nico1908 | Entries tagged with writing

"When will people learn the difference between laying and lying. You are lying on your bed, not laying. You lay something else down, but you lie [yourself] down.

Who or whom: It's whom did you see, not who did you see. It's who did this, not whom did this.
Answer the question in your mind. If the answer is him, it's whom, if the answer is he, it's who.

Its and it's. If they are 2 words, it's it's. If its meaning is belonging to it, it's its."

Source here and further explanation here.

When I click on "original fiction" in my interest list, I get a looooong list of users who, supposedly, have an interest in, well, reading or writing original fiction. However, when I visit their LJs and look either at their user info or their latest post, 99% of them read or write fanfiction.

What the heck???

Current Mood: frustrated

Last month, Actias luna, my dear beta for "Found, Never Lost" (which is largely an info-dump but may be interesting if you want to see a beginner progress from the typical 3rd person omniscient to a limited 3rd person POV), suggested we start what I like to call a "no pressure prompt exchange".

It goes like this: we take turns picking a prompt at the beginning of each month and at the end of the month we exchange our results, whatever they may be - drawings, poems, lyrics, paintings, fanfiction, doilies, short stories, novels, needlepoint... - and in whatever stage of completion (or lack thereof) they may be.

I volunteered to pick the first prompt. It arrived in the form of a message on the back of a Dove chocolate wrapper and read, "Go ahead - have another :-)". I successfully resisted the urge to take the prompt literally but have been literally struggling with it.

I typically write longhand first and then do the first major edit when I type up the material - which results in frustratingly little useable lines; sometimes a whole page of scribbling and crossing out and re-writing yields just a paragraph (if I'm lucky). And then I fuss and fume over it, find it horribly cliche and wonder why on earth I think I may have anything to say that is worth putting in writing.

So here is my question to you writers out there: Is writing a pain or a pleasure to you? Do you wish you could plug your brains into the computer and make your thoughts flow into Word or does the process of typing do something for you? Do you need a certain place and set of mind to write or do you just sit down and type up whatever passes through your head (which in my case seems to be hot air most of the time)? Do stories just materialize before your inner eye or do you have to chip them out of the bedrock of your imagination? - Just wondering...

I'm also wondering why the LJ cuts don't seem to work properly...

... even if you're not familiar with the Buffy fandom. I have no clue who Donna and the Doctor are, but it's funny nevertheless. Go read: http://nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com/1402415.html

Current Mood: amused

I just stumbled across this when I googled for "types of heroes":

"The Chosen One: must typically fulfill some ancient prophecy and then saves the world, frequently has Jesus complex. Typically requires the help of a Wise Old Man or Elderly Martial Arts Master to fulfill this destiny. Almost always of apparently humble origins. Requires multiple sidekicks, often with radically different skills. (...) Almost always the central character."

How spot-on is that?!

Prophecy? - Check
Saves the world? - Check
Wise Old Man? - Yep
Humble origins? - Check
Multiple sidekicks? - Yep
With radically different skills? - Hermione
Central character? - Check
Jesus complex? - DH!

Current Music: No More Heroes

One of my favorite threads in the "Writers' Corner" on the Fiction Alley message boards is "Love Scenes Cliches". This post was especially funny:

( Read more... )

Current Mood: amused

Dear Pat asked if I would like to archive my stories on Skyhawke and put a good word in for me: I was very touched to read that she considers me "an excellent writer, with a keen eye for keeping the storyline canon".

So now I have a Skyhawke account, which makes me indecently proud - and anxious to write up to everybody's expectations.

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: Home

"[Writing] means revealing oneself to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind… even that degree of self-revelation and surrender is not enough for writing. Writing that springs from the surface of existence – when there is no other way and the deeper wells have dried up – is nothing, and collapses the moment a truer emotion makes that surface shake. This is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough."

Franz Kafka

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Home

Here is why I can’t write on the computer: I love the sensation of pen gliding on paper. Swiftly and smoothly in one moment, scratchy and haltingly the next. Almost feverish at times, pausing, then picking up again. Sometimes settling into a steady rhythm, where there is no hesitation and no stopping and no scratching out words. There is just the flow of ink, uninhibited, and words spilling out one after the other, and it does not stop until the last full stop is dotted on the page, sometimes with a resolute stab, sometimes as the gentlest touch. Nothing compares to this, to my pen making love to the pages of my notebook.

Current Mood: contemplative

I am so proud of this review someone left me on FictionAlley, I just had to share it with ya'll:

"Thanks so much for writing such a great Draco/Harry story. I had fallen out of HP slash because the quality of stories had gone down dramatically in the H/D arena. But you proved to me that I was wrong!"

Made me all warm and fuzzy inside. *melts*

Feel free to share your favorite review(s) with me!

Current Mood: pleased
Current Location: Florida