posted
I am 13. Since third grade I have been writing little short things, stories, attempted novels, some screenplay stuff. My biggest problem is completing things. I start to know the ending and lose interest. Outlining does not work--then I know the story already and could care less. I did mental count today and I calculated that since my start in 3rd grade I have written between 150-and 175,000 words. I think that is fairly proliffic for someone my age, considering I have school and some fragment of a life, but then I remember that none of it's connected, complete, or of any interest to me or the rest of the world.
The last thing I completed was a story for school. It turned out OK, I think. I'm not crazy about it. I'm not crazy about much of anything as far as writing goes. I cannot think of any situation or character or plot to write that is of any interest or hasn't been done before by someone else a million times, or even done by me. (I wasted around 50,000 words of my life on the subject of hopping bodies after death. Not something philosophical like reincarnation, just switching bodies and things like that. Thrown in the trash. And before, probably around 30,000 (these are totals adding up all the snippets and lengthly versions) about kids stuck at a school where they are always watched. Before that, kids-with-powers crap and lazy Star-Wars-middle-grade-type science fiction. Recently, it's been ressurection, and killing without having memory of it. I think I must be crazy, and not quite crazy or smart enough to finish and refine these things, because then I could be at least a decent horror writer or something. An R. L. Stine at least. It is sad when I note he has accomplished more than me.)
It's all boring me to death. I don't even recall why I'm doing this. Why am I writing?
I don't lose sleep over ideas, I have no interest in developing massive worlds, I'm not smart like all of you are. I'm a hormonal 7th grade not-popular self-concious cursedly-mature (for my age, not compared to you guys with your bafflingly large vocabularies and cryptic word games.) I do have lots of characters and things in my mind, but most are tired of me. I'm tired of me, I'm tired of writing.
posted
Even that simple post is impressive writing for 13. Sounds like you certainly have the mind and the emotion to be a writer.
And you're right: it's all been written. I know, a bit disillusioning. But that's not the point. Writing doesn't have to change the world. For some it's an escape, a release, a journey into a place that's free. For some it's power. For others it's an intellectual challenge. People read to relate, not just to learn facts. They want to read your beliefs and your attitudes. The plot is just a backdrop.
What I'm reading between your words is that you have a lot of emotions and a lot of confusion. I'm 28 now, and I still recall 13 as one heck of a ride. Just use those emotions. Maybe you've been writing about things you don't care about because the things that matter are too terrifying or confusing. Just keep writing. Maybe you can't articulate everything you're living right now, but it will be part of you, lying dormant and processing for a few years until you're ready to let it out on the page. In the mean time, hone your skills. Practice and practice. Learn to love it just because it gives you a chance to be free and to create whatever you like. Oh, about horror: you ever read HP Lovecraft?
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Okay . . . I'm going to put a few myths to rest for you . . . or at least I'm going to try.
quote:I think that is fairly proliffic for someone my age, considering I have school and some fragment of a life, but then I remember that none of it's connected, complete, or of any interest to me or the rest of the world.
Yes, that is VERY prolific for somebody your age, and it matters not one bit that none of it's completed. I'm 24, and I've only managed to complete 1 (count it ONE story) and I CERTAINLY haven't written nearly 200,000 words yet. Okay, counting school papers, I have, but my OWN writing, I'm nowhere close. You have a very good career as a writer going. I don't say a start, because the beginning is WAY behind you. You're a writer. That's that.
quote:I wasted around 50,000 words of my life on the subject of hopping bodies after death
I can assure you that you did NOT waste 50,000 words. Even if that story ends up in the trash, that 50,000 words of writing experience that you now have. TRUST me, that doesn't come easy. I don't think you could help but learn something valuable about writing in that time. That's valuable experience, and even if the story you wrote was a total piece of crap, you havn't wasted that 50K words.
quote:I think I must be crazy . . .
Always be very aware of this fact . . . you have to be just a little crazy to write. By definition, you have to be able to experience a reality that's completely imaginary. Then you write about it. That's part good imagination, part insanity. You might be a bit upset about a dark side of yourself you're experiencing. That's a good thing. I say that with no qualifiers. If you're scared by or wary of your dark side, that's a good thing. It means you're aware of it, and awareness gives you a lot of tools. For one, you can control it. For two, you can harness it and use it for good purposes. For three, I would venture to say that no story worth reading has ever been written by an author who wasn't in touch with their dark side.
quote:It's all boring me to death. I don't even recall why I'm doing this. Why am I writing?
This is an easier question to answer than you might think, though it's not very satisfying. You're writing because it's harder for you NOT to write than it is to write. I don't know of ANYBODY who really likes writing. I despise it. I hate it. And yes, it bores me to death. But I have to do it at some point. Yes, it goes in spurts and spells. I have stories that have been sitting around for 5 years in some incarnation or another, and every 3 months or so, I go on a writing binge.
quote:I'm not smart like all of you are.
Go back and re-read your post. I beg to differ. You write better at 13 than most adults will in their entire lives. And any 13 year old that actually USES the phrases 'cursedly-mature', 'bafflingly large vocabularies' and the word 'snippets' has no problem in the smarts OR vocabulary department.
Experience, on the other hand, you might be short on. I know EVERYBODY probably tells you this, but you will be a COMPLETELY different person in 10 years. A lot of the crap that goes with teenage life will be over and done with, and you'll have valuable life experience.
And never underestimate that life experience. Good writers, much like good actors, are COMPLETELY dependent upon their life experiences to inform them. The fact is . . . as mature and aware of your world as you seem to be, you're missing the experience to go with it. Will that prevent you from being able to write well? No. I think you already have a handle on that. Will it make it hard to come up with good stories? Most likely. It will get easier with time, ESPECIALLY if you practice at it.
Give it ten years and see where you are then.
quote:This sucks.
Damn straight!
Hang in there.
[This message has been edited by Falken224 (edited May 15, 2002).]
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I get like this sometimes. I look at what I've written and I start thinking it's all crap on paper and that I've wasted years writing this massive world and this massive story that no-one will ever like and will end up sitting in a draw, it's only mission-statement being 'collect dust'. For me, it's just a sudden lacking in the confidence department. Confidence comes back though, and you'll probably feel a lot better in a couple of days. The fact that you're thirteen doesn't help, though. It's not been that long since I was there, and emotions tend to be a lot more vivid and intense, though in a bad way. Hormones for you. Something you have to remember. You don't need to lose sleep over ideas, or develop massive worlds, or even write very long stories. Many people survive writing short stories, some even make a living of it. If you write for a living, perhaps you should lose sleep, but you don't. If that's your aim, don't worry; you've still a number of years for insomnia to develop. What ideas you have had aren't as bad as you think. This: 'hopping bodies after death', was made in a very successful novel; OSC uses it in his 'How To Write' book. (Of course, I can't remember the name now. Typical!) Kids-with-powers and Star-Wars-type SF is normal for a young writer. Killing without memory is an interesting area, though I'm not sure what you mean by ressurrection.
quote:I cannot think of any situation or character or plot to write that is of any interest or hasn't been done before by someone else a million times, or even done by me.
You're right and wrong here. There are some plots that have been rehashed thousands of times (but hey, all of Shakespeare's plays were rehashes, and look how well he did!). Some characters are rehashed too. But there's always something that hasn't been done. Combine this idea with another in a way no-one's thought of before and away you go. I've waffled a lot, and I don't know if it's helped or not. I hope it has, because I'm going to stop waffling here. I'm just going to respond to a point Falken made, then I'm done.
quote:I don't know of ANYBODY who really likes writing.
I seriously doubt this, but assuming it is true, you do now. I enjoy writing. If it bored me, I wouldn't do it, believe me. There's nothing quite like spinning a world out of your fingertips, creating tiny little facets to it that you know the reader won't conciously recognise but will alter their perception just enough to make the next scene hit better. Sometimes, it's just fun to make a nice character and then bash them around (it's probably quite therapeutic). Before I start to wax lyrical about the wonders of writing, I'll go. JK
Posts: 503 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
The book you’re thinking of JK is Wild Seed by Octavia Butler.
And just because that was her take on body-hopping doesn’t mean there aren’t countless other ones that would be interesting and worth a work of their own, so keep that in mind WriterPLT. As it was said above, it’s different twists on old ideas that keep the writer’s pen flowing (or keyboard tapping as the case may be.) And if you are starting to work your way through some of them at a young age, so much the better. Couple that with a bit more experience and you’re going to find you’re really going somewhere. Experience, which sadly is mostly a matter of time and often a bit of pain on your part, is something I’ve really found to be invaluable. Hang in there.
I’ve got to side with JK on the some people liking to write thing. Yes, sometimes it’s a bit hard to get started. Yes, it can be a slow process. And yes, some days I will fully admit it’s like pulling teeth. But mostly it’s a lot of fun to create and manipulate the ideas and characters, and I find I get a lot of satisfaction out of the process. If I didn’t, I couldn’t make myself do it.
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As far as writing something that hasn’t been written before this is nearly impossible. I know that sounds a little depressing but everything you or anyone else writes is derivative. I try to use clichés to my advantage. I have one story that evolves around a stripper and cocaine addict/drug dealer, but there is one major plot twist at the end which makes it sound even more like a movie you would see on Cinemax at 2:30 in the morning. This was done at least in part on purpose, I wanted to see if I could write a horrible plot, but still keep people intrigued by the characters. I have a big strip scene in the first chapter and a sex scene in the second, immediately giving the reader their money’s worth, but then rely on character to sell the story. My intention was to have usually highbrow people read this story, like it, and not be able to figure out why, but at the same time the story appeals to the lowest common denominator. To this extent I have used the cliché to my advantage. I may have mentioned this before, but read the cover synopsis to a lot of OSC books. He takes some of the most out there plots and makes them work. C’mon a modernization of Sleeping Beauty---if it wasn’t Card I would’ve have laughed my ass off all the way through Barnes and Nobles. Little kids flying spaceships and saving the world from aliens---what?
I totally understand what you’re saying about outlines, though. I write stories much like I read them, wanting to see what will happen to the characters next, even if I have a vague idea. I’ve gone as far if I’ve mapped out a story in my head I lose interest. I know what’s going to happen.
Just keep plugging away. Everyone thinks they can write. (you know the people I’m talking about. You mention you write and they start telling you about their God awful poetry or short stories. Yeah, I’m a literary fascist---sue me) I mean, they know they can talk and they can put that down on paper a sentence at a time. The sentences turn to paragraphs and paragraphs to pages, pages to chapters, chapters to novels. What these people don’t understand is that its a great deal more complicated than that. Not only recognizing, but overcoming these complications goes a long way to prove that you are indeed a writer and not a stringer of words.
posted
Patience is something most of us learn between the ages of 15 and 30, usually because of the boring jobs we do during those ages. I'm learning patience right now and not liking it much, but it is doing wonders for my writing.
I wrote scores less than you by the time I was 13, but I had similar problems. In fact, it sounds like your life and my life then weren't so far distant from each other. The most valuable thing you are learning now is that you like to make up stories and to write them down. Honestly, I've never read a 13-year-old's work that was earth-shattering. My own included. That's because at that age, all of us are learning. So keep practicing. Don't give up like I did, only to find you were on to something grand at that age.
Mr. Card himself told me that every writer writes 1,000 pages of garbage sometime in his life. He also said it was best to get it all out at once so you can write like a genius all the time after that. Heck, if that's all you're doing, I say it's worth the price.
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Hey, don't worry - you're not alone. I'm 15, with clinical depression, slight skitzophrenia, surpressed memories, issues with my mother, issues with trust, the list goes on and on - and I get a bit hormonal too. I don't have much faith in my writing - I'd die if people I knew face to face ever read it - and I've never finished anything either. Just don't think of writing as something you HAVE to finish. Just write to escape from your {big, stupid, ugly, insert other hormonal teenage self-discribing-even-though-they're-not-true words here} self. Not only will you let your subconcious - the juicy writer in you - free, but you'll give yourself a break from teen life. It's multi-functional ;P.
Posts: 79 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I'm not trying to sound like a dickhead, and while I've enjoyed this little conversation I’ve noticed a trend. I thought this was the 18 and over board when did it turn into the whoever the hell wants to post here board? Sorry to offend, but I was just wondering.
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You dickhead. Personally, I don't mind. It's nice to think the years of experience/stress might be of benefit to someone younger.
Posts: 54 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Two things about your feelings of boredom and tiredness with respect to writing:
I used to worry about myself because I seemed to be such a flake when it came to my interests. I'd dig deep into some thing and learn all I could about it, and then I'd drop it entirely because it wasn't interesting any more.
Then I read something in Lawrence Block's column for WRITER'S DIGEST (when he used to do one) about how writers need to be fickle in their interests because they are continually needing to replenish the reservoir from which their stories come.
So it was good that I got tired of stuff and wasn't interested any more.
Second, all writers go through times when they hate everything they write. Nothing is good enough. This can be a very depressing time, unless you realize that all it really means is that you are on a plateau--you've learned enough to make your critical skills improve faster than your writing skills.
If you keep at it, eventually the writing skills will catch up and you'll feel better about what you're writing again.
The way the software is set up here, I receive notification of the responses to a new topic before I get to read what is said in the post that starts the topic.
So here I am, reading quotes about "hopping bodies after death" and having this ghastly image of corpses bouncing around like Mexican jumping beans.
It wasn't until Octavia Butler's WILD SEED was mentioned that I realized what was meant by the phrase.
However, there may be a story in that bouncing corpses image....
posted
First I'm going to answer JOHN. Suppose it's over 18. I admit I'm only fifteen (almost sixteen if it makes you feel any better). Question is, could you tell? Kathleen knows everybody that's under 18 (unless they lied about age) and she doesn't seem to mind. The reason us under 18s come here is because we don't know anybody under 18 that has a working knowledge of how we feel. We're just that screwed up (at least I am, I don't know about the rest of them). I'm betting there are more of us than you realize. I think the difference in boards is just to prevent a million and two star wars-clones popping up. :-D
Now about the real post. I seem to remember being 13 as a time when I really didn't care about anything, nothing at all. I stopped writing altogether (which means so far you're doing better than me) and didn't start again until this year. So feel better.
What they've said about learning something from writing grade-a shit is true. I just edited a story from not that long ago (beginning of this year) and I was amazed by how repetitive and crappy the actual writing was (the story was okay). Then I read something from 7th grade and just about passed out. It was horrible! After thinking about it a little I realized that the reason it was so horrible is because I was trying out new writing techniques and hadn't gotten the hang of it yet. So more or less, you'll get better (I've probably only written 100,000 words of my own free will, about 50,000 of them in the last 8 months).
When you say you aren't smart like the rest of us it makes me almost want to laugh, but that would be mean. You see that's exactly how I felt/feel sometimes. Your writing (strange how you can learn about a person from reading less than a page of their writing) shows that you really are smart, probably a lot smarter than you think. I didn't even realize that I was significantly smarter than a lot of people until this year, when people started struggling ing school and I felt the same way I always have. C.S. Lewis puts it pretty well in the Screwtape Letters. Paraphrasing, "People think that being modest is denying their skills. That's not what it is at all. Being modest is accepting that you have the skills but not touting them around. It's admitting you have them but not making a big deal of it." Just a hunch, but maybe that's what you're doing (I know that's what I did).
About not caring. I sorta mentioned that earlier, but I'll come back to it. I didn't start caring about my writing until I started writing stories that answered things for me. The first story I wrote basically took my personality and split it into the good and evil parts and faced them off against each other. You're damn right I cared about that story. It was me. (It also took place in a school a lot like my own, and I could get out all my enmity towards people(read reps). It also takes time, if you're anything like me I stopped caring about everything by the summer after middle school. I didn't start caring again until one of my best friends started thinking about killing herself. When I wrote a letter (I was already working on parts of it and I sent it as an e-mail) to her and she figuratively 'stepped back from the ledge.' I sat there and screamed 'holy shit' because it's an awfully scary thing when you realize you can write something that will affect people like that (I'm willing to bet you can).
About your not popular complaint (I'm guessing it was) I have very little to say. You're probably wrong. Everybody thinks they're less popular than they really are. Plus you'll soon have high school to look forward to. Despite what everyone says middle school is the ultimate hell, not highschool. Middle school makes highschool look like a field trip.
I babbled, probably didn't make anybody feel better, but for some reason I had to answer this. Now I have to go to school. Later.
posted
Thank you for all the kind, well-thought-out responses. I appreciate them, a lot, and they are helping; the whole process of getting over all of this, however, is going painfully and slowly.
quote:Even that simple post is impressive writing for 13. Sounds like you certainly have the mind and the emotion to be a writer.
Thank you. A lot.
quote:What I'm reading between your words is that you have a lot of emotions and a lot of confusion.
Yes. Various people and situations that have cropped up recently are, at least in my opinion, beyond the scope of what 13 year olds have to endure . . . but in hindsight the friend that did drugs, the homosexuality issues with people, all relationships at school involving females, general self-consciousness (etc.) will seem rather insignificant. I tend to overdramatize things, and have an issue with sometimes enjoying and seeking out misery. But maybe that's a different post.
quote:Maybe you've been writing about things you don't care about because the things that matter are too terrifying or confusing.
Perhaps....maybe likely.
quote:Oh, about horror: you ever read HP Lovecraft?
No, mostly just the stereotypical answer--R. L. Stine when I was younger, Stephen King now. I did read Silence of the Lambs and am reading Hannibal, along with Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House. What would you reccomend by Lovecraft? He was mentioned in On Writing (King), that's all I know about him.
quote:You have a very good career as a writer going. I don't say a start, because the beginning is WAY behind you. You're a writer. That's that.
Though inspiring and kind, can I really call it a career when I've only finished three things and none of them have any chance of selling to anyone?
quote:you have to be just a little crazy to write
I've been wondering a lot lately if I exceed the recommended amount of insanity.
quote:For three, I would venture to say that no story worth reading has ever been written by an author who wasn't in touch with their dark side.
I suppose I have one thing going for me, then.
quote:And any 13 year old that actually USES the phrases 'cursedly-mature', 'bafflingly large vocabularies' and the word 'snippets' has no problem in the smarts OR vocabulary department.
Also, thank you. That's very nice.
JK: I don't have many direct quotes from your post but it was, like all the others, helpful and kind.
quote:though I'm not sure what you mean by ressurrection.
It was a story that involved a boy named Ryan living with a crazy man named Scott who had lost his wife and wanted desperately to bring her back. He did so with some roses, and shortly after, the story died . . . the first version lasted, but it was 12 sbort pages. The other two shriveled up and withered away into meaningless words and characters I didn't really care for.
quote:The book you’re thinking of JK is Wild Seed by Octavia Butler.
I remember reading about that. I'm not sure if it was before or after writing the various drafts of Possession (the body-hopping story) but I was rather apalled to find it existed when I read over HTWSF&F again.
quote:He takes some of the most out there plots and makes them work. C’mon a modernization of Sleeping Beauty---if it wasn’t Card I would’ve have laughed my ass off all the way through Barnes and Nobles. Little kids flying spaceships and saving the world from aliens---what?
I agree.
quote:Not only recognizing, but overcoming these complications goes a long way to prove that you are indeed a writer and not a stringer of words.
The overcoming part has me worried.
quote:Patience is something most of us learn between the ages of 15 and 30
That explains a lot.
quote:every writer writes 1,000 pages of garbage sometime in his life. He also said it was best to get it all out at once so you can write like a genius all the time after that.
But what happens if I never reach the genius part?
quote:Hey, don't worry - you're not alone. I'm 15, with clinical depression, slight skitzophrenia, surpressed memories, issues with my mother, issues with trust, the list goes on and on - and I get a bit hormonal too. I don't have much faith in my writing - I'd die if people I knew face to face ever read it - and I've never finished anything either.
Well, you should have this post instead of me. I'm here complaining about shallow issues and mood swings and my writing depression but you have all those issues, and you're obviously a lot stronger than I am to be able to survive through it all without having pity-party posts like these. So I admire you.
quote: thought this was the 18 and over board when did it turn into the whoever the hell wants to post here board?
I tried posting this in Young Writer's story forum, and it turned into a post about Shakespeare. Go figure. But I will leave if you guys want me to.
quote:writers need to be fickle in their interests because they are continually needing to replenish the reservoir from which their stories come.
This is also worrisome, because I'm not really like that. I get content doing quite little. Psychology interests me, and movies, and reading/writing, but I certainly have not done an exhhaustive study into them or anything.
quote:If you keep at it, eventually the writing skills will catch up and you'll feel better about what you're writing again.
Just give it time.
I really hope so.
quote:So here I am, reading quotes about "hopping bodies after death" and having this ghastly image of corpses bouncing around like Mexican jumping beans.
Hehe, I never even thought about that. Funny.
quote:I seem to remember being 13 as a time when I really didn't care about anything, nothing at all.
I have many periods like that, glad someone else does too. It's not a good feeling, especially when I do start having emotion again and realize I was just empty for awhile. Or am still empty but falsely feeling things. Or something like that.
quote:I didn't start caring about my writing until I started writing stories that answered things for me. The first story I wrote basically took my personality and split it into the good and evil parts and faced them off against each other.
I'm a bit afraid that if I wrote something like that, the good and evil would get together and agree to do terrible, terrible things, and then it would just be a story about hanging oneself off a balcony and having one's intestines drop below onto a crowd of the pretty-boys/preps I so despise and so wish I was accepted by at the same time.
But the idea is intriguing.
quote:Despite what everyone says middle school is the ultimate hell, not highschool.
Yes. YES.
Thank you all for taking time out of your lives to put up with my teenage melodrama and considerately replying. I really appreciate it. And also, it's late, and I'm rather unhappy right now, so I imagine some of the above sounds sarcastic. It's not. I genuinely appreciate everything you guys have said and I am legitimately concerned about the state of . . . everything.
posted
That post is too long to respond to. Just think of the good side: it doesn't get easier with age; you just learn new ways of coping with it. Many writers have said that anything worth writing was learned in adolescence.
Actually, while your emotions are young and fresh and honest, start keeping a journal. If you want to hit someone, just write it down. You don't need to know why you want to act, just keep notes. Use those notes in years to come. Many of your characters won't know why they do what they do. Your own experience will just add to the honesty and the realism of your characters.
------------------ Faulkner: "A book is the writer's secret life, the dark twin of a man."
Jonellen Heckler: "I had come to terms with the fact that writing about something was not the moral equivalent of doing it."
Frederick Busch: "You go to dark places so that you can get there, steal the trophy and get out. That is more important than to be phsychologically safe."
Robert Frost: "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader."
Ralph Keys: "The further writing strays from its deepest sources, the more sterile it becomes. Words skimmed from the surface grow tiresome. Subliminally the reader senses that the writer isn't saying what he most wants to say. He's protecting himself; being prudent."
Henry Miller: "All he put into his book was his skill. And that's nothing. I prefer a man who is unskillful, who is an awkward writer, but who has something to say, who is dealing himself one time on every page."
Thoreau: "You may rely on it you have the best of me in my books, and that I am not worth seeing personally, the stuttering, blundering, clodhopper that I am."
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Oh, about Lovecraft: read anything. It's not the subject matter but the voice that sets him apart. I'm not really into horror anymore. In fact I never was, but his voice and language are still fun to read.
[This message has been edited by JeremyMc (edited May 18, 2002).]
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H.P. Lovecraft’s work is mostly short stories, and you can find them clumped together in short anthologies. I believe one is “In the Mouth of Madness” which my mind is saying is the title of one of his more famous ones, a Cthulhu Mythos story (there are a bunch of these…they are his trademark creation) set in Massachusetts (And then my mind has said that that was the title of a horror movie that starred Sam Neil that had nothing to do with Lovecraft (although there are a great many bad, and a few good, horror movies that do), so maybe that’s not the title of the story/collection. Anyway…). My favorite was actually the one short novel I ran across, which was The Curious Tale of Charles Dexter Ward.
As mentioned in the post above, he’s got a great tone even if the stories get a bit repetitive in nature. Good example of using controlled frenzy in many of them. More refined that Stephen King in my opinion (note: not a King fan), less lyrical than Edgar Allen Poe (another good horror/atmosphere writer of short stories). But heck, if you already like horror stuff, this guys a legend you shouldn’t miss.
CORRECTION: The story I was thinking of was "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," which I read in the collection The Lurking Fear and Other Stories. In the Mouth of Madness is indeed a movie starring Sam Neil.
[This message has been edited by GZ (edited May 20, 2002).]
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Just thought I'd drop in my little ditty since I was reading it over, even though I'm technically not allowed on the 'adult' writers workshop forum.
I must say that as I read the first post I was impressed myself at the way it was written. The... (Mind blank, can't think of the word I want to use)... rest of the posts were no disappointment. I'm only 15 and I'm an aspiring writer (More poetry, because I haven't gotten past the first page in a story since grade 6) and I was almost ecstatic when I read some of the things all of you wise elders were saying.
By far the most refreshing of everything I heard was Kathleen's saying that it is good for a writer to be fickle in their interests. I am perturbed (I'm sure I could have used a more appropriate word there, but I just love that one ) when it comes to continually dropping and finding new interests.
I also concur that middle school is worse than high school. I just got into a high school this year, and it's much nicer. I don't get that much homework, and everything just seems to run a lot more smoothly for me.
Wow, Soule, you're the kind of person who inspires the rest of us to greater things!
[Excuse me if anything I write seems overdone, I'm just practicing my writing and flaunting myself. Thanks!]
~Have a day, eH~
[This message has been edited by Jakaleah (edited May 27, 2002).]
posted
Look at it this way, you may not like your writing and such, but someone else may. I've learned to never doubt my writing, sure I've hated almost everything I've written and I haven't finished but one of them, but people like it. I've had people congradulate me on my writing even when I knew it was horrible.
You look at your writing through a writer/critics' eyes, but try to look through a readers eyes, someone who doesn't write and just loves to read. On the topic of life, it sucks. It may get better or worse, but just have fun with it. I will say the being a teenager does suck, all you want to do is eat, sleep, drink, and get girls (or guys depending on your sexual preferences). Hang in there.
I obviously can't speak for you, but I also had the problem of lots of ideas and writing and never really finishing any of them.
Looking back, I'd like to think it was an experiemental phase - it wasn't serious writer, in terms of directed at markets. It was simply by myself, for myself - and maybe a couple of other people I wouldn't mind reading them.
Nowadays as I try for publishing I realise how valuable that experience was. Nothing needed to be completed. Everything necessary was done - playing with styles and correcting my English, assimlating ideas into the required network of a plot - trying to turn nominal concepts into something else and more interesting.
In other words, just enjoy what you're doing. That's what writing should be about. The pain only comes in when you try to sell in professional markets
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Can you immagine NOT not writing? We are all nuts. I'm over 50 and I'm as nutty as they come, and have papers to prove it. Just keep writing. Every single day. Set a goal, mine is 5 pages a day. (manuscript pages that is, 12 point courier font 1 inch margins double spaced) Writing fixes bad writing. Just keep at it. Copy some old Jules Verne or the phone book. Just write, every single live long day. I wish I had written as much when I was your age
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I read this, and immediately saw comparisons between your situation and my own writing when I was your age, four years ago. At that point, I had probably completed about the same number of things as you: three short pieces. I'd written 150 pages of a fantasy novel and six months later deleted it in disgust. Every week I'd start the next "novel" I was going to write, which I would drop in one week's time to start on the next. Even short stories went half-finished and largely unedited. In fact, the only document I did complete during this period was my journal.
But onto the present. I'll start with the bad news: I don't think this process ever really ends. I still constantly fill my harddrive with the beginnings of stories and scraps of ideas which I later drop. I can't seem to help it: I'm too interested in too many stories to start one and stick to it for months without ever diverging. But that's just the bad news. The good news is, I've completed a play, a novel, about six short stories (three of which I'm proud of), and the same number of short short stories, all of which I'm proud of. I'm currently working on the third draft of my novel, which I've written about fifty pages of. So for the unfocused of us, there is hope. The solution that I found, the advice I can give, is to learn to type fast and have a lot of energy. The novel I wrote was completed in three weeks time. My two favorite short stories were each respectively written in a single night. The idea would come to me, or I would develop it in the back of my mind until I recognized it fully in one night, and write it in a fervor of energy, typing for hours until I'd finished the first draft. I would then spend the next few weeks editing, the much easier part. I know it's not the best solution, but it is a solution, and that's what counts the most. Oh, and if you can't type quickly, write me back and I'll write more about projects I've worked on and finished that I didn't write in one night, and how to keep it interesting. And you should read H.P. Lovecraft, he is by far and without question the best horror writer ever. My last bit of advice (and this is a good one): try writing what you know. I know that this is a cliche, but there is weight to it. Once I stopped trying to write all fantasy and sci-fi and wrote things about real people in the real world, I stopped trying to create cool names and cool technologies and cool settings and cool timelines that lead up or maps or whatever, and focused on the thematic points, on the characters, and on the story that is being read and not the idea that I was getting caught up on.
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Thank you all for the kind words and support and wading through my post! I often read this thread when I am particularly down.
TAD: You struck me as being (or once being) in a very similar situation! Your way of getting out of it is intriguing, but I don't really know how to go about it. And now it seems as if I've completely dried up. I don't even get the once a week novel-starters anymore that I used to fill up my hard drive with. Now it's just lots of very vague images and ideas, mixed in with plenty of frustration, which has resulted in no stories whatsoever. Did you ever go through a slum like this?
BTW, I'm still very interested in critiquing the story that you offered for critiquers on the Young Writer's forum.
I see you found your way to a mountain top after your valley excursion, since your original and last posts were about a month apart, but do realize every life is a series of ups and downs, though some with greater heights and depths, to be sure.
The people with the most level landscapes, however, will probably never write with any depth. I guess the suffering artist is less a cliche than we would like to think.
In any case, at 13, the shadows in the valleys just seem more foreboding, as I remember, and it's harder to believe the mountains are within our strength.
I don't know what your username means, but as a born-again Christian, it reminded me of a card I had hanging in my study awhile back that covered a multitude of trouble:
"Praise the Lord ANYWAY!"
Or, in the common vernacular, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade." (And your writing can be as sweet or as tart as you choose to make it.)
I'm not a fan of John Lennon, but one of his quotes about his music inspired me:
"As breathing is my life, to stop I dare not dare."
Write on!
[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited July 06, 2002).]
[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited July 06, 2002).]
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Actually, I'm not sure Lennon was talking about his music. I may have read that into it. I was probably about 13 at the time, after all. He may have been talking about breathing. Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jun 2002
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I think TAD is right. I still haven't really finished anything. I can't seem to find a good stopping place and so all of the stories (even when I start out deciding they should be shorts) end up being novels. He said that you should write what you know, I agree. It keeps you interested. Even though I'm mostly a SF or Fantasy writer the first serious thing I worked on was neither. It was a story about someone who had pretty extraordinary gifts going through highschool (suffice to say some things happened that don't normally happen, but still). The main character (and the antagonist for that matter) were strikingly like me, but I didn't even do it on purpose (My girlfriend had to read it and tell me before I noticed). I knew the highschool, the society, and best of all the people (I kept writing because of the people, especially the two like me).
The point of that is: if you don't want to write about the boring old real world then don't. But write what you know. I find that in most cases what you know is the characters. The stories I have written/started/worked on all loosely follow my mood throughout the time I wrote them.
I bet this post did nothing to help you (or anyone) but I'll submit it anyway
Uberslacker
[This message has been edited by uberslacker2 (edited July 06, 2002).]
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A lot of things you might not really have direct experience with, but can extrapolate from the things you have done. So you are still writing what you know, but with a twist, or extended beyond the degree you did it in.
In answer to your 'being able to know it through study' part, when writing about ancient egypt you need to read books and do research however when writing about a semi-average highschool as a highschool student you already have everything (or almost everything) in your own memories. I was just saying that it was a good starting place for getting out of 'writing hell.'
Uberslacker
P.S. The amount of research I've done on camels for my latest story is sickening.
You're 13. You're on the brink of a new world; maybe have already entered the promised land that flows into adulthood. Sounds like you have, anyway. I'm spaeking for myself and maybe others also, but I experienced a lot of things going through my teen years. Some things daunting, some absolutely horrible. Whatever may happen, write about it; pour out your feelings onto paper, pixels, or canvas. If it hurts to write about it, all the better. Write it out so that you don't have all these pubescent emotions closed off in the boiler room, only to come to the surface when your wife tells you what a bad driver you are. It's not fair to either of you. I wish I had written more at a young age. When it comes to a time when you leave home and have to discover the world, you will know better who you are and what you want instead of lying on a couch somewhere telling a complete stranger how "a friend of yours" is all confused and doesn't know what to do with his life. Heck, it you're worried about selling it, I'll buy it!
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reps). It also takes time, if you're anything like me I stopped caring about everything by the summer after middle school. I didn't start caring again until one of my best friends started thinking about killing herself. When I wrote a letter (I was already working on parts of it and I sent it as an e-mail) to her and she figuratively 'stepped back from the ledge.' I sat there and screamed 'holy shit' because it's an awfully scary thing when you realize you can write something that will affect people like that (I'm willing to bet you can).
