writer or something – it’s not too late for that, but it will take me years to write perfectly enough in English to intend to create my own book. I would also have loved being a British girl. To be honest, they have got my favorite accent: the way they pronounce some letters is so funny! Let’s be realistic, I’m a French girl who rejects her mother tongue because it’s too icy, too platonic, so is there anything I could love more than the British accent ? Anyway. Australia would have been fine too. Basically, as long as I could have been born in a country where I would have learned English, I would have been the happiest woman in the world. But I’m from France. And I’m not the happiest woman in the world. I’m not even a woman; I’m just a child pretending to be growing in her parent’s eyes. And the pursuit of happiness has become a terrible thing to do, these days. So I’m here right now telling you something went wrong with my birth. If those sounds I hear from a distant country are mockery, I completely understand it. Do I believe I am the only person in the world who thinks her life sucks? No. But I love being spectacular, so let’s just make it as if I was this new fallen-from-nowhere girl with her big stubborn dream of learning English in order to become the person she’s sure she’ll become if she fills this last missing piece of the puzzle. So, enough about this annoying story about me. I love reading all kind of things, poesy, short stories or novel, and I admit I have a big crush on historical works. I'll be glad to read you anyway. That's it, and huh ... greetings !
("...and how well you evidently write from a background that you have expressed so clearly too..." went the goblin sharing that view from the outside perhaps, yet where somehow not belonging seemed such a fresh advantage, continuing "...nah, you don't need to write perfectly neither, I don't for sure, but just you'll need to write pullingly instead, why, because it's not because something is ever written perfect on the page that make it pulling now, no, it's because it pulling in the minds eye that makes perfect upon reading it...", in fact, the goblin couldn't write like all those humans did anyway, and yet here he felt that it was his imperfections that somehow gave him his individuality here, adding "...so you'll write with us won't you, I mean more readers here than most elsewhere, and all you have to do now is just entice those readers towards your pen by way of your posts...", and with that the goblin welcomed N&N with open arms)
Welcome to Writing Forums, N & N! 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 requirements. 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. The requirements of the Writing Workshop don't apply to the contests, so new members are allowed (nay, encouraged!) to get stuck in and enter! If you have any questions or problems, then the moderators (myself, 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
