Don't judge a book by its cover, don't judge a writer by their beard (or lack thereof). I hope you are all busy as a badger right now, happy new year and all that. I'll apologise in advance for any dribbling lunacy contained in this introduction. I have been travelling the world in the name of 'research' since I dropped out of college; immersing myself a little too deeply into the hellish debauchery and volatile chaos of a life on the road. A wandering gypsy nomad. I had come to the conclusion that in order to write and tell stories authentically you need to experience life first hand. I went looking to find the root - to find the reality or some unknown truth to people. I wanted to see past the severed vein of civilization; spilling pure primal, guttural instinct upon the streets of South East Asia. Past the dilated morals, the stain of tragedy in the peoples smiles of the Middle East. Past the liquefied courtesies of society across Korea. I wanted to see humanity peeled away to reveal base animalistic needs and wants. Bare, exposed, like the electrical and telegraph cables of Eastern Europe - sinewy muscle tissue, knotted and coiled and naked and raw. I wanted to get underneath the dirty fingernails of behavior; the carefully constructed concepts of our western world, all the rules and pleasantries that has kept us from raping and ravaging and tearing each other to pieces in an orgiastic frenzy. The Road will cripple your mind if you are susceptible to such thoughts. Lose yourself in the vacuum and you will, inevitably, start murdering with wild, gleeful abandon - in broad daylight. With a smile on your face. Reformed cannibals off the wagon. Instinct and primeval blood, clotted for centuries, flowing freely once again. A terrifying prospect, a frothing frenzy of blood and gore and indulgence. Consequence as foreign as their conspiratory languages. The iron filing taste of blood in your mouth, a burning effigy of sanity, blurred and distant. I had gone rogue, it was all too Colonel Kurtz, until an encounter that sobered me... He was too far gone. Smiling, gurgling playfully, swinging the shard of steel in an almost ironic manner. His body, like mine a few moments before him, was a marionette at the mercy of the Gods. His eyes rolled, head bobbed, his teeth ready to tear the flesh off my bones. A serrated set of naked pistachios - relics from a once worn humanity, now ashen and sinister in their decay. Paranoia started to dig her yellow teeth into my skin. I felt my faculties start to abandon me. Sweat was the first deserter. Beads of perspiration jettisoned themselves off my forehead like treacherous lemmings, the cowardly minerals leaving me to deal with this nightmarish scenario without them. "Get a hold of yourself, look at you, you're an ungodly mess man." I wasn't sure who I was talking to -him or me - in this 6 by 4 metal shack in the middle of a dense jungle up a mountain. Just a room with a hole, just a hole full of bad guts and regret, just me, and a copper skinned crack maniac waving a machete. This was the moment I realised it was about time to collate my research and start working on the stories. So for the last couple months I have settled in the North of my native England and have been feverishly developing my material in some kind of sweaty panic that my moment has passed. I look forward to developing my unwieldy style with all of your tasty knowledge and wisdom, to focus and refine my freewheeling attitude. I need some serious help with grammar and form and style and trying to hold back from writing like I talk. Concentrate the energy, restrain and refrain from an absurd tendency to gravitate toward awkward alliteration and overly long, meandering sentences with bad punctuation and pacing. See you in the trenches
Wow! What an introduction!! I found much of what you said went over my head...but gathered that you have a beard and have been traveling extensively beyond Western civilization. I can't wait to hear some of your stories and findings. I'm wondering in that mumbling you did above, are you stating a Thomas Hobbes like view, that man will inevitably be evil if he is left without law? I'm sorry...I didn't really read your post all that carefully, and probably don't know if I even summarized TH properly. But anyway...welcome. Sounds like an interesting life you lead.
Welcome to Writing Forums, Luke! 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. 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
Wonderful. Excellent. This is exactly what excites me about this forum. Knowledge and references and sharing of wisdom. Lovely. Indeed. Thank you cp, I'll look up this Hobbes fellow, sounds like he has some interesting theories. PS still can't shake the Sock Collector story from my thoughts. I really loved it. Poor old Mr Rodrigo. You going to put another draft up? I for one would love to read a polished shiny new version. Anyway, pleasure to make your acquaintance.
Oh, why thank you. I perhaps will put up a new version. Did write a little something after your comment. Enjoyed how you wrote in short sentences there. Already getting an idea of your voice...Looking forward to some of your works!
Talk about making a first impression. Your prose is very intriguing; it's practically a child grabbing for their mother's hand, how intensely it seizes you. And the man referenced by capturedpotential - Thomas Hobbes - essentially argued that a strong, centralized government is necessary to protect its citizens from the base nature of humanity. Examples from fiction and real life where 'Hobbes Was Right' can be found here.
