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	Subtopic	Started By	Posts
	Archive through Sep 20, 2004 Last Post: Sep 23, 2004, 02:05 pm		20

Posted By: Magus Sep 20, 2004 - 12:45 pm

My goals have become more realistic. I find that I write best at night, after ten o' clock, my time. So now I'm writing any major works later at night, which limits me, usually, to Friday and Saturday. I work on another work in my spare time whiole papers are ebing graded and in study hall. I've gotten rid of th4e one right before bed, it just didn't work out so well as I innitially thought. In the day I'm going to spend time catching up with writing my story ideas on my computer and also in reading. This is my new plan.

Posted By: Esioul Sep 20, 2004 - 01:13 pm

Magus, thanks, I'll try to explain breifly. Yep, it's more plot driven than character. It's basically about laziness/idleness... what happens when a society becomes so lazy that it gradually forgets things... I know that's very hazy, but at the moment I haven't got much idea. It's a science fiction setting, supposed to be about several different peoples who are lazy/idle in slightly different ways, but everyone is as lazy as each other. I want the characters (at least one from each different society) to be realising how pointless their lives have become, and to begin to question this.

Posted By: Magus Sep 20, 2004 - 02:37 pm

Sounds interesting. I'd actually like to read a story like that. It sounds like so many sad tales; the world has moved on and it resembles what it once was no more.

I'm actually including that kind of sad element in a story of mine. It's that one that you may remember me speaking of; the four trilogy (12 installments) long series. It's a major element in the final trilogy, as a few thousand years pass in a fantasy world as the MC is dorment. Then he's awakened and the world has, as Stephen King puts it in his Dark Tower series, moved on.

Posted By: Esioul Sep 23, 2004 - 01:29 pm

That sounds interesting, if ambitious ( a lot of writing to do there!). My story isn't being written yet, I'm too busy trying to get some characters together. I have a few vague impressions of a few, but I'm not entirely sure yet. I think it's only going to be one book.

Posted By: LightBrigade Sep 23, 2004 - 02:05 pm

Esioul, the basic idea you mentioned is excellent matter to work on. There is infinite space for a variety of notions to be presented and elaborated on, all starting at the individual and collective idleness you spoke about. I wonder though, if you are involved in the character creating of the story, are you not so much enthusiastic about writing the story or at least, starting the preliminary plot layout?

Is it that the characters concern you, that their fleshing out and their subsequent behaviour troubles you?

I admit this function, creating the characters first, is unknown to me, so I inevitably admire your care for detail! (Perhaps the characters in my case have been there, in life, all the time *s*)

Magus, both you and Esioul have fired my imagination now. What must I do to read your works, I wonder! *is there a begging smile emoticon?*

Posted By: Magus Sep 23, 2004 - 03:11 pm

No, LightBrigade, I don't think that there's one for begging... at least on Speculative Vision.

Well, to read the aforementioned last trilogy of four, you'd have to wait... until I write the other nine books. Then, after those, I'd start working on the last three. Then, after I finish, you are more then welcome to read them over.

I actually posted the prologue of the first story of the first trilogy in that series of four trilogies in the Writer's Showcase. Or, if you'd like to see more writing including characters of mine that will be in that long series of books, they can be found in Lycoria, in the writer's showcase. Shabel-Grah, Jacatour, Sabal-Gah, Yissam Snizwatt and Thomas are all central characters in the stories I mentioned.

Oh, by the way, my Algebra II teacher finally learned how to make effective use of class time. I can, unfortunately, no longer write in while she checks papers.

Posted By: Esioul Sep 24, 2004 - 12:02 pm

I could never write at school, I was always suspicious people would look over my shoulders and laugh at my writing. But algebra... shudder.

Lightbrigade, thank you very much, you are very sweet, but nothing is written yet that can be read of my story. As for characters.... well, I don't know, for this story no characters have yet really come to my mind. Well, not enough for me to start writing, anyway. I have a basic idea of the plot, although that does slightly depend on the characters as well.

Posted By: Kevin Sep 24, 2004 - 12:13 pm

Have you ever read a book called: "Mister Monday"? It's a great book that has a simalir idea as yours. This one tells what happens when a leader is lazy and wont do a thing, and the laziness bug infects others. It's more of a childrens' book, but I found it to be a very delightful little book that is continued in "Grim Tuesday".

P.S. It's good to keep a notebook or something to the effect of when at school. Many times, you may have a great idea, only to forget it when you get home, or if you wrote it on a sheet of paper; you might misplace. I keep my book with me at all times for that very reason, and I will occasionally write at school, and on the way home.

Posted By: Magus Sep 24, 2004 - 12:45 pm

I have a small pad of paper, about 1.5 sticky note wide and 2 or 2.5 tall, of regular white unlined paper. I jot ideas down there and then stick it in my pocket, usually followed by a pen. This helps a lot with me. I also keep a notebook by my bed for such cases. I have had three or four pretty good ideas, maybe one of them can be considered awsome, right before I went to sleep. I didn't even turn on the lights. I reached for it and a pen next to my pillow and wrote. I inspect and ponder what I wrote in the morning.

Posted By: Esioul Sep 24, 2004 - 02:41 pm

I'm surprised you can read it if you didn't turn on the lights. I keep a notebook in each of my handbags, too, because I hate it when I go out and realise I haven't got a pen and paper for an idea. I've had to write on napkins with eye liner before, which is difficult. I do sometimes think of good ideas at college, but there's not usually much time to write them down in.

Kevin, I haven't heard of that book, but it sounds good.

Posted By: Magus Sep 24, 2004 - 02:50 pm

I don't read it. I just write it. I read in in the morning when I get up.

It's usually large and awkwardly scribbled letters that run into and through each other. Somehow I manage to read them. Don't ask me how, though.

Posted By: Esioul Sep 25, 2004 - 12:44 pm

Sounds like my normal handwriting

Posted By: Magus Sep 25, 2004 - 01:01 pm

Not mine, though. I take pride in my neet and legable cursive letters. Of course, no body else does. They say it's too small to read and too spindally to make sense of.

Posted By: Kevin Sep 25, 2004 - 01:24 pm

In grade one, I got three of my fingers crushed, and ever since then; I've had terrible writing. In grade five, I had a very strange way of writing; I would start out normal, but my letters would eventually become smaller and smaller, until the teacher needed a magnifying glass to read them. Then she told me to write larger, but all I was trying to do was save paper!

Posted By: Aldan Sep 25, 2004 - 06:48 pm

"Save the trees, not the eyes!"
*grins*

"neet"-neat
"legable"-legible
"spindally"-spindly, unless you were trying to say "spin dally", an odd combination of words...

Kev, sorry to hear about that. How are you with typing with any speed? Do you hunt'n'peck, touch-type or stare at your keyboard as you move your fingers around?

I was lucky enough to have taken typing in Jr. High (7th grade), and had to learn how to type on an old manual typewriter with round keys and quite a bit of space between them, so my spindly fingers would consistently be caught in them. It sucked at the time, but it really taught me where the keys were, and made me have to be sure to hit the keys dead center...

Posted By: Magus Sep 25, 2004 - 07:51 pm

Thanks Aldan. I never was too good at spelling.

I'm the fastest two fingered typist in the west.



Actually, no. I also took typing, but in eighth grade. it really did help. I can type... I forget, exactly, but its around thirty-five words a minute, last time I checked. It really did help me out a lot. I can type much faster and more efficiantly now. But, alas, I can't always look at the moniter. I can look half at it, but half an eye must always be kept on the keys I'm hitting.

Posted By: Esioul Sep 26, 2004 - 03:24 am

I type most things, except for Greek, which has to be handwritten, because it takes too long for me too write things, and then I can never read them afterwards.

Posted By: Aldan Sep 26, 2004 - 11:59 am

I'm lucky enough to be able to type while my eyes are on my monitor or on some piece of paper or whatever. I learned this by doing some transcription for a friend.

Posted By: Gnollslayer Sep 28, 2004 - 10:11 pm

I need to learn how to do that, because if I could just close my eyes when I'm typing I could watch the scene real-time and put it down as it happens. Almost all of my stories start off as a "movie" in my mind, or maybe as a dream if I happen to be sleeping when I think them up. It's cool, cause then I get to analyze my raw thoughts and extrapolate meaning as I convert them to a readable story in the second and third drafts.

Posted By: ricke Sep 29, 2004 - 11:29 am

that's how the process goes. I find it odd that a writers biggest enemy is the words he or she uses. In my opinion, writers aren't in the business of writing - they are in the business of ideas and stories... words are just the vehicle, and they are imperfect, at best. I think every writer sees something in their head, but how that comes across to a reader is usually drastically different, when they are reading it one word at a time.

Posted By: Magus Sep 29, 2004 - 11:51 am

I'd agree with that. But good writers can convey their messages and their stories to the point where we, as the reader, believes that it is fact and is actually happening. That is the definition I hold for good authors.

Posted By: Neurolanis Oct 04, 2004 - 07:32 pm

Different people have different concepts of what "good writing" is. For example, while in high school one teacher said that I was a bad writer because I couldn't spell, while another said I was a bad writer because my writing was messy, while another said that I was a good writer because of my ideas and how I communicated them. I am very picky about myself as a writer. In rough draft mode the creativity never suits me, and while in re-writing/editing mode the communication never does. Like the book I'm working on (and have been for like 6 months now): I have no idea if it's really good or really bad. I like it, yet I just keep picking.

Anyway, what really is "good writing"? Sometimes when a person says that they really mean good spelling, good communiaction, good story-telling, or whatever. I think "good writing" is sort of communiaction and story-telling together. (By "story-telling" I mean creativity, good character development, etc.)

Posted By: Magus Oct 05, 2004 - 11:58 am

I prefer the story and its contents to be judged. This includes characters ideas, plots and everything else. While grammer and spelling is important, I think it does far less in a work then the story itself. But you're right, it's open to interperetation and opinion.