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Source: (consider it) Thread: The Writers' Bleak
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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It's not exactly the Finland Station, but you have to start somewhere... #occupyuntilclosingtime

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Forward the New Republic

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Mr Curly

Off to Curly Flat
# 5518

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Two new titles published on amazon today! Makes up for not writing much new stuff this week.

mr curly

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Tukai
Shipmate
# 12960

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quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
.... I’ve decided I’ve had enough of the rat race and I want to become rich and famous [Biased] .

...

My advice: writing books is unlikely to result in either rich or famous, though it can be rewarding in other ways.

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A government that panders to the worst instincts of its people degrades the whole country for years to come.

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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061

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I teach a writing class in Maryland, and I always tell my pupils, Don't quit your day job.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492

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According to a British government study, writers really enjoy their work and earn on average about $42,000 US: should be enough to help support a couple of empty-nesters with a daughter who is fully independent!

God willing, my wife will copy-edit my alleged novel this summer and I can ship it off to my sister and her husband in search of an agent. It may be considerably less than 50,000 words when it's all done!

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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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According to the last Society of Authors figures I last saw, the average income of an author was less than £4000 pa, and bear in mind that's an average skewed by a very few very high earners.

If you make more than a couple of hundred a year, you're making more than most.

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Forward the New Republic

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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

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quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
According to a British government study, writers really enjoy their work and earn on average about $42,000 US: should be enough to help support a couple of empty-nesters with a daughter who is fully independent!

I'm guessing they included full-time technical writers in their sample. Those folks are in clover (well, compared to the rest of us) as they tend to be employed full-time with benefits by industries (such as IT) which pay decently. Leave them out, and I strongly, strongly suspect the number would be below a living wage. (Oh, and leave out the extreme cases like J. K. Rowling. By herself she's probably enough to skew the whole sample.)

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061

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The US Department of Labor has a table in which they have organized all professions by income. At the very top is CEOs of major corporations -- Bill Gates and his ilk. At the very very bottom are migrant workers who pick farm produce. One notch up from those migrant farm workers and their lettuce? Yes, it's freelance writers.

Another way to analyze it -- you know the Screen Actors Guild? It's the actors' union here in the US. All people you see on the movie screen who say anything are in this union and are paid union rate. (All people who are just standing in crowds are extras.) The AVERAGE income for a member of SAG is something on the order of $1000 a year. That figure averages in people like Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansen and Harrison Ford, people who make megamillions per movie. In other words, the sweeping majority of actors do not make enough with their acting to live on. They are flipping burgers or waiting table or clerking in offices to keep body and soul together. And writers are far far less well paid, and they do not have a union...

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Trudy Scrumptious

BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647

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Yes, all the writers I know who have "quit their day job" and are making their living from writing alone, are patching together a quilt of freelance jobs (often including technical writing which, as noted above, pays quite well), teaching writing workshops, and various other writing-related gigs. For most of them, their creative writing, whether that's fiction or poetry or memoir or whatever, is not bringing in much money (these are the published authors I mean now), and they are still fitting in their creative writing around their paying writer-gigs, just as much as they would be doing if they had a full-time day job.

I know; I used to do it too. And I decided I'd rather go back to teaching full-time, and use my writing time and energy for novels. Although it never got as bad for me as for a friend whose worst freelance gig was writing a quality-control manual for inspectors in meat-rendering plants.

There are the rare few bestsellers who are making millions, and there's another larger (but still comparatively small) category of mostly popular novelists who have written enough books that sell well enough that their royalties now bring in something akin to a normal middle-class wage. But the reality for most writers is that the writing you love doing will never make you a whole lot of money. You really have to love it for its own sake.

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Books and things.

I lied. There are no things. Just books.

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Curiosity killed ...

Ship's Mug
# 11770

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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
For those who are London/SE England based, I'm appearing (as if by magic!) at Blackwells Charing Cross next Thursday (10th) at 6pm for an evening of 'revolutionary fantasy'. I'll be sharing the stage with Mark Alder - staunch atheist - for a discussion about the divine right of kings, religion both as a means of social control and a catalyst for change, and we'll undoubtedly be leading the gathered crowds in a rendition of the Red Flag.

Link here. There may be a pub involved afterwards... [Biased]

I belatedly noticed this yesterday and have a ticket. When I booked mine there were a few left. Do you want a meet thread in All Saints?

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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat

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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688

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quote:
Originally posted by Tukai:
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
.... I’ve decided I’ve had enough of the rat race and I want to become rich and famous [Biased] .

...

My advice: writing books is unlikely to result in either rich or famous, though it can be rewarding in other ways.
Party-pooper [Razz]

I wasn’t really being serious – I know that most writers don’t make enough to live on. But a girl can dream can’t she? Aim for the stars and you might hit the moon and all that. And I have a big-shot literary agency currently reading my book. So there [Razz] [Razz] [Razz] I'm currently in the "nothing to lose" stage of the process.

That said, I genuinely do hate my job at times and have no intention of staying in it forever. My plan B is to get married and become a kept woman*, and then whatever I can make from writing will be a handy plus.

*I know, I know… FWIW, my boyfriend has scraped me up sufficient times after a mauling by the bosses that it was originally him that suggested this, not me – because he wants his chérie not to be miserable anymore. Works for me.

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Rent my holiday home in the South of France

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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58

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I don't care about being rich or famous. I have enough to live on and I don't want the pressures that celebrity would bring. I've been writing since I was about 13, and I write the kinds of things that I want to read; if other people want to read them, that's a bonus, but I don’t expect it.

I went through writer's block for a few years when I could only stare at a blank screen, everything fizzled out and I wondered if I'd lost the knack. But I seem to have been uncorked this year and am currently rewriting a historical novel set in ancient Rome and London that I wrote years ago and shelved.

I spent about four years researching and writing it in those days; there were various field trips to places of interest, lots of libraries and bookshops, and a rapid acquiring of some of the obscurer minutiae of daily life in that era. I even joined the Association for Roman Archaeology; the membership card gave me discounted access to some sites. Huge fun – the discoveries sometimes sent me off on unexpected paths, and the plot took a twist I hadn't expected. I got a pretty good immersion in the feel of life in Nero's day, and you can't write convincingly unless you immerse yourself in an era. It's the little giveaway details that make it.

I have to say it's good to be back and able to express myself fluently again.

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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061

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There is no point in writing stuff you do not like. If you did write stuff you disliked, you could without very much difficulty find a way to make it pay: write advertising copy, legal briefs, HR memos, press releases for sleazy politicians, etc. They would pay you salary and benefits!
So if you are writing a novel in your spare time, at the absolute minimum it had better delight you, the author. This is the argument against trying to hop onto whatever the latest trend is in fiction (50 Shades, zombies, etc.) -- if you don't like whips or zombies from the outset, then writing about them is like laboring at the oar.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713

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You have this choice (dilemma?) in any endeavour. Do you want to make money or do you want to do it for fun? If you can do both, you're probably one-in-a-hundred, possibly a thousand, so count your blessings and pay your taxes!

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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"

(Paul Sinha, BBC)

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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861

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Put me in the not-in-this-for-money category. But I'm not doing it for fun, either. I'm doing it because I can't seem to think of life without writing.

And when inspiration doesn't allow me to create something new, I work on gathering poems together into book manuscripts (one of which is out there looking for a home). I've heard this call poebiz [Smile]

Creating a manuscript of poems involves more than just lumping them together. There needs to be a thematic flow. I find that this task is satisfying in its own way.

Need to add that I am retired, but not at all at loose ends. I still have volunteer work, obligations with my elderly parents, etc. So dedicating time is still an issue.

as ever, copy editing is not my strong suit. [Smile]

sabine

[ 09. April 2014, 19:32: Message edited by: sabine ]

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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano

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Firenze

Ordinary decent pagan
# 619

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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
There is no point in writing stuff you do not like.

As A L Kennedy said: If it bores you to write it, it'll bore someone else to read it.

I started a project to write a poem a week - which lasted into early February. After which even my powers to find meaning in the quotidian began to wane (though the one about the various little utility access points you find on pavements was a sterling effort). I intend to resume it though. If only for the kind of imaginative and linguistic workout poetry affords.

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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For those who are interested, this is me, defending A Game of Thrones on the Christian Today website.

Link

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Forward the New Republic

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cattyish

Wuss in Boots
# 7829

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An interesting take Doc Tor. The TV series is pretty violent and involves lots of sex, but then it's been designed to sell to a mass audience. There was a stage in life when I stopped reading some of the fantasy stuff I enjoyed because I felt I wasn't ready to deal with fictional challenges to my faith as well as the real day-to-day challenges. I now enjoy the same books which I once got rid of. Maybe Game of Thrones isn't for everyone, but I found it more pleasant to watch than Rome and more engaging than Spartacus, Blood and Sand.

Cattyish, off to clean stuff.

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...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768

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I haven't read or seen Game of Thrones, but was interested by two reviews, on the same day, in the Guardian.

First, Julia Gillard... In praise

Then, Stuart Jeffries, their reviewer... concerned

The woman does not seem bothered by the violence aimed at women which bothers the man.

I have to admit I am not tempted to get the TV package which would let me watch.

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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492

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I've started getting up in the middle of the night to write again: my lovely bride doesn't like it - it drives her nuts! I am going to try to go back to sleep for two or three hours - must make progress on taxes before school! I have 10-year-olds today.

I have written a bit more than 2500 words thus far, since Sunday morning. It seems to be a novel about an ordinary upper middle class family with some Northern Irish ancestry in the late twentieth century: I think it will span about 35 years or so. There may be zombies involved or weird goings-on. Must stop now!

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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.

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Tukai
Shipmate
# 12960

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I'm with all the posters above who reckon that to be enjoyable your own writing must be about some thing that you would enjoy reading yourself.

For example, my own writing is mainly textbooks on subjects I am personally interested in. They don't pay a fortune and take a long time to write (my wife reckons she bore three children in the time I took to produce one book!).

But they do enable me to put 'writer' as my occupation on numerous official forms. This not only sounds more impressive than 'retired' or 'home duties' but also allows me to claim some expenses (e.g this computer, travel for research/ conferences etc) against tax (which I have to pay because I have other income).

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A government that panders to the worst instincts of its people degrades the whole country for years to come.

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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061

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I have been very 'hot' (in the gambling sense) for the past year or two, writing at enormous speed with tremendous creativity. I began a novel on March 3 or 4, and look to finish it by May 1m roughly 100,000 words.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Mr Curly

Off to Curly Flat
# 5518

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I've just been interviewed for the Rocking Self Publishing Podcast. I will be on episode #49, released to itunes on 29 May.

It was pretty scary to be interviewed via skype for an hour - I'm sure both the interviewer and I could have done a better job, but as a fireside chat, it will hopefully be OK.

For those not familiar, the podcast is an interview with someone involved in self-publishing. Hour long episodes released weekly.

Meanwhile, a busy week. I did high level plot outlines of two follow-up novels to The Queensberry Rule - one day, it might be a three novel series. I'm harassing my coauthor to approve the final edit on another novel so we can get it out - I briefed a cover designer yesterday and a few people are test reading. If anyone wants to join the beta reading team, PM me.

mr curly

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My Blog - Writing, Film, Other Stuff

Posts: 2645 | From: Curly Flat | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433

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I'm starting work on my second book, now, and wondering why! Managed about 1000 words yesterday though. About 30,000 done.

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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/

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Trudy Scrumptious

BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647

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I just got to see the cover of my new book! I really love this designer's work (she's done my last two covers with the same publisher) and I'm quite excited about this one.

If anyone's curious you can see it here.

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Books and things.

I lied. There are no things. Just books.

Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917

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Very elegant, Trudy!

A friend of mine phoned me last week and described how he had fallen off a horse - he's still limping, six weeks later.
Does it make me a bad person that, almost as soon as I put the phone down, I put the computer on and re-wrote a scene where one of my characters fell off her horse? It's now much more realistic, and she has exactly the sort of injuries I was hoping for (in the shape of pulled muscles down one side).

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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.

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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061

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Yesterday I pumped a friend intensively about the time when she thought she sprained her foot but it was actually a broken small bone. Yes, my hero is in need of just such an injury.
I have found that you can ask anybody anything, and people will tell you anything, if only you assure them it is for a novel. People will tell you appalling, quite illegal things. I had no difficulty at all in learning how to mainline heroin and what it feels like when you inject yourself with the drug.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Mr Curly

Off to Curly Flat
# 5518

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quote:
Originally posted by Eigon:
Very elegant, Trudy!

A friend of mine phoned me last week and described how he had fallen off a horse - he's still limping, six weeks later.
Does it make me a bad person that, almost as soon as I put the phone down, I put the computer on and re-wrote a scene where one of my characters fell off her horse? It's now much more realistic, and she has exactly the sort of injuries I was hoping for (in the shape of pulled muscles down one side).

I have the whole outline for a novel based on my cousin's 4 month long marriage. The story will have to toned down to be believable. I think it might have to be under a pseudonym, her ex would probably want to sue even with changed names.

As for the character I once wrote called Leanne, nicknamed Madame Botox because of her chemically enhanced face, apparently an ex work colleague will never speak to me again as she shares that name and that chemical enhancement. Oops.

mr curly

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My Blog - Writing, Film, Other Stuff

Posts: 2645 | From: Curly Flat | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Curiosity killed ...

Ship's Mug
# 11770

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I came home wondering how to write the scene of the local vicar instructing me to kill all snails and slugs on his plants when I went in to feed his cat and water the pots around the door. He is the gentlest man, and this whole thing was quite bizarre.

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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat

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Trudy Scrumptious

BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647

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Anne Lamott said it best about using real life people in an unflattering way your books: If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better. My other favourite thought on this is from J.K. Rowling who said the only character she ever based wholly on a real-life person was Gilderoy Lockhart but that she never worried about any backlash because the real-life person, like his fictional counterpart, was so monumentally egotistical that it would never occur to him to see himself in the character.

But apart from the deliberate satirizing of unpleasant people in fiction, I think it's also perfectly normal to mine the unfortunately experiences of even the people we love for fictional material. After all, we can't possibly have every experience ourselves (and wouldn't want to), but when someone else has an interesting one, you naturally want to make use of it if you can.

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Books and things.

I lied. There are no things. Just books.

Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

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Lamott also suggested you give real-life characters a teeny tiny penis (or feminine equivalent) so that anyone tempted to recognize themselves would immediately say "Oh, that can't be me."

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688

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A book that I am not yet ready to write is a post-apocalyptic dystopia. It’s too ambitious for now but every so often I jot down a few more ideas. It features a hellish method of public transportation that has much in common with the Paris metro. The individuals who populate it are all drawn from observation of my daily commute.

There’s the frantic woman who does her make-up on the train every morning in a burst of frenetic energy. There’s the people trying to escape from everyone else under their headphones or in the screens of their mobile phones (a luxury which in my dystopia only the rich will be able to afford).

Then there’s this other woman who utterly fascinates the main character, for the simple reason that she utterly fascinates me. She is quite simply the most misanthropic, angry-looking human being I have ever seen. I think she must be a real-life sociopath. She spends the whole journey glowering at everyone with this look of unadulterated bile, for no good reason other than their being inconvenient to her. By being inconvenient I mean something like having the cheek to have a seat if she hasn’t got one. If you catch her eye her face momentarily transforms into what she imagines to be a charming smile. So I play this irresistible game where I try not to get caught staring at her staring at everyone else. I wonder if she would recognise herself if she read this description.

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Rent my holiday home in the South of France

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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061

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I assure people who assume they are in my fiction that I am not so weak of invention, as to need to mine my personal acquaintance for characters. And I do such awful things to my characters that nobody wants to be in my books anyway. My last hero had his throat cut with a straight razor (got better), was trapped in a North Korean nuclear missile silo (escaped), and finally was shot through the chest with a spearfishing missile and died. And -then- he got better.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58

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I really struggle to kill any of mine off. I did it once and it was so emotionally harrowing that I never repeated it.
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North East Quine

Curious beastie
# 13049

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My planned tale of lesbian longing and unrequited love set amongst the cool grey granite of Victorian Aberdeen starts with the heroine, exhausted after sleepless nights yearning for her lost love Maggie, falling asleep in front of the fire while reading a newspaper. The newspaper slips into the fire, my heroine's long skirts are set ablaze and the rest of the book is my heroine's recollection of her life as she hovers between consciousness and unconsciousness. Then she dies.

I'm going to meet an actual cousin of my heroine in a couple of weeks time and we're going to visit what I think is her grave. This might spur me on to write more, and cry over my heroine less.

Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061

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Hmm. It could be a BRIDGE AT SAN LUIS REY kind of situation, in which an entire novel's worth of stuff happens in the tiny interval between the catching fire and the perishing of smoke inhalation. However, I myself would incline towards a fantasy solution. A small dragon appears, inhales the flames, and then says, "OK, toots, now you owe me one."

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014  |  IP: Logged
Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492

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Enjoyed the first chapter of Mr. Curly's new book before teaching school yesterday morning. I'll be reading more before school today.

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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.

Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
North East Quine

Curious beastie
# 13049

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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Hmm. It could be a BRIDGE AT SAN LUIS REY kind of situation, in which an entire novel's worth of stuff happens in the tiny interval between the catching fire and the perishing of smoke inhalation. However, I myself would incline towards a fantasy solution. A small dragon appears, inhales the flames, and then says, "OK, toots, now you owe me one."

I would love to include a dragon! But this is the novel of a real person's life; there are too many gaps to write a non-fiction biography, so I'm writing a novel which lets me fill in the missing bits with what I think might have happened. The details of her death are factual; I'm extrapolating the tired-after-sleepless-nights because she died on the anniversary of her beloved's death.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688

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quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I really struggle to kill any of mine off. I did it once and it was so emotionally harrowing that I never repeated it.

Apparently I am more capricious than you. In my next novel (that I really, really need to get on with doing some more work on [Hot and Hormonal] ), I am going to kill off the love interest. Basically I started sketching it out and then got to the point where I thought ‘I’m getting a bit bored with this story’. I figured this was a very bad sign - I mean, if I'm not interested in it anymore, what are the chances a reader will be? - and started thinking about what I could do to pep the story up. The idea dropped into my head immediately: Kill N [Snigger] .

N gets run over by a truck, V is devastated, and suddenly the story takes off again in a much sadder but more interesting direction.

I don’t feel sorry in the slightest. She’s a nice girl and I was quite fond of her, but I needed her sacrifice.

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Rent my holiday home in the South of France

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Eigon
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# 4917

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I had a couple of generic men at arms escorting my main character on a journey - and decided that, if they were going to be together for several days on the road, they would get to know each other fairly well, so they stopped being generic and got names and personalities.
Later in the book, I had to kill them in an ambush so that my main character could make her getaway.
So at least they were one step up from red shirts!

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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.

Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
Brenda Clough
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# 18061

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There are a couple of classic hardy perennial ways to get the plot going, and indeed one is to kill somebody. (Sex is the other main choice.)

I am famously hard on my characters. Once I drew up a list of everything that happened to my hero in the last books; it was very long and sanguinary.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014  |  IP: Logged
Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492

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Finished Mr. Curly's newest book and liked it. Yesterday. More Later.

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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.

Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433

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Oh dear ... I have just written 3,618 words (excluding footnotes) on one verse in Hebrews (2:17). This book could be a little longer than my last (and probably won't be published if that rate of expansion keeps up!).

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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/

Posts: 18917 | From: "Central" is all they call it | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492

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A second novel I am attempting is a complete work of fantasy and it has a new sort of character: there is a college instructor who is a vampire. Obviously, he only teaches night classes. Where is the best place to research vampires? Should I re-read Dracula? Should I re-watch Nosferatu? Do I need to put zombies into it also if I want it to appeal to young adults????

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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.

Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
Firenze

Ordinary decent pagan
# 619

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Aren't zombies a bit over? The TV schedules seem to be positively dripping with zombies. We've had Jane Austen and zombies. I'm not sure vampires aren't all Twilighted out as well.

Maybe they should be rested in favour of a few manticores or bunyips, rokurokubi, spriggans or werecats.

Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
North East Quine

Curious beastie
# 13049

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As a bemused mother of teens who are into the whole zombie genre, it seems to have become very geeky and technical.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
cattyish

Wuss in Boots
# 7829

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I was wearing a zombie hunter t-shirt at Christmas (I'd bought it for J but it was too small) and my dad had a full-on rant about young people today being obsessed with the undead. He actually seemed to have turned into an old-time brimstone preacher for a moment.

I delivered some copies of Attack of the Giant Robot Chickens this week and will hand over the third one today. It's making me a cool auntie! [Smile]

Cattyish, off to see some godchildren.

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...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Posts: 1794 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Brenda Clough
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# 18061

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I would not put zombies in unless the work HAS to have zombies. This goes for everything, by the way. Unless it HAS to have guns, HAS to have puppies, HAS to have a thunderstorm, it should not be there.
The novel should be like an automobile engine -- all the parts are necessary to work together to drive the thing forward. Everything that is not doing work should be tossed.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014  |  IP: Logged
Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492

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That's just as well: I don't really need the zombies and I think the vampire character my not become fully-developed anyway. I still am not sure if I want to try NaNoWriMo again this year: we have only one computer and my wife is actively considering it.

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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.

Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
Mr Curly

Off to Curly Flat
# 5518

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Just published my 25th title on amazon, a 10,000 word novella. Aiming for 2 more this month, including the novel that Sir Kevin kindly read - cover and a last proof-read to go. (Does anyone else never tire of the poof-read joke?)

mr curly

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My Blog - Writing, Film, Other Stuff

Posts: 2645 | From: Curly Flat | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged



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