Posted on 03/23/2007 11:44:31 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
Squarebarb:
There were some of us including GOPpoet who were thinking of starting a writer's thread here on FR. There's a horse thread, a football thread, a Hobbit Hole thread, so why not a thread for us writers?
And mainly sticking to fiction otherwise the discussion tends toward politicsa iinstead of the craft of writing.
Okay Eleutheria5, YOU start the thread."
Eleutheria5:
On it. Could use some help from someone who knows how to do HTTP and other techy stuff, though. Tried to learn, but drat that right hemisphere dominance we creative folks have. I've actually been running a board on the aol writers' club since 1996 called Conservative Writers' Club. Mostly it simply fights flame wars with liberal writers, though, and all the conservative contributors, including me, burn out. It'd be great to get away from that and just swap ideas with people who DON'T wish every one of us a flaming death.
(Excerpt) Read more at freerepublic.com ...
It's a riff on Indiana Jones. The concept of Dr. Scones borrows some from Indy, but he's more academic and far less swashbuckling than Indiana Jones.
One day, Dr. Scones makes his entry looking considerably puzzled and ill at ease. He's peering under chairs and looking behind things...as it turns out, he's missing a flash drive full of photographs of the Elgin Marbles.
Teacher: Doctor Scones, are you all right?
Scones: I've lost my marbles!
It is just good clever writing.
You’re very gracious. You’re also up late! Or is it early?
It was early afternoon when I posted.
Was my post on chapter writing helpful at all? Did you find reason to disagree with it?
When the club started my 1500 page manuscript (not finished) needed help. I was trying to please too many audiences and ended up not pleasing anyone.
I got my focus back.
I have taken the editing razor to it and even though I am adding more descriptive elements, I have taken about 50 pages out of the first 400.
I am also using my descriptive narratives to introduce "little dialogues" which bring my characters in focus.
I have stripped whole scenes out that make the book read much better.
Two weeks ago, I was despairing, ready to quit because my new opening "with histories and biographies added" was trashed by a friend because it was "rote." Now, I have a manuscrip that I am very happy with.
That is why this club is important to me. And meeting such accomplished writers like you have really made a difference.
Don't be impressed by me. My writing accomplishments are minor indeed.
And you chat me up on this thread and answer questions and give good advice.
So, yes, I will be impressed! :>)
When I view my manuscript before this thread - I see a piece of work that would have never gotten an agent interested.
When I view it now - I see all the work that still has to be done - but there is hope for it now.
I pinged squarebarb to the post for all the help and advice she so freely gave.
“PS - have you ever seen the Jordan River? It really doesn’t flow rapidly anywhere. In America, we would call it a creek.”
Drat. I suppose it isn’t “wide and deep,” either. So why did Joshua split it, I wonder.
Don’t be impressed by me. My writing accomplishments are minor indeed.
Mine, too. I have so very much to be humble about (plagiarized from Churchill).
So what can I say about the Jordan. Must be two syllable word with accent on the first. Flaccid? Tepid? Constant? Frigid bed? Placid? Sluggish?
Because they needed to cross it during the yearly flood stage. From Joshua chapter 3:
"Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho." - Joshua 3:15,16 (NIV)
No, it isn’t wide and deep either. It has probably changed since Joshua.
Oberon is correct. It was at flood stage. But even it was a creek - to go across on dry ground... wow!
But again... I think it has probably undergone some changes...
I need to run right now, but let me tell you about Caeseara Phillipi and one of the sources of the Jordan when I return from university. It is quite fascinating.
My book is now selling in Japan, UK, France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Canada. Seems abroad people like the idea of another American civil war so much, they’re even willing to read the English prose of an unknown yankee.
Of course, here in America itself, I’m not even a blip on the screen. Amazon ranks me at about 1,288,000 in sales, and B&N at 693,000. Borders doesn’t even list my book, and I luv their herbal teas. My, my, my. How getting published changes one’s perspectives. Two months ago, I wouldn’t have been worried about such things. Waah. Self pity. Self pity. Wallow. Self pity. Self pity.
Buy it now, folks! United America: 2014 by Ben Maxwell! Stop the author’s whining! Pleaaaaaase.
Now that I’ve said that, expect Righters’ Club to show up on google searches of my title. Really. It happens.
And for Christmas, I will give copies of your book as presents.
Hope that helps.
Oh, thank you, Carton253. Thank you! Another reason why I
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love Israel(:-|)E (bad attempt at Chassidic smily)
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Payos (sidelocks) were a total failure
Fortunately, not all writing is literature. Besides journalism and legal writing, there are the highly lucrative fields of business and promotional writing.
I’m presently working on a grant application for a dairy company. Potentially, if successful, it could solve all my money problems forever. Of course, I’ve had more than a hundred grand in the bank before, and presently am flat broke. So “forever” is used advisedly here. Still, it’d be great to be loaded again, and this time I’d know better how to make it last, even if I do truncate “would” too often.
Promotional, direct mail writing is allegedly where lots of money can be made, mainly because results are so clearly measurable. Direct mail, for those of you in Rio Linda, means those vile snail and e-spams that everyone (except about 4% of recipients) discards. I’ve been taking a course in it (Michael Masterson, courtesy of AWAI [American Writers and Artists Institute]) but have yet to try actually soliciting clients. On the one hand, money is my favorite. It’s fungible and has a universally agreed-upon purchasing power. On the other, direct mail letters require a lot of research into subject matter in order to write them. Right now, I don’t have the luxury of time to do that kind of research.
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