10369 réponses à ce sujet

[LupusYondergirl]

Maria13 wrote...
I just slightly sad that I can't share it with some of my mates at work because we're all, well, BRITISH, and we belong to an, ah, PROFESSION, although I recently discovered that one of my colleagues was a closet NWN nut, unfortunately, he's left so no more surruptitious discussing of RPGs in the workplace for me... Groan....

That was the best part of working in IT. No one there ever looked at you askance when you gushed about the new game you were playing the night before. Odds are the dark circles under their eyes were because they had been doing the 'all right, another half hour and then bed' thing, too. IT in general was a phenomenally accepting field for so many reasons. Although I occasionally would get jerks who assumed I was the receptionist or flat-out asked to talk to a man instead of me, my coworkers were amazing. It was the only field I've worked in where my geek and goth tendencies were completely ignored or accepted without question.

While my professors are fine with the latter now, and plenty of them sport all-black wardrobes and tattoos of their own, I definitely get some pushback for my geekier tendencies.
When I asked my creative writing professor to look over my partially-finished fantasy novel his response was something like “you’re a gifted writer, WHY are you wasting your time with garbage like genre fiction?” Geek shirts and my d12 necklace tend to get eyerolls. I don’t know if it would be different if I was a traditional student. Maybe they’re more opinionated with me since I am older and they expect I would have “grown out” of such things by now.

[TanithAeyrs]

Maria13 wrote...

TanithAeyrs wrote...

Self-confessed nerd. Ten years ago I would have worried about what people thought if I admitted to playing D&D, Rolemaster and CRPG's, much less writing FF. Now, not so much. Although I only recently discovered FF I found out that one of my best friends has been reading it for years (and she never told me). I guess those of us in the 30-40 range grew up in a culture that didn't accept RPG's or FF as normal. At this point in my life I really don't care what others think so I freely admit my RPG and FF addiction. Not that I shout if from the rooftops, but I certainly don't hide it. I never was one of the "cool' kids anyway and it certainly doesn't matter now.

I just slightly sad that I can't share it with some of my mates at work because we're all, well, BRITISH, and we belong to an, ah, PROFESSION, although I recently discovered that one of my colleagues was a closet NWN nut, unfortunately, he's left so no more surruptitious discussing of RPGs in the workplace for me... Groan....

To put my confession in perspective, most of my staff is more concerned with rodeo (ropers and barrel racers) and has no idea what I'm talking about.  Major work place discussions involve horses, cattle, fishing and hunting with a smattering of other sports.  The fact that I write anything is considered odd.  I am having a lot of fun with exchanging new words with the horseshoer who works out of our clinic though.  He started a competition a few weeks ago with a word he didn't know and now we try to find new words to stump each other with every week - so I guess that falls in the nerd category.

[Sarah1281]

30+ writers may not get much support IRL but I have noticed that a lot of the best stories tend to be written by them.

I, of course, hold out the hope that if I somehow don't lose interest in a decade or so and keep writing that my things will be amazing as well.

[LupusYondergirl]

SurelyForth wrote...

And, like LupusYondergirl, I will be returning to school in January. I figure spending 8 months writing my ass off for fun is about the best thing I can do before I have to start writing my ass off for serious. 

A fellow English major! 
Let me say, about going back to school as an "adult."  
You will LOVE IT. 
Seriously, I can't believe how much fun it is just to sit and write and talk about writing and read and talk about what I've read with people all day.  Every day I wake up happy, and wonder why on earth I didn't enjoy this the first time around.  Dostoevsky seminar? Oh yeah!  Reading every Jane Austin book, in the order written?  Sign me up!  Spending a week discussing the populist messages in Dickens?  Yes yes yes!

I was going to get my MA in secondary education and completely dumped that plan since I love what I do now so much.  I'm going into a PhD program in a year so I can stay in college forever.  (fingers crossed.  I've got the grades, just have to hope the math portion of the GRE doesn't kill me). 

[TanithAeyrs]

Sarah1281 wrote...

30+ writers may not get much support IRL but I have noticed that a lot of the best stories tend to be written by them.

I, of course, hold out the hope that if I somehow don't lose interest in a decade or so and keep writing that my things will be amazing as well.

I hope you do keep writing.  I wrote a lot when I was younger and then I put it on hold for college and then again when I had kids.  I wish I had kept it up.  Your writing is very good now so it would be a pity if you stopped.

[DreGregoire]

LupusYondergirl wrote...

While my professors are fine with the latter now, and plenty of them sport all-black wardrobes and tattoos of their own, I definitely get some pushback for my geekier tendencies.

When I asked my creative writing professor to look over my partially-finished fantasy novel his response was something like “you’re a gifted writer, WHY are you wasting your time with garbage like genre fiction?” Geek shirts and my d12 necklace tend to get eyerolls. I don’t know if it would be different if I was a traditional student. Maybe they’re more opinionated with me since I am older and they expect I would have “grown out” of such things by now.

Ah, yes the whole college scene. I was going to finish my last 10 classes online but all my seasons of t.v. shows and anime series and sims took up my time; and then Shadowbane, Sims II, more anime, and t.v. series; then secondlife and NWN2 and Witcher; and then some more anime and then Witcher again and secondlife, Then slam out comes Dragon Age Origins and I'm lucky if I have time for all of the other things. LOL. Oh well it would have just been a piece of pretty paper to put on my wall. Of course through out it all I have this whole made up world of my own creation, that I work on when my muse decides to visit. 

added: Plus well there is that pesky reallife of mine that requires I be away from my computer.

Modifié par DreGregoire, 08 août 2010 - 07:50 .

[Sarah1281]

TanithAeyrs wrote...

Sarah1281 wrote...

30+ writers may not get much support IRL but I have noticed that a lot of the best stories tend to be written by them.

I, of course, hold out the hope that if I somehow don't lose interest in a decade or so and keep writing that my things will be amazing as well.

I hope you do keep writing.  I wrote a lot when I was younger and then I put it on hold for college and then again when I had kids.  I wish I had kept it up.  Your writing is very good now so it would be a pity if you stopped.

Thanks for the support.

[Gilgamesh1138]

I am with them Sarah! Keep it up!

[SurelyForth]

LupusYondergirl wrote...
A fellow English major! 
Let me say, about going back to school as an "adult."  
You will LOVE IT. 
Seriously, I can't believe how much fun it is just to sit and write and talk about writing and read and talk about what I've read with people all day.  Every day I wake up happy, and wonder why on earth I didn't enjoy this the first time around.  Dostoevsky seminar? Oh yeah!  Reading every Jane Austin book, in the order written?  Sign me up!  Spending a week discussing the populist messages in Dickens?  Yes yes yes!

I was going to get my MA in secondary education and completely dumped that plan since I love what I do now so much.  I'm going into a PhD program in a year so I can stay in college forever.  (fingers crossed.  I've got the grades, just have to hope the math portion of the GRE doesn't kill me). 

I don't even know what I want to do once I'm done. I just want to, like you said, get to read and write and talk about reading and writing. 

[LupusYondergirl]

Sarah1281 wrote...

30+ writers may not get much support IRL but I have noticed that a lot of the best stories tend to be written by them.

I, of course, hold out the hope that if I somehow don't lose interest in a decade or so and keep writing that my things will be amazing as well.

You absolutely should keep writing. You have real talent, time will only improve that. Even if you don't keep with fanfic write something original. You have a great way of playing with the absurdity in situations, your stuff always makes me smile. (I need to write more reviews for you. I'm so bad about that.)

I think some of the age thing just comes down to life experience. Even in a fantasy genre some experiences and emotions are universal and things will play in even if you're doing everything you can not to self-insert.

It's easier to write about romance and heartbreak if you've been there. Prejudice is easier to write about if you've faced it or seen its effects on someone you love, so while I don't know what it's like to be a hated mage, I do know how much it sucked when someone scumbag made comments while I was in interracial relationships, and how much it upsets, angers, or saddens my friends when they face racism or homophobia. And smut... oh man, smut is a million times easier if you've, um, been around the block a few... dozen... times. (I found a hard drive from my high school computer not long ago. The smutty things I wrote in my teens are damn near humiliating. Is that really how I thought it worked? Seriously? No wonder I was so disappointed at first!)

Etc etc etc.

So I don't really think it's a case of "older people are better writers" so much as it is that "older people have done and experienced more, giving them a larger background of first-hand knowledge to draw from when writing."

(format WOAH edit)

Modifié par LupusYondergirl, 08 août 2010 - 08:17 .

[Gilgamesh1138]

I am bad about the reviews too. I just don't seem to have all the time that I want. ROFL!



I took a 15 year hiatus from writing. I hope I am rapidly catching up. I hope to keep improving.

[Sialater]

LupusYondergirl wrote...

While my professors are fine with the latter now, and plenty of them sport all-black wardrobes and tattoos of their own, I definitely get some pushback for my geekier tendencies.
When I asked my creative writing professor to look over my partially-finished fantasy novel his response was something like “you’re a gifted writer, WHY are you wasting your time with garbage like genre fiction?” Geek shirts and my d12 necklace tend to get eyerolls. I don’t know if it would be different if I was a traditional student. Maybe they’re more opinionated with me since I am older and they expect I would have “grown out” of such things by now.

No.  I got the same crap in undergrad, too.  And that was 12 years ago.

Modifié par Sialater, 08 août 2010 - 08:24 .

[Sarah1281]

Oh, wow, I had no idea you guys read my stuff.

[okiness]

The 'useless genre' crap is probably because fantasy writers typically get low advances and low sales on their first book. When people think writing they think big money and they don't respect the genres that are not as loved or thought as well of as. Why? Money. I write original stuff in hopes of getting better, but I know talented people like Sarah could definitely write for a living if they kept it up. Shoot, a ton of you are way too talented :lol

[LupusYondergirl]

I really hate the prejudice academia has against anything outside straight-up fiction. The wheat to chaff ratio can be higher, sure, but there are some real gems there. I don't care what anyone says, Dune and Neuromancer aren't good scifi, they're just GOOD BOOKS. Lord of the Rings isn't a classic fantasy series, it's just a classic. There is plenty of stuff there that transcends genre, painting it with a wide brush just isn't fair. (and don't even get me started on people who dismiss Neil Gaiman as a genre writer... Oh, that leads to some ranting!)

[Raonar]

You know, another problem is with people that think they are far too well versed in life to even give a damn about other people's opinions. As in, because he is married and fighting with his wife all the time, he doesn't give a rat's **** about his best friend's opinion because, since the latter is unmarried, he has NO WAY of knowing what he's going through and, thus, is a COMPLETE IDIOT in that area and should jut shut up. As in, no one will EVER consider the words of someone who wasn't AT LEAST as idiotic as them in the past in order to have gone through a similar experience.

Seriously, there is a reasons some people are called wise. They are just wise enough to NOT go through an idiotic experience and, thus, COMPLETELY fit to make an impartial analysis of a situation. The bad part is that the one they end up trying to talk to are too egotistical to actually accept that the former does, in fact, have a point.

This reflects in writing. People probably think some genre or another has no potential in this or that area, or that a certain writer is not fir for it because he is either too young and, thus, overly inexperienced, or too old and, thus, well, too old.

And really, I can state clearly that I wasn't involved in any event that had my hypothetical younger brother framing me for fratricide. Going by the logic above, I should have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how to write about something like that. But I do and I got only things like "wow, what a great story". Granted, I know I still have much to refine in terms of style and vocabulary and all, but the fact that the story alone is more than enough to offset everything else just goes to show that imagination actually rules.

Big time.

Yes, big chunk of text that probably makes very little sense or has nothing to do with the current topic, and likely transmits a certain level of self-absorption, but meh.

EDIT

In other news Sarah, I read some of your Naruto fanfictions, and that bit about Naruto and the Sannin getting killed by their students was HILARIOUS.

Modifié par Raonar, 08 août 2010 - 10:04 .

[LupusYondergirl]

Raonar wrote...

You know, another problem is with people that think they are far too well versed in life to even give a damn about other people's opinions.

Was this directed at my post?  If so, I honestly didn't intend it with any hostility, and it absolutely wasn't directed at anyone here, only a response to Sarah's comment about older writers based completely on my own expierence writing when I was younger compared to now.
I'm sorry if it offended you that much, I really didn't mean any negativity by it at all.

[Sarah1281]

LupusYondergirl wrote...

Raonar wrote...

You know, another problem is with people that think they are far too well versed in life to even give a damn about other people's opinions.

Was this directed at my post?  If so, I honestly didn't intend it with any hostility, and it absolutely wasn't directed at anyone here, only a response to Sarah's comment about older writers based completely on my own expierence writing when I was younger compared to now.
I'm sorry if it offended you that much, I really didn't mean any negativity by it at all.

I don't think he meant that you were being offensive. After all, what you said really wasn't and he did say that what he'd just written wasn't really about the current topic.

I took this to mean that he was just describing another problem there is with people not taking the work of others seriously unless they've gone through it themselves. Like 'Oh, you've never been to Mexico? Don't write about it. You've never had kids? That's out, too. Never went to a public high school? How can I take what you write seriously since you're so obviously clueless?!?!'

[Raonar]

LupusYondergirl wrote...

Raonar wrote...

You know, another problem is with people that think they are far too well versed in life to even give a damn about other people's opinions.

Was this directed at my post?  If so, I honestly didn't intend it with any hostility, and it absolutely wasn't directed at anyone here, only a response to Sarah's comment about older writers based completely on my own expierence writing when I was younger compared to now.
I'm sorry if it offended you that much, I really didn't mean any negativity by it at all.

Oh GODS no, I DID NOT address you.

Oh lord.

Sorry, I definitely did not. Oh God, is this a day where I get completely misunderstood again ?

Sigh

My apologies. Really, this was NOT directed at you or anyone on this thread, or this forum, or the internet for that matter. I had just had to deal with something like this just an hour ago in real life. sigh

EDIT
Special thanks to Sarah for so gracefully saving my hide.

"hands cookies"

Modifié par Raonar, 08 août 2010 - 09:38 .

[LupusYondergirl]

Raonar wrote...

LupusYondergirl wrote...

Raonar wrote...

You know, another problem is with people that think they are far too well versed in life to even give a damn about other people's opinions.

Was this directed at my post?  If so, I honestly didn't intend it with any hostility, and it absolutely wasn't directed at anyone here, only a response to Sarah's comment about older writers based completely on my own expierence writing when I was younger compared to now.
I'm sorry if it offended you that much, I really didn't mean any negativity by it at all.

Oh GODS no, I DID NOT address you.

Oh lord.

Sorry, I definitely did not. Oh God, is this a day where I get completely misunderstood again ?

Sigh

My apologies. Really, this was NOT directed at you or anyone on this thread, or this forum, or the internet for that matter. I had just had to deal with something like this just an hour ago in real life. sigh

EDIT
Special thanks to Sarah for so gracefully saving my hide.

"hands cookies"

No, no, don't worry.  I was horrified I might have accidentally offended anyone since that totally wasn't what I wanted to do!  I'm glad it's all cool.

[DreGregoire]

So.... anyways. I think I should be having subchapters or something lol. Some of my chapters are turning out really short. LOL. I'm not really use to writing chapters. Usually I throw everything on paper and chapter it later. I know you all have talked about chapter length before but if a chapter idea is done isn't it done no matter the length? Just wondering because like I said short chapter longish chapter short chapter. Hey is that a pattern? LOL

[okiness]

Raonar: Yeah, same here.



So much fanfiction. And so much conflict. I hate when I draw comics without a script and then I'm like 'oh, but if I show this to people they won't get it' so I have to get over it and post it anymore, or make it pages longer with a script after I've already toned and colored certain panels. Grrr. Grrr.



In any case.........back to reading XD

[Sialater]

Yes. If a Chapter is done, it's done.

[LupusYondergirl]

I've utilized the horizontal rule before when I feel like I'm "done" but don't think it's long enough to post.

[Raonar]

LupusYondergirl wrote...

No, no, don't worry.  I was horrified I might have accidentally offended anyone since that totally wasn't what I wanted to do!  I'm glad it's all cool.

Phew. *wipes sweat off brow*

DreGregoire wrote...

So.... anyways. I think I should be having subchapters or something lol. Some of my chapters are turning out really short. LOL. I'm not really use to writing chapters. Usually I throw everything on paper and chapter it later. I know you all have talked about chapter length before but if a chapter idea is done isn't it done no matter the length? Just wondering because like I said short chapter longish chapter short chapter. Hey is that a pattern? LOL

Hmm, well, poeple apparently think abut 5000 words on average is good, but I actually have 8000 on average and over 16,000 words maximum. Mostly, I know where I want to take the story when I write a specific section. On the other hand, chapters of over 10,000 can be quite long and hard to read in one sitting, especially those that read them at work or such.

Do not take my words for granted though. It also depends on what kind of story you're writing. So mostly, it's all about where you want to take the story and how long it takes you to do it.

Then again, I am actually at my very first fanfiction so I am hardly someone fit to give out advice on things like this. So just wait until Sarah or SOLD or Lupus reply to this

EDIT

Wow, you people are fast...

Modifié par Raonar, 08 août 2010 - 10:05 .