:banana: Fantastic!Quote:
Originally Posted by Maryd.
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:banana: Fantastic!Quote:
Originally Posted by Maryd.
:banana: Thanks:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
I suppose I could add one or two more comments from my sterile mountaintop: With creative writing submissions, it is generally understood that an editor will get back to you, whether it is yea or nay.
This is not always the case with article pitches, however, my writer friends of the 90's misled me slightly on this issue. Sometimes a publisher will write back to you in this instance, even in turning you down, because they are indicating one or two things.
1. "We can't use this but we like you and try again."
Or
2. "You won't get into this market until hell freezes over, so stop trying." Ignore this, but get a sense of when to take a break from said publication.
3. Sometimes they get back to you and you don't know what it means.
And, as a rule, I don't critique. I had my looney fan club mail me book length manuscripts as early as the late 80's and came to have some sympathy for more successful writers on the basis of this experience. However, if, like Daniel, you really want to become a pro one day, perhaps I will look at something once in a while.
Perhaps the blahs will surprise me yet, but so far my week is in blah upset stomach mode.
I love this one, it is so eloquent in its own way.... :) But I wish I had the guts to tell that to some people who are writing to a magazine, where I am an editor-in-chief.... then I have to do so much editing :argue:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jozanny
I think digital technology and the economic changes congruent to that are going to continue to rock the publishing industry for some time to come, but, even allowing for my level of anxiety at certain times of the month, since I am definitely in the pre-stages of *the change*, I was genuinely provoked with a thread last week, to the point that I will not be around LN that often anymore.
It may be that my 1990's virtual writing clique cannot be replaced, which is most likely the case, as the more a writer builds their career the less useful interactions such as these become, but I will stop in once in a while.
It isn't just the simplistic binary oppositions that this community prefers in framing certain issues--it is genuinely, as I attempted to pm some members, that my health prevents the level of posting I used to engage in between manuscripts. In any case, however those of you who create your work perceive it, I hope your good writing weeks are many.
Better week than most.
Found a short poem I doodled around the first of the month and will soon post it to my personal poetry page.
Studying the Waka_(poetry) form and am polishing up my humble first attempt in a Bussokusekika format.
Posted my first .mp3 to the web based upon one of my more humble poems.
It's one of many variations of the same theme; an instrumental of two parts. You may download to listen if you wish at: http://www.supashare.net/zqm42ggf4g98. (Sorry the site's other controls seem buggy [at least for me] but the download function seems to work ok. It's my first time with this file sharing web site.) The music needs a little more work and a little more to the lyrics; then I'll worry about the vocals, somehow. I still need to convert the rest of my .wav files to .mp3, but that's a simple enough thing to do, I just need more time (and to cut down my time on this forum a bit [less reading and playing, lol]).
I'm going to purchase a good supply of yellow note pads soon to begin my poetry doodling more in earnest.
Oh, and after a few admonitions, I think I have a signature suitable for my postings that will suffice for now.
Whoo hoo! I got my mojo back! Last night on an impulse I just started writing. I don't know exactly where I'm going, but I think I'm going to write a series of vignettes comprising one whole novel.
People with cerebral palsy are somewhat congenitally lazy; it is in the nature of the disease. I used to feel very guilty if I was lax in my job duties because of the verbal dreams in my head, and the irony of that is, now that I can write all the time because going back to work would break me (it has been a slow battle accepting that I am on the margins, as I once appeared on a playbill) I am ripping my hair out because I know the odds of making steady sales, and in between kindle breaks, I am literally exhausting myself trying to target my way into selling steadily. I have almost given up on being a creative writer too.
Funny, in its way.
One of the perils of owning a laptop is waiting for Joey my adorably pretty cat to get off the chair so I can plug in my printer to print my rather painful essay about his predecessor, which I am going to try for local markets.
I know I had to euthanize Oliver, but I'm still anguished over it, despite sharing with my rehab psychologist. Guess I suck at death.
my story has by now arrived at the spectacular (at least for me) landmark of 25k words, without me really registering how it got there. i'm finding out a lot more about my own views than i'd like to by pushing the plot forward, it's a thrilling experience.
I wrote about a page for a screenplay hybrid thing. And wrote a few articles for my Bukisa and Xomba pages.
Just if you would consider reading them, Xomba:http://www.xomba.com/user/wadenewb
Bukisa:http://www.bukisa.com/people/Wade-newb
Are here any editors-in-chief... let's form a support group! I had a terrible week managing people around me and I am so sick of taking all their crapp, when they aren't even trying to look diligent! :rage:
My writing week was like every other writing week: pathetic. I don't understand what this problem is that I have with writing. I love it passionately, but it never works how I want it to. I am always falling short. I have a story plotted out in my head. I have characters living in every corner of my heart. I cannot write in out. I don't know why.
Lumiere,
I am only a moderately successful writer, but my best advice to you, is, if you really want to write, get something to bite on, take the pain, and write, then show it to people with experience, let them point out what is not working, revise, and keep at it.
I get rejected all the time, but I also get surprised. On only my second attempt to publish an op ed in my regional paper, the metro editor took my piece and paid me, and when I get back up to speed, I know things like that will happen again.
I think the biggest obstacle for students who want to write is fear of failure, and I fail constantly, but believe in what I'm doing. A poetry publisher once rejected me by telling me I wasn't a poet because I had no sense of form. Well, I have over 300 poems published, and a small collection out of print. I may not be famous, and the selling myself angle may need some fizz, but I am a poet. He was just a publisher with a nostalgia for blank verse and structure, and I got past being upset about it.
So, happy new year 2010 to everyone and how are you people getting on with your writing, I find myself hard to get on the train again after some wild partying... it will take some time... how about u?:)
My Bluebird - (A typical night of writing): despair in searching for ideas facing writer's block which usually comes just in the middle of a night's work when all seemed to be running smoothly; the frustration in attempting to execute those ideas; the drinking due to working alone on terrible ideas, badly reviewed ideas, rewrites, deadlines, colleaques writing better or more entertaining works, the almost nerve-shattered compulsive laughing at the stupidity of the dialogue written as though it were a story dating from about the 1800's in Ireland; late nights with red eyes and the endless streams of smoke coming from a shoulder-slouched body that looks like a volcano waiting to errupt; the heart palpitations, and doubts, about the (nicotine and caffeine induced shaking) hands producing this talentless crap and wondering if the local school could use a new janitor!... the closest position in education available because you finished up college after the degree and two additional years of creative writing assuming that you're going to be the next Charles Bukowski or Hunter S. Thompson; Gay Talese or Tom Wolfe. "Steady job... steady job, (regular pay), get a steady job - buy things!" running train-like through the mind -
First Voice: They all went through it.
Second Voice: Who?
Fist Voice: All the greats. The GREAT WRITERS: Joyce, Proust, Beckett...
Second Voice: Maybe I'll go down to the employment office tomorrow...?
First Voice: I wouldn't bother. Not if I were you!
Second Voice: Why not? ("Need a job... steady job, find work - good pay - buy things.")
First Voice: You can't do anything and besides you're too bloody lazy - look at the time!
You'll be 65yrs in another minute. "GET ON WITH IT!"
Second Voice: I need a drink.
First Voice: So do I. I knew there was a bukowski in there.
"F*** it! Another cigarette, walk a bit... "where's the wall gone? -OUCH!! Browse the internet, find forums: others going through similar issues... nothing better than a bit of mindless procrastination to while the hours until around six in the morning: I'm off to bed - GOODNIGHT!"
My writing week was good. I composed a poem and I began and have half completed an article/essay.
Jermac, where can I find the poem that you received so much criticism over? I enjoyed the line which you had to provide an explication of for some reader/s?
Wiz, for some reason which I can't figure out, someone decided to close the thread on the explication of my poem. The thread was closed after you made your post.
My poem, "The Son of Dionysus" is posted in the Personal Poetry section
I had mentioned here doing a proposal for the Henry James Society, and today wrote the gentleman in charge that I gave up, for now.
If I am really going to do a thesis for my own reward, I cannot play at winging it, and will have to work as hard as I would for an editor who assigned me an article.
I have been upset all week about it, because I'd like to write a paper or two, really, but engaging in critical studies is just as hard as anything else--I did, however, give the man a rough sketch of my idea, and what direction I would be headed into. All I have to do now though is make up my mind about attending the conference.
(Sigh)
I cannot be everything at once, and most writing guides warn about that, but this is my weakness. I seem to believe I can be journalist/scholar/poet/fiction writer and occasional novelist, and exhaust myself juggling these outfits. I am somewhat angry at myself right now.
Strangely, it was a good week for me. I was wondering desperately about my talentless and hiperambitious nature over my dish of spaghetti (my meal just about every day) when i suddenly, almost without thinking, pushed the dish away and started writing a story about a dish of spaghetti. It's small and playful and I'm quite proud of it.
Still, I need that strength to just sit down for hours and write and read and research. How do you guys do? My Power of Will sinks after 10 minutes, with luck.
I too, am getting too old to beat myself up, and if I want to do two long term projects on James and Lampedusa then I cannot get frustrated that they must be long term, and plot my points, as I want to do a good job, for myself, and not just because I could not take on a post-graduate mantle.
I just hope I live long enough and can find the discipline. I am debating, however, giving up my novels, and I did a lot of research on one before search engines came into being. Sigh.
I am an old woman people :)
Well, maybe you can't do it all at once, but maybe you could cycle through them, maybe. Pick one, finish it, then turn to another project. Maybe it's like reading more than one book at once, although obviously more time-consuming. Good luck anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jozanny
gim:
My problem was I thought I had enough experience behind me as a freelancer to whip up an abstract by the deadline, but I started digging up the critical theorists to whom James is important a little late, and realized there was no way I could wing it--and I can do that on regular queries--and not sound confused, but it is okay.
The closer I get to Henry James in his late middle age, the more things I begin to see in his work, and the more I understand why he is an intellectual writer's writer. The man who introduced me to James really liked a paper I gave him on Osmond as the Anti-Christ and wanted me to turn it into an article--but that is too easy for me now.
I have to figure out my focus--and I am oddly closer on that with Lampedusa because Henry James is a critical industry unto himself--but I will get there.
Happy New Year to you too ;)!
Very productive week. Learned a little bit about what I need to work on with my writing. On the other a little depressing since, well... I am so far away from where I want to be, as far as writing skills are concerned.
Made the mistake of reading the beginning of a short story I had written on some toilet paper, (I occasionally do this to psyche myself out: "it doesn't matter what you write, it's just toilet paper for Christ's sake!" It doesn't typically work). I thought "my God! This is trash!" I haven't written anything since. Perhaps I'll go through my notebook tonight and scrounge for bits of quality in hopes of a cheap ego boost. It's exhausting, this business of keeping your ego afloat....
i read harry potter novels, they were fascinating. i don't help stop reading them again and again.
he who starts reading them, need anothe twos or threes weeks to read them.
I'm still waiting for it to start!
:lol::lol::lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by wlz
Almost entirely non-productive I imagine. I got a few notes down, an idea or two, but not a single solid paragraph to show for the week.
:d ...Quote:
Originally Posted by lumiere
I had a wonderful writing week and I wrote a variety of articles particularly on global economic issues and spirituality. In fact these are the articles I have been writing for local newspapers and magazines.
I am intoxicated with writing and I cannot sleep well without writing, yet the problem is not with writing but with what to write at times. While writing is a mechanic activity and I can engage in writing but to write up to the expectation of readers is a challenge facing me.
Against all these challenges however I will not refrain from writing,for it is my cup of tea and I cannot dispense with it at any rate.
Overall I must say I have a good writing week.
Not so well, have a story in mind, even halfway in. Now I feel like I want to tear it all out and start fresh, but for some reason I just cant figure out how I want to tackle it. Tried to leave it for later and start something new for now. But this story just wont leave my head, its stuck like an ear-worm....constipated.
I went to church yesterday.
My writing week is going well. I am working on a final draft of my third screenplay that I am currently working on which is called, 'Chaconne'. The treatment needs re-writing but otherwise all's going well.
Mine, was non-existent... But with the kiddies back to school tomorrow, I should get straight back into it. Can't wait.
I've had a good week. Airport lounges are a great place to write, in a kind of transit limbo at 2am, with the notebook computer across your lap, a large malt to my right & three hours to kill. Hemingway apparently, ( and somewhat unkindly commented upon) was inclinded to take a new wife every time he ventured on a new book. Seems rather excessive to me.
I've currently got two bits on the go:
A novel called "Murder in Accra" after getting immersed in Raymond Chandler, Dashell Hammett & John Buchan.
A series of short stories called "The Portals of Sluttish Time", mainly involving steamy love affairs in different countries that always stick in your mind. I find it theraputic to quickly & honestly get it down on paper & then edit accordingly.
I've had a very good writing week. I composed a poem, and I have worked on a short story in which I an collaborating with another wrtiter. I'm in the process of going back over the poems I've composed in the last forty years and revising them. This is something that may take me years to do.
...grand, aye!
I have a strange question, but maybe a member would be kind enough to pick up on it for me to help me in my research: I am writing a story about an assault that happened to me, but based the main character on a dead woman who I knew very briefly and liked, and might have stayed friends with if her disease had not been so progressive, and the disease in question rarely is, but her genes made it mortal. I stuck her in Chicago for the main part of the action, and yes, I surfed for this and that over the years, but I don't know the city, and was wondering if anyone could tell me about neighborhoods there under significant economic stress that I could stick her in when her condition worsens?
I don't really like discussing my work online, but I would like to give Chicago a kind of thematic resonance, which is why I picked it, and it would not be reasonable for me to visit for a story that will probably not land a home easily.