Creative writing

[JasonPalmer]

I wrote a little bedtime story for my four year old today, have been on a few creative writing courses. Anyone else here a scribbler ?

[Joseph K]

For about a couple of years I became somewhat preoccupied (I wouldn't say 'obsessed') with writing sonnets, many of which I posted here on the poetry thread. Oddly enough it coincided with experiencing oculogyric crises, and when that was mostly taken care of, I lost interest (for the better, methinks!)

[Serial_Apologist]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27964831/

For those like me for whom this is a new term.

[smittims]

Like many people , I imagine, I have an unfinished novel.

Professional novelists, I suppose, would smile at the way so many people think a good idea is a basis for a finished novel, then run out of ideas and realise there's no structure to the thing.

[Serial_Apologist]

Like many people , I imagine, I have an unfinished novel.

Professional novelists, I suppose, would smile at the way so many people think a good idea is a basis for a finished novel, then run out of ideas and realise there's no structure to the thing.

I once had ideas for stories to be based on what people and daily life would be like if we got rid of capitalism and lived sustainably. Unfortunately my lack of imagination meant the ideas just dried up!

[Jonathan]

I wrote a sci-fi novel during lock down. It's currently with my editor and I hope to publish around the start of March (coinciding with my birthday). It's entitled "The Ventos Conspiracy" and is about 110000 words long. I've already started the sequel...

[french frank]

I wrote a sci-fi novel during lock down. It's currently with my editor and I hope to publish around the start of March (coinciding with my birthday). It's entitled "The Ventos Conspiracy" and is about 110000 words long. I've already started the sequel...

I wrote a novel, but it wasn't 'marketable'. And nor was I

[Quarky]

Self -publishing on a Website, e.g. Wordpress?

Of course, being Internet-savvy is desirable.

[JasonPalmer]

I wrote a sci-fi novel during lock down. It's currently with my editor and I hope to publish around the start of March (coinciding with my birthday). It's entitled "The Ventos Conspiracy" and is about 110000 words long. I've already started the sequel...

Wow well done !

[Jonathan]

I wrote a novel, but it wasn't 'marketable'. And nor was I

Hi FF, you could always self publish via Lulu or similar online company (that's what I'm doing). The only reason I have a proper editor is that she's an old friend and is doing it as a favour!

[Jonathan]

Wow well done !

Thanks, if it sells well enough, I'm going to buy myself a new laptop as I ruined the old one writing the book!

[french frank]

Hi FF, you could always self publish via Lulu or similar online company (that's what I'm doing). The only reason I have a proper editor is that she's an old friend and is doing it as a favour!

The hope was always to write something 'valuable', that would be enjoyed and appreciated as a piece of 'literature'. If it wasn't that, I didn't want it published at all.

I had a Christmas card from a friend this year with a link to his volume of short stories which he'd self-published. I shall buy a copy (£10 ) but I felt a bit of a pang ...since short stories were what interested me. The most 'memorable' reply was when I submitted one to a magazine. They sent back my covering letter to them with the word single word "NO" scribbled on it. That was the point at which I gave up.

[JasonPalmer]

Nice to know some other scribblers here, I recently heard a radio 3 program about short story writers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ghgt

Insecurity, sexuality and bliss are amongst the topics explored in the short stories of Katherine Mansfield (14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923). Having left a New Zealand suburb she came to England aged 19 and made friends with the Bloomsbury set, meeting writers like Virginia Woolf and DH Lawrence. A new biography by Claire Harman uses ten stories to tell the story of Mansfield's life and writing. One of her admirers was the Canadian author Mavis Gallant (11 August 1922 – 18 February 2014) who spent much of her writing life in France. Laurence Scott and Kirsty Gunn join Claire Harman and Shahidha Bari to explore what these authors have to tell us about the art of short story writing.

[Jonathan]

The hope was always to write something 'valuable', that would be enjoyed and appreciated as a piece of 'literature'. If it wasn't that, I didn't want it published at all.

I had a Christmas card from a friend this year with a link to his volume of short stories which he'd self-published. I shall buy a copy (£10 ) but I felt a bit of a pang ...since short stories were what interested me. The most 'memorable' reply was when I submitted one to a magazine. They sent back my covering letter to them with the word single word "NO" scribbled on it. That was the point at which I gave up.

That's horrible FF - how to destroy your faith in your writing and confidence in one word. It's a real shame that it made you give up.

My book may be rubbish and I doubt I'll make anything from it but I got swept up in writing it during the pandemic. I suppose I have to partially blame my old university friend who has self published 2 books (of a trilogy) so far. I read the first one and thought it was absolutely superb so recently bought the 2nd one that was published last month. It may be a few years before book 3 appears though! For those that like fantasy novels, his name is Carl McGarrigle and his books are called "The Talents" - they are set on a fantasy world called Pandos and, (I'm not just saying this because I'm mentioned in the acknowledgements in the back of book 1 and occur as a character in book 2), they really are extremely good.

I do know someone who used to be an editor and his comments about amateur writers really made me rather annoyed and made me want to tell him where he could stick his opinions! After all, everyone has to start somewhere.

[french frank]

That's horrible FF - how to destroy your faith in your writing and confidence in one word. It's a real shame that it made you give up.

It actually made me laugh! But if publishers and agents were looking for something different from what I was writing, I wasn't willing to write the kind of thing they wanted. They wanted something more upbeat with happy endings, but that isn't what real life is like: that's just escapism. Life is about failure and disappointment as well as success but apparently people don't want to read that kind of thing (Should have been writing opera librettos, perhaps )