I HAVE A HUGE PROBLEM, & I NEED ADVICE BADLY!

Thanks.
Would you look at that...
A positive response!

 

No problem.

 

I told you this would happen. People here are very sensitive about their writing and writing potential. If they feel like their toes are even indirectly being stepped on, heads will roll. You see it happen on threads all the time. Go take a look at Italics for Thoughts if you don't believe me.

I for one feel your spirit refreshing.

 

Thanks. Good word choice.

 

Hi James, where are your stories? I will happily read them as long as they aren't massive. I tried to find them but couldn't see anything.

 

Oh thank you they are on my profile page under my postings I believe
workshop entries.

They are not too long. There is 15 short stories in all good in length and pacing,
all with different titles and a few excerpts from a novel.. That's all.

Thanks again.

note- my fifteen stories are not finished yet and I'm still working on them.
That's actually what I've been doing today.

 

You've been working on them for 18 years?

 

Not trying to be harsh, but who says you have talent? I'm not saying you don't, but I hope you have some sort of outside indicia, beyond unpublished materials. We all have that stuff. And even if you do have talent, who says your mother has to like your stuff? Maybe it's not her cuppa. Find a target group that would likely appreciate it, and write for them, develop this talent.

 

One of these days I'm going to rehash the short story I wrote about my space Legos in elementary school and tell people I've been working on it for thirty years.

 

My sister a few friends and some former co-workers of mine are a slice of not toomany
people who have stated that I have talent, but yeah that's about it.

In terms of how I look at it, it may apply more to my drawing than my writing.
I'm also an artist.

 

I suppose if you've been thinking about it in between it counts as working on it.

 

Those old stories - your dad was mighty fine and all that - and I understand the poignancy - but let them go, move on to new writing, indeed even re-write one of the old memories.

You're 35-ish, peak writing age. Now is time for your good stuff.

Why worry so much about the script? Why not a life-write of 1000 words to begin with. Imagine the buzz when a couple of guys here say 'you really moved me,' and then the little magazine in MA - when they say, 'I really like your writing.' That 'd give you a lot of satisfaction.

 

the short stories are just blog material really.
I even have pictures that I'm going to post in between the stories themselves
such as my pet frogs and snakes and crap like that.

As for my screenplay, I can't just stop writing it cold turkey and go and focus on something else.
I have an ideafile that is packed so right now I have to push through and get my script done
as well as finish other dimensions of the work in which I'll use in the marketing of it.

After that I may go back to my novel, write another screenplay, a sequel to my
current screenplay or even turn my current screenplay into a novel as well,
the options vary.

 

Threads like this are the reason I come to this forum. God bless you all.

 

Jeez. I get the financial thing but what's wrong with emotionally supporting him?

 

Well, IF I were financially supporting a child that I felt was able to support themselves, my resources available for emotional support would probably be fairly depleted.

But I'm not clear on where the financial support idea came from; if anything, it sounds like the son here is supporting the mother.

All that aside: Not all mothers are supportive. Mine certainly wasn't. I still deal with a faint underlying resistance to writing based on the certain fact that if my mother were still alive, and I had any success in writing, my mother would have been absolutely furious. She would have hidden it under a sugar-infused veil of passive aggression (imagine poisoned cotton candy), but, yeah, furious. There's still an irrational feeling that I owe it to my mother to fail in all creative endeavors, because she failed in hers and would therefore expect me to fail in mine. That feeling is now pretty much stomped to pieces, but it still tries to come back to life now and then.

Depending on a parent's support is never a great idea.

 

I don't think many mothers would praise their thirty-five-year-old son for doing whatever he felt like doing instead of bothering to support himself. The OP later clarified that he, in fact, was supporting his mother, not the other way around as it first appeared. With his savings from previously working in a restaurant...

 

I don't count unfinished things in my roster of work. Unfinished things don't really count for much of anything. I guess you could call them practice. I'm with @big soft moose, over a dozen things in the works is a sure sign of procrastination and can easily become overwhelming. I don't know if I'm remembering correctly, but didn't the OP say he wrote these 15 story starts like 20 years ago? I would probably let those ones go and work on new stuff or something you are more likely to finish.

 

He's 35 years old man. If he still expects his mother's support - there is something wrong with him. He's the one who should support the old woman.

 

Pipe down @Drackemoor, we got the motel covered x

 

Poor child, first post and (s)he's being put in line by the legendary @matwoolf

 

I gave him a LIKE. And like I said once we have the old lady freed from the refrigerator he can, she can say what she likes, over, out, wilko.

 

My mum isn't interested in my writing but she laughs at my jokes, so swings and roundabouts.

 

At least she takes you out.