A little intro about me. I'm 22 (yes another one) and I've lived in southern California my whole life. I've been writing well.. I still have my fourth, fifth, and eighth grade young author books--boy are /those/ funny. Writing has always been a part of my life since those early years and it helped that my dad had a lot of scifi and some fantasy books. In eighth grade I read a few of Anne McCaffrey's Pern series and after that started constructing my own world when I grew frustrated with hers. So since then I've done lots of Pern Role Playing and just RPing in general.
I think it was my sophomore year that I began really writing short stories. I don't believe any of them went over 6k or 7k words though. I took a creative writing class during that time too but didn't really get much out of it. Since then I've been putzing around at one of the local junior colleges in the area for the past 4 years. It was only until last fall (03) that I took another creative writing course hoping to get a bit more then I did out of my high school one. Well let me tell you, that class sort of changed my life. Needless to say I went from not knowing what to do to deciding being a Novelist was the thing for me. I'm not sure if my teacher actually expected me to do it, but on Christmas day, this.. er, well last year (04) I finished the rough draft of my novel. *cheers* 150,000 words and in dire need of edits.
I guess my little intro got a bit long... But I wanted everyone to know about me before I started posting and making an idiot out of myself. *ducks head and scampers back out*
posted
No sneaking allowed! Welcome to the forum. Feel free to join in, and critiquing is a really good way of realising where you yourself are making mistakes. It is one thing to look at our own work (towards which we are emotionally biased) and another to try to analyse someone else's.
Anyway, it is good to have you here. And with a little bit of sweat and tears you'll have that novel sitting on the book shelves of many a store. (Don't worry about cliches: any idea can be considered cliched if done poorly. Do it well and people will buy it.)
posted
Howdy, and congratulations on finishing the 1st draft. Is it the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning? Anyway, I'm jealous; I've only got about, oh, 100K words to catch up to you.
Still, if you need a reader, you can send me the first three chapters. Plain text in email or Word doc is fine; either way.
eli.evans AT gmail DOT com
I promise I won't be any harder on you than I would be on myself.
posted
Indeed, welcome Quarla. Be sure to post the first 13 lines of your work on the Fragments and Feedback board if you would like critiques, etc. Also, as yanos suggested, dive right in and critique other stories that have been posted. One of the best ways to improve your writing is to critique works done by others.
Posts: 1520 | Registered: Jun 2004
|
The Fragments and Feedback foprum is a great place to start. Try to give as much as you receive, by offering to critique. Critiquing is a great way to learn. Taking critiques of your own work with all due humility and an eye for useful advice is even better. It can be hard, but it is well worth it, and it's good practice for being married, should you ever be so inclined.
quote:I don't really want to post chapters up on the forum due to loosing publishing rights and letting just anyone see what I've written.
Since you would only be posting 13 lines (in standard manuscript format, which means Courier 12 pt), you don't have to worry about publishing rights. You'll probably get more response if you do it that way.
Posts: 932 | Registered: Jul 2001
|
posted
Hello Quarla. Interesting pick of screen names. If I had to pick an OSC character I probably would have picked Miro. That's just me. It's not that Miro is anything like me, mind you, its just that I can identify with him in some way--with wanting something so badly but not having the ability to accomplish it. In a way, I'm like that. I have this yearning to be a writer but neither the fianical means nor the networking skills needed to get my foot in the door. Also I'm paranoid as hell. Like you, I'm looking for critique and help in any way I can. And like you, I don't want to post my story. I'll probably post the first 13 lines in the forum because the first 13 lines don't really give away much of the story--at least not enough for me to worry about someone stealing it. Any other suggestions you might have as far as gaining advice, help or good critiques that won't make me even more paranoid, would be appreciated. Thanks a lot. By the way, in case you couldn't tell, I'm new here.
Posts: 6 | Registered: Feb 2005
|
posted
hey welcome both of you! The moderator, Kathleen, actually requests not posting more than 13 lines anywhere here because of electronic rights so you do not need to worry on that account. Fragments and Feedback also has a lot of great and intense posts on why 13 lines is enough anyway to get an idea about a story. I love reading those.
Posts: 85 | Registered: Feb 2005
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
I don't really want to post chapters up on the forum due to loosing publishing rights and letting just anyone see what I've written. But if anyone is interested in helping with critiques that don't involve grammar fixing, gimme a poke or something. And if anyone has any type of fantasy or scifi novel they're working on, or even a shorter work, I'd love to try and help out and polish my own critiquing skills. I'm just not a grammar editor so don't ask me for that sort of help.
