This thread is for all! I’m hoping you will share what you are currently writing, what are your writing interests (genre and form), and what are your writing-questions.
Please post and read each other’s, comment, have fun… Writing can be a lonely business.
I have just begun those clumsy first stumbles towards the writing of my eight novel. Thin On The Ground is a project I've been thinking about for over twenty years and while it'll be framed as a mystery thriller, it's really an attempt to directly address the complete and utter lack of respect for human life I all-too-often encountered while living in East Side Vancouver during the nineties, I time I have come to call - for obvious reasons - The Pickton Era.
John! Yes, I live in Strathcona; I understand. It may be that a 20 year period of time to mull is probably for the best. Those were horrific times. I am across the street, half a block down, from the recent tent city. It's been quite a year. Thin On the Ground--great title. Thank you for sharing where you're at with your work.
Yes, twenty years seems to be a benchmark, for sure. In fact, most of my novels seem to have germinated for (at least) that long which is why I've often mused that one of the benefits of being a writer is that one can chart one's own development (as a thinking person) almost exclusively through one's own ideas. The first incarnation of what would ultimately become Thin On The Ground, for example, was a horror script about the darkness I saw all around me made manifest in an indeterminate creature of creeping malevolence who was preying on prostitutes in the Downtown Eastside. It then morphed into another script called A Quiet Man, a kind of reversal of the standard slasher film,* in which the woman who would have been a serial predator's next victim finds refuge from a life on the streets by becoming the killer's ward after he suffers a catastrophic head injury in a car crash on his way home with her. Where Thin On The Ground will ultimately lead me is anyone's guess, but then that's one of the joys of writing "mystery" fiction - they afford the writer as much of a chance to be surprised by what happens next as they do the reader (that's been my experience, anyway).
*An idea I got while watching the superlative Half-Nelson, which featured a reversal of the standard teacher-student relationship.
Lonely it is! A friend of mine describes it as “going into the cave.” It can be difficult to balance the need for solitude with the demands of engagement. It is for me at least. But it’s a dance we scribblers must learn if anyone is to see our work. Thank you for opening a door for discussion of the writer’s ever-present dilemma.
Going in to the cave. In the last few years, I've become aware of something of a movement in writers: to gather in a small group, often in a public place, to write together. As much as the cave terrifies me, I also welcome it: it is my place, is how it feels. So I wonder about this... Thoughts?
I have been invited to a few of those groups. I can't do it. When other people are around I want to interact with them. I love my cave, even though I struggle on an almost daily basis to enter it.
Astonishingly have sent out a few short stories - how did that happen given my schedule?? Know from experience all will be rejected. In the meantime, a novel I work on every few years is majorly benefitting from Alison's calendar ideas. I am calendarizing the most recent draft and realizing it is all out of kilter.
"Sending out stories" happens when you continue to write them! Are you sending them top places you've sent to before? That makes me think it'd be interesting to have a thread here where we can describe stories--structure, theme, length--and brainstorm places to send. Sometimes we need new places!
Yes, the calendar thing really spotlights the "out of kilter" to get back on track...
I have just begun those clumsy first stumbles towards the writing of my eight novel. Thin On The Ground is a project I've been thinking about for over twenty years and while it'll be framed as a mystery thriller, it's really an attempt to directly address the complete and utter lack of respect for human life I all-too-often encountered while living in East Side Vancouver during the nineties, I time I have come to call - for obvious reasons - The Pickton Era.
John! Yes, I live in Strathcona; I understand. It may be that a 20 year period of time to mull is probably for the best. Those were horrific times. I am across the street, half a block down, from the recent tent city. It's been quite a year. Thin On the Ground--great title. Thank you for sharing where you're at with your work.
Yes, twenty years seems to be a benchmark, for sure. In fact, most of my novels seem to have germinated for (at least) that long which is why I've often mused that one of the benefits of being a writer is that one can chart one's own development (as a thinking person) almost exclusively through one's own ideas. The first incarnation of what would ultimately become Thin On The Ground, for example, was a horror script about the darkness I saw all around me made manifest in an indeterminate creature of creeping malevolence who was preying on prostitutes in the Downtown Eastside. It then morphed into another script called A Quiet Man, a kind of reversal of the standard slasher film,* in which the woman who would have been a serial predator's next victim finds refuge from a life on the streets by becoming the killer's ward after he suffers a catastrophic head injury in a car crash on his way home with her. Where Thin On The Ground will ultimately lead me is anyone's guess, but then that's one of the joys of writing "mystery" fiction - they afford the writer as much of a chance to be surprised by what happens next as they do the reader (that's been my experience, anyway).
*An idea I got while watching the superlative Half-Nelson, which featured a reversal of the standard teacher-student relationship.
Lonely it is! A friend of mine describes it as “going into the cave.” It can be difficult to balance the need for solitude with the demands of engagement. It is for me at least. But it’s a dance we scribblers must learn if anyone is to see our work. Thank you for opening a door for discussion of the writer’s ever-present dilemma.
Going in to the cave. In the last few years, I've become aware of something of a movement in writers: to gather in a small group, often in a public place, to write together. As much as the cave terrifies me, I also welcome it: it is my place, is how it feels. So I wonder about this... Thoughts?
I have been invited to a few of those groups. I can't do it. When other people are around I want to interact with them. I love my cave, even though I struggle on an almost daily basis to enter it.
Astonishingly have sent out a few short stories - how did that happen given my schedule?? Know from experience all will be rejected. In the meantime, a novel I work on every few years is majorly benefitting from Alison's calendar ideas. I am calendarizing the most recent draft and realizing it is all out of kilter.
"Sending out stories" happens when you continue to write them! Are you sending them top places you've sent to before? That makes me think it'd be interesting to have a thread here where we can describe stories--structure, theme, length--and brainstorm places to send. Sometimes we need new places!
Yes, the calendar thing really spotlights the "out of kilter" to get back on track...