I write about my life, fictionalizing it enough so that it is indeed fiction, but my personality colors every protagonist. My professors/editors have labeled my as a deranged fatalist, characters in my stories seem to come away damaged or dead. I don't intentionally do that it kind of happens. I sort of shut down when I write and when I come to I am about a mile away from where I started. Sort of like this post.

I just joined all of an hour ago and I've never been to this page before then so I am very green, don't know my way around so much.

Influences are: Hunter S. Thompson, Joseph Lethem, David Eddings(his contempary stuff), Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, and all of the Russian Authors Whose Names I Can't Spell.

My favorite novel is Edding's The Losers, and Heller's Portrait of an Artist As a Old Man.

I like long walks on the beach and candlelight dinners. Whoops that was supposed to go on another forum.

I'll leave at that.

Take care and Happy Holidays

I also help administrate a young writers' forum named Sleepless Whispers. http://www.sleepless.issexy.com for any who are interested.

Hopefully I'll be spending a fairly regular amount time here in the future (on the educated assumption that my schedule should be opening up after the holidays). You see, it's my new year's resolution to spend a deal more time on practicing my writing. And since my budget won't allow a creative writing class, this (obviously!) is the next best thing.

Hope to be getting to know you all soon,

I've been writing since I was 8. Even though my essays at school never received great marks, my poetry did. I think its because my essays were always too long. (One that was supposed to be 700 words turned into a monster of over 4000. And I had no idea on how to shorten it and still convey the whole story. I gave it in as is. My teacher was not impressed. (Not with the rest of the class essays to read as well)

My name is Joel. I'm a 30+ year old aspiring writer. Hmmm. What else?

I currently work as a project manager for a large wireless company. I also have a side busines selling rare used books.

Oh, I'm not good at this!

Uh...oh! My spouse first introduced me to OSC's Ender's Game. Though I haven't read the rest of the series (I think it's on Shadow of the Hegemon at the moment), I've read Mr. Card's short story collection (which name escapes me at the moment) and have tried vainly to assault his mammoth Harmony series with varying degrees of success.

In regards to my own writing effort, I tried writing full-time for 2 years before giving up. After many differing jobs, writing classes, and general anguish, I finally made a resolution to start a new novel on December 1st, 2001, and mail out the final draft next year. So far I'm in the middle of chapter 2 and am progressing in fits and starts. But I am writing; my goal is eventually to be a full-time novelist. And make mucho bucks. And be famous. And my acne to finally clear.

My name is Justin Burnett. I have loved writing in various forms for at least 15 of my 23 years. I have written three plays which have been produced, co-written a number of others, written and performed poetry, written short stories, essays and reviews. I love the written word. I have also written many songs, both by myself and with my bandmate Byron, in our band "Ticklish Brother" (and I produced our CD).

I discovered Orson Scott Card through the chance acquisition of the book of short stories "Unaccompanied Sonata and other stories", and proceded from there. I have a long and deep affection for science fiction (primarily of the speculative rather than harcore, capital "S" sci-fi).

The last few years I've done pretty much every type of writing except short stories and novel-length fiction. I want to tackle them again, since I miss them. I've never had much faith in my poems, and writing for theatre is rather different again...

Part of my problem is that I'm a fairly strong pessimist/realist, and realize that I don't need another highly engrossing creative outlet whose only payoff will be personal. The work it has taken to make the music even vaguely lucrative has been huge (though it is paying of), and I know that the struggle to get published (other than the few poems I've managed) would be so heartbreaking and (probably) ultimately unsuccessful that it's kept me from writing "impractical" things like short stories and longer work lately.

So. Hi everyone! Enough about me. I'm a really shy person in real life, so if my comments here ever sound arrogant or whatever, please forgive me. It will not have been intended that way. I look forward to discussing with people drawn together by an author whose work I admire so greatly.

<Peeks head around curtain> Hi.

Gulp.

<whispered> "Go on."

<gets pushed from behind the curtain>

Hello. I am sidewayzzzzz. I am twenty.

<runs toward the curtain, but hands come out and push him away>

<turns to face the crowd, smiles sheepishly>

I am living in Madison, Wisconsin. <gains momentum> I am male. I am also an X-ray tech at a local hospital. I'm currently in the army reserves. I have been reading ever since I learned how, and writing shortly thereafter. Some authors who have changed my life are: OSC, Robert A. Heinlein, Pier Xanthony, R. A. Salvatore, J.R.R. Tolkein, Douglas Adams, Robert Jordan, Franklin W. Dixon and C. S. Lewis. Also a shout out goes to Chuck Pahlanuik (sp?) for the book Fight Club, to William Goldman for the book The Princess Bride, and to Thomas Harris for the books Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal.

I love movies, especially ones that leave you breathless, either by surprise (Fight Club, The Doom Generation) or by laughter (Any Mel Brooks, Monty Python).

KWSNI, you have my respect.

I have a couple of poems online at poetry.com which you could find by doing a search on my name: Paul Grover

I also am an extremely lazy person and in fact have the procrastinator's creed hanging on my wall. I would love to write constantly, but for now at least am still soaking up as much as I can from great authors. (I just finished Salvatore's Cleric Quintet, and plan on re-reading Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls)

At any rate, I would appreciate any sort of reply to anything I've said, even via email, so until we meet again,

Love, Peace and Chicken Grease,
Sidewayzzzzz

My first name is Haydn but usually ends up being something completely different after I have told people that I am a British Police Constable. At 13 I read the Hobbit and at 14 I read the Lord of the Rings. I am now 33 and have tried just about everything in the genre and just not found that same sense of the historic anywhere else. I speak a couple of East European languages, love Old English and Old Norse and sound pretty boring up to now! Well, it wont get any better the more I bang on about my life story so I'll get to the point. I write Fantasy Fiction and purely that. I am about 40 chapters into a work of three or possibly two parts and I am currently on the third rewrite hoping to finish the entire thing this year. But I have heard myself say that before! No, this year I mean it. My great ambition in life is to get it into print but the more I work the less I think its going to happen. Anyone know a blind, daft, gullible agent and publisher?

And finally, I am married and have a vewy ickle baby! I write just about everyday. But I also end up with baby sick on me everyday as well so it's nothing to brag about!

I write the way I post, it is either a famine or a feast.

I am obsessed by names . . . no really, I sometimes spend longer working out the names of the characters than I do writting them, the name has to be right, it has to fit.

last bit of trivia . . . I do a martial art which I really enjoy, but I don't believe in hitting people. Go figure.

I'm from everywhere, pretty much, but Oregon always feels like home when I'm here. And I am. California always warms me, Colorado excites, Ohio I shouldn't mention in polite company...but I'm just a visitor anywhere, no matter how long I stay.

Your time is the only thing you really own. The currency of true wealth is love... these - cliches, I guess, to most people - guide my writing like they do my life.

Major influences in my writing are Heinlein, Foster (who produced mediocre stuff but tons of it), and of course the character creators OSC, Niven, and Stout.

It's funny: I always loved reading sci-fi, my whole life, and assumed I would grow up to write it, but I can't worth a crap. I write 'speculative' fiction, I guess, but nothing is futuristic about it - nothing you would normally associate with the genre.

So I hope I can contribute to the group!

The above is the first paragraph out of a famous diary, written on june the 12, 1942. I had to use it, because it is exactly what I hope to get from this forum.

Picking up The Hobbit when I was 13 turned out to be a blessing and a curse. The blessing was that for the first time ever I knew what it meant to read, and have a new world open up to my mind. Prior to that I had been a less than reluctant reader. (John Ronald Reuel, I owe you one.) Following that humble introduction into the genre, I took the greater part of the next 4 years to read The Lord of the Rings, however, a friend passed me a copy of Pawn of Prophecy, during that time, and suddenly, my reading began to get quicker. (though I’m still in the habit of getting so caught up in a story, tasting the atmosphere, which consequently slows my reading immensely.

By the time I had finished the Belgariad and the Malorian, and a great deal of the Elenium, I was in my final years of grade school, and finding English my best subject. My writing folios in 11th and 12th grades were the Highlights and were comprised primarily of creative fiction. During my final Secondary year, I was encouraged to enter my writings into the local Fellowship of Australian Writer’s Annual competitions, and won a joint first prize for the Judah Waten Award for a collection of writing from young writers. I shared the prize with a group of 6 students from another secondary school. Boy was that a surprise. Couple that with a commendation for a short story, in which I was one of the youngest writers, and I began to really believe that I had been given the gift of the gab. (you’ve probably noticed that by now!!!)

Since that time, though, I’ve gone through the usual Pre- and Post-Adolescent garbage you have to go through to be considered a “grown-up”, but I’m sorry to say that pushing on 30, I still have a little wide-eyed boy, who daydreams all the time, inside my head. The fallout of those times, though, was a hiatus in my writing. I began my first novel in 1991, and have only recently caught the bug again, to do something about completing it. I have never really been idle though, just have too many interests. Reading, writing, and not just Fantasy, but Songs, Poetry, the occasional social commentary. Too many interests with not enough time.

Fave authors are: Anthony, Asimov, Card, Clarke, Eddings(es), Feist, Furey, Jefferies, Jordan, McCafferey, Rowling (gotta love Harry!!!), Scott Rohan, and of course, (alphabetically speaking), Tolkien (the God of Fantasy in my opinion).

Saffron Buggles is a character out of my latest story thread, (a Rowling inspired work – never knew children’s lit was this fun!) and looking at the ever climbing word count for this Narcissistic Diatribe, I guess I DO like to hear the typeface of my own voice…

I'm 18, and a student at Roanoke College (in Virginia). I was originally going to major in Biochem/Comp Sci (double major, in the pre-med program) but I decided to switch to English and pursue a career in writing (be it in newspapers, or whatever). I still may do the comp sci thing, but I'm not sure yet.

Most of what I write is about depression, having delt with it myself and seen it in my family a great deal, but I also try sci-fi and fantasy from time to time.

This is really a random thing, but if any of you watch either Speedvision or OLN then you may have seen some of the work I've done (graphics).

Yeah... I guess I've rambled on long enough. Anyway, nice to be here and all... maybe I'll start posting some.

[ Begin Edit ]
It has occured to me that I did not say where I am from. I'm from Connecticut, though I do go to school in VA. I think that would cover it.
[ End Edit ]

I'm a graduate biology student...well, in a manner of speaking. I had some medical difficulties, lost my financial aid, and am now washing buses for a living until I get some debts paid off.

I am apparently somewhat talented on the technical end of language. I first began piecing together how to read from road signs when I was two years old, or so my family tells me. Since then, it's become downright hard to get my nose out of books. I will read almost anything sci-fi or fantasy, and still have some taste left over from my younger days for mystery. Everyone praises my clarity of expression.

But when it comes to actually producing a _story_, I run into trouble. Most of the time what happens is that I use up my plot ideas producing a setting--an alternate history, for instance--and then find I have nothing for characters to _do_.

I try to be honest, to a fault sometimes; I'm way too smart for my own good, meaning I coast a lot in school because I don't need much effort to get along. I like helping people out in stressful times because those are also the most interesting ones. I'm strange. But sometimes people like me anyway. I like games a lot.

I've been writing since a very young age--first grade? Earlier? It was all imitation at first, but even then it was better than most of what my classmates turned out. I have a very vivid, very active imagination and I come up with a lot of ideas, most of which end up lost in my head somewhere. I first got into original fiction in 6th grade and since them I've been doing my best to stop imitating and start innovating. It doesn't work well, but I have a knack for pulling bits out of everything I read or watch and combining them in new, interesting ways, so I guess I'm stradling the line between new and reused stuff. I have a number of short stories and what comes out to be a novelet finished, plus the starter set for a fully-functional trading card game, but I've only tried to get myself published once. Got rejected--no wonder, it was an awful story--pinned it up. Now I have Gordon Van Gelder's signature on my wall! ^_^

I think I'm beginning to get bored with writing. This scares me to no end, because I'm not sure what to do with myself otherwise.

Anyways, I'm 22, and I'm a computer science major in my senior year at a California State University. I've written short stories and essays for school, and I've been told I have a knack for it. So, I've started writing for *gasp* my own pleasure. And thus, here I am.

[This message has been edited by Arcada (edited February 14, 2002).]

I stumbled in here about the same time I started working on my first serious effort, and have found that many people in here have intelligent things to say and that I can learn a lot, so I tend to be around pretty often.

I read like an addict, devouring whole series in a matter of days, and my favorite authors include Orson Scott Card, James Clavell, Frank Herbert, C.S. Freidman, Margaret Weise & Tracy Hickman, just to name a few.

Hmm... what else would anyone care about? I live in Seattle, I'm single, I like long walks on the beach in the moonlight... Think I've crossed over into giving too much info, I should probably stop...

I’m a 25 year old book lover who is working on writing her first fantasy novel. It’s been great reading through the many posts in the Writing Forums as well as the rest of the well-crafted Hatrack website -- very informative and thought provoking.

Out of curiosity, what is the Literary Boot Camp private forum? (I can’t seem to find any information about in on the site.) The title makes it sound like it would be interesting.

Crappy would be the honest term.

Back to me for a sec--I attend Michigan State University (badly). I do computer stuff (and donate plasma) to pay the bills. I like reading and acting and singing and music and playing bass, but they all take away so much time from each other that I never seem to be able to do any of them. And, most importantly, I've found a wonderful girl who puts up with all my self-absorption and scatterbrainedness. I hope to be a part of this community, just to get to know y'all if nothing else. Ideally, I'd like to be a better writer for the association, as well.

My name is Nate Nelson (aka Falken, bob, Phil, Frank, Fred, Tom, Joe, Pete, Natalie)

After spending 20 of my 23 years in Portland, OR USofA I have recently moved to Idaho. I work as a programmer for the Idaho State Police, and I love stories and storytelling.

However, the sad fact is, I despise writing. I hate it. I can think of few things I would rather NOT be doing. But I cannot contain myself. I have too many stories to tell, to many wonderful worlds to share with people, and when it comes right down to it . . . I hate NOT writing more than I hate actually doing it.

So, here I am, trying to nurture the very creative energy that tears me apart. :-(

Okay, so maybe it's not quite that bad, but it feels like it sometimes. And I find I like what I write better when other people rip it apart and I can put it back together again. 'Cause when it comes right down to it I'm a better re-creator than I am a regular creator.

It's good to hear all the advice, all the stories, all the frustrations and jubilations. I hope to have a great writing experience with all of you, if you'll be patient enough to keep dragging me back here. :-) (once you get to know me of course.) ;-)

Actually, no . . . I LOVE typing and am better and faster at it than most people I know. I hate trying to describe the pictures in my head and having them come out all wrong. I have a lot of people tell me that will come easier the more I write, and it does, but in the meantime . . . *shudder*

I love EDITING though. I can take words and reshuffle them around to make something sound better, or different.

I just have to learn not to edit myself 'til I get something down the first time.

But those first drafts. UGH!

Life got in the way for my writing, but I'm back now with a new name and even more silly ideas to write about! or well... this time I atleast have a few ideas that I migth actually start working on if I ever get the courage to get started