Any writers in here?

[Brandon Pilcher]

I know this forum is geared more towards visual art, but I consider writing to be an art as well, so I thought a topic such as this would be appropriate here.

Right now, I'm working on a fantasy novel. I have completed three chapters so far and I am about to finish the fourth one. It's about three guys who end up in a parallel world populated by dinosaurs. If anyone asks I'll share a few excerpts with you.

Anyone else in here who enjoys writing?

[ShroudStar]

Here here! :)

I've been writing fanfiction for a long while and I have started stories of mine. I'm currently doing research and illustrative/conceptual work on a current story before I write it. Sometimes, I'm better with words than with a pencil or brush. But who doesn't love a good yarn? I like reading them, but I like to get mine out of my noggin, too.

[Brightdreamer]

I write stories almost all the time, in my head or on paper (make that a word processor.) I just can't seem to figure out how to finish them... or make them interesting...

[Mordus]

Guilty as charged. I make a regular habit of typing short stories of a rather horrific fashion. I will post some if someone wants me to.

[vasherai]

I used to really enjoy creative writing but as the years went by I just lost focus on it. :(

[Baron Impossible]

Nice one. Keep going and finish it, don't be tempted to give up and start another because you think of something better. It's a good feeling to be able to say you've written a fell length novel. Very few people can honestly claim that.

[Sepulverture]

Another one here, or rather used to be.

I haven't actually WRITTEN anything for a long time... Although I've drawn a fair bit of design sketches for stories that I fully intend to write after a while.

[MrParker]

I suppose I could call myself a writer. I'm trying to to finish a novel that should have taken three or four months to finish, but is dragging into the sixth month. I'm up to 70,000 words. Only another 30,000 to go.

It's like grinding characters in World of Warcraft, but there's actually an element of fun to it.

[OmenSpirits]

I'd pursued writing for 8 years. I've been published in the short story format about 4 or 5 times, and used to be a member of the Mystery writers of america & the private eye writers of america for 8 years. I ran a webzine that published modern as well as classic pulp fiction from noir to fantasy to westerns for 2 years. I was on my way to finishing my second attempt at a novel when my illustrative skills started evolving to a productive level.

Stamina is needed to finish a novel.

[Jonas Heirwegh]

Anybody knows where I should start to become a decent writer? Are there any good books on how to write stories?

[MiniGoth]

Anybody knows where I should start to become a decent writer? Are there any good books on how to write stories?


www.absolutewrite.com

Think conceptart for writers.

Books:

The Elements of Style
Self Editing for Fiction Writers
The First Five Pages
The Art and Craft of Storytelling
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves
Stephen King's On Writing

Dozens of others, but that should be a good place to start.

[Farvus]

I actually want to go back into writing just to stimulate my imagination a bit more. There are times when I have more ideas while focusing on story rather than when I try to draw some stuff.

[comixnut]

Yeah should not really call myself a writer because i have not done it in a while but since i do enjoy it and want to get back into it, i shall :D - :Sticks hand up: ME! :D :D

[Tagtraum]

I am!
But sadly I haven't been writing anything for nearly a year ... Have some kind of writer's block, that's why I started drawing. I have the feeling that it's nearly gone so I'll maybe start writing again soon.
I did about a dozen unfinished attempts to write a novel, mostly fantasy.
Anyone want to share extracts or summaries? (I won't steal anything, I promise!)

[Cherry_Cheesecake100]

Yup, just finished the first draft of my book, and am plodding away at the second. It is both fun and torturous.
I work in retail and since it's post Christmas it's pretty dead at my job, so I end up writing a lot in a notepad between customers.

[Black Spot]

I used to write a lot, but I haven't for a few years. Still got that story in there almost ready to write out. Ironing out the cliches and still making sense is an ongoing project.

[Ilaekae]

I write a good bit...or used to. Don't have a lot of time right now, so a few projects are shelved. Most along is a 300-page reference book on counterfeit stamps, also have a three-part novel in works as well as approximately 30 short stories for graphic novels/comics.

I've written/published over 300 articles, mostly political, technical or satire/humor...and one book a while back with a co-author.

I think if I return to writing on a large scale, it will all be art/city planning/architecture oriented with the exception of the for-fun fiction.

[Ryuartyi]

I used to be a writer, but my desire to turn it into a comic kind of killed the novel writing part of me. If I don't make it in the comic industry, work in concept art and don't have time, I may make it into a book.

Practicing art has been killing my writing drive so hopefully when my art gets better I'll get more time to write.

[Mordus]

This may a bit arrogant of me, but I thought I might kick off some sort of exchange of extracts. Maybe this place could be a place for CA.org writers to chat and share work? In any case, an extract from a short story of mine concerning creatures of the depths:

Shocked, he reeled in his catch. Slowly, something came out of the icy waters.
A writhing, a pale body thrashing. Spitslick muscle squirming in the depths. A dead fisheye, like some lesion upon the body. A flash of spasming raw red. A stunted head, blunt and caved almost. Tiny glimpses of some new breed unseen by Hagfen men before. Jonas leaned forward, eyes gazing with gruesome fascination.
Josiah kept hauling inwards, but the net was so full of flesh and writhing bodies it was taking a long time in coming. Finally the water surface was broken. A long flash of corpse-like skin, two black and blank eyes, a gaping bloodslick hole for a face, dotted with hooked fangs.
This abomination collapsed against the deck, thrashed and died.
It was like unto the eels often pulled from the depths, but if it was eel, it was some deeper, older breed whose like had never known sunlight. Its skinless lips, bloodless coloration and dead eyes brought to mind some vile aquarious maggot or leech, but of a greater stature by far than both. It was evidently strongly formed, thick and muscular, the length of a mans arm. Its long grotesque body was bloated with dark red- a full crop of blood for this wormlike beast.

[Twisted_and_Tainted]

Yup. Writing and drawing go hand in hand with me. I'm mostly inspired by the likes of Mervyn Peake, who used to illustrate his own stories and those of others. Fantastic stories, might I add..

Working on a number of stories at the moment - the two mains ones are a gritty drama and an epic sci-fi saga.

[Crawley]

My wife and i are writing a book. this is my first writing experience. 18 chapters done so far and posted to our blog. i think we are over the hump, at least for this draft. it's a third person memoir and it's strange to write and read about yourself as a character. I certainly wasn't myself during the time in question, so it's even farther dissociated from myself.
We've been writing for a year now, following my nervous breakdown. It's kind of a compulsion for us, something we feel we must do. it's really bringing us closer as a creative team. i also realize more and more how much she rescued me.

[OmenSpirits]

This was my brainchild.

www.blazingadventuresmagazine.com

[Falchion]

Currently writing and drawing two comic concepts. Yep. And it ain't goin' nowhere fast. Mostly because of writer's block since if I can't write it out, how the fuck am I supposed to draw it?

[FourTonMantis]

I've always wanted to write science fiction, but currently my writing has been exclusively focused on metal reviews on Metalunderground (www.metalunderground.com). Check it out! I'm tankakern over there.

/shameless plug

[Lightship69]

Hi Guys

I too am trying to write, and draw/ illustrate at the same time. I am doing a series of six childrens picture books approx 32 pages total.

Set in 1950's rural english village, Gnome characters living and working around and against the big folks using magic, herbs little machines and a lot of mistakes!!

All good fun, and I can test them out on my own kids (a tough audience!)

[tobbA]

I used to do it a lot. But it sorta faded... I guess trying to take art more seriously doesn't leave enough room. And I don't know, I kinda lost my muse or something. Heh..

Although I could never finish anything. I usually just got a few chapters, or even pages, in and then I lost interest...

I did win a contest back in school for best "short" story though. Heh, which meant a fantasy epic crammed into ten pages :P

[Ryan K]

Here's some writing tips from Vonnegut - (thought it would be a good place)

Kurt Vonnegut:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.


And Jack Kerouac (a bit long, but interesting read... after all, we are talking about writing.:))

Jack Kerouac:

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside your own house
4. Be in love with your life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

[nofu]

I like to write but the thing is I'm not very good at it :D A lot of the times they're more like chronicle too and I rarely let anyone read them. It's just something fun I can look at 5 years from now and laugh. Sadly with life getting in the way more recently I've had little time to write lately although I'm brewing a short novel atm. I have the ending down and the beginning, now I have to connect them.

[Baron Impossible]

Two books I bought years ago I found pretty good (despite their titles) were "How to Write a Million" and "More about How to Write a Million". Loads of info and although sometimes I found the examples clunky there's a huge amount of information in there about the actual writing process. It doesn't deal with presentation and publishing, that's another set of books in itself.

[MrParker]

I finished the first draft of my novel yesterday, 91,000 words in about five months. I didn't get it done as fast as I hoped for. Now I just have to turn it into something worth reading. Another six months maybe, if all goes well.