NEW USERS! INTRODUCE YOURSELVES!

Thanks everyone and thanks for the compliment bradley!

Thanks everyone and thanks for the compliment bradley!

I'm not sure where you got Bradley, but I've been called worse.

Ouch, sorry about that! I'm working on a tablet, not that evident to scroll to previous posts and for some reason I thought it was Bradley instead of Baker.

Ouch, sorry about that! I'm working on a tablet, not that evident to scroll to previous posts and for some reason I thought it was Bradley instead of Baker.

Aye, tablets are a beast. Mine likes to change orientation at random times, I swear it...

No worries, though!

Ouch, sorry about that! I'm working on a tablet, not that evident to scroll to previous posts and for some reason I thought it was Bradley instead of Baker.

Aye, tablets are a beast. Mine likes to change orientation at random times, I swear it...

No worries, though!

BRAYley would have been good.

Hiya all!

Ouch, sorry about that! I'm working on a tablet, not that evident to scroll to previous posts and for some reason I thought it was Bradley instead of Baker.

Aye, tablets are a beast. Mine likes to change orientation at random times, I swear it...

No worries, though!

BRAYley would have been good.

And welcome to all the newcomers!

Hello.

I ran out of words...

But no. Now that I've finally figured out the code in those strange jibber jabber threads and there was a nice short one to start at the start with, the forums looked a little less intimidating so I thought I'd register.

So. Um. Hi.
(Yep, still no words. I guess I used them all on my first ever entry for Q1.)

I'm a bit late here but be welcome.

You sound cool anyway so it's good you are here.

Hi everyone,

My name is Tom Schoonbaert, 37 years old and I live in Belgium (Europe). I've been writing SF and horror stories for a while now, although always in Dutch. Ever since I heard of this contest, I just wanted to try and write in English. Despite reading quite a lot of English books for over 25 years, actually writing a story in a non-native language is something else. I do want to try it, even if just once. The idea is there, now all I have to do is get it on paper and preferably in decent English

See you all around!

Be welcome and don't worry your post sounds good and all of us are trying to write in decent English...well, one or two-like Brad--seem to have it down but most of us here are still learning and a couple of us are having problems.

Decent English is about the only thing I do have down.

Hey gang. Like everyone else, I'm interested in the contest and plan to enter. I'm a big fan of space opera, and my favorite authors in SF are Iain M. Banks, Alastair Reynolds and Larry Niven. I also enjoy historical fiction, stuff by writers like Steven Pressfield and Steven Saylor, and I've read most of the fantasy standards, from LotR to ASOIAF and WoT.

I have a question, and I didn't think it was worth its own thread since it's probably not very common. I'm pretty sure I'm in the clear, but just to be certain -- does professional journalism disqualify me in any way from participating?

As a journalist, I am a professional writer. That's how I pay the bills. As a creative writer and fiction author, I'm a complete noob and have never been published. I just want to make sure there's no chance of getting disqualified after the fact.

Thanks

Hi Planetary, welcome aboard!

Non-fiction and fiction are different, so as per the contest rules you're fine.

5. The Contest is open only to those who have not professionally published a novel or short novel, or more than one novelette, or more than three short stories, in any medium. Professional publication is deemed to be payment, and at least 5,000 copies, or 5,000 hits.

(The same goes for poetry and any other form of creative writing, I imagine.)

Welcome, Planetary!

Welcome, Planetary!

You're definitely okay with your journalism credits. I've published a few articles myself (though the only "bills" I've paid with that money would be my bar tab )

We're a crazy bunch, but what else do you get when you stick a bunch of writers in a room with nothing better to do but wait for contest results and stress over rejections?

I'm J. Kenton. Self-propelled anachronism, geek of exceptional geekness, and now, it seems, "a writer." I suppose an "amateur" because while I have now actually written and submitted (which is why I say "amateur" and not "aspiring", since "aspiring" means "hopes to write" if you want to be technical.) So I await my first rejection, and hope that it's a rejection that comes with a little feedback.

(About a week after I fired off my submission I realized how clumsy some of the backstory was in terms of narrative flow, and figured out a positively brilliant way I could have trimmed this or that paragraph to that or this clever, single sentence. (This is a keyboard. Apply directly to the forehead.)

Anyway, hello all, greetings and suchlike. I look forward to sharing the angstipation of waiting for results, and waving my arms and making encouraging noises as needed.

Hi, J., welcome aboard!

You sound like you'll fit in just fine here.

angstipation

New favourite word! <img src="

All part of the service.

angstipation

Sounds like a medical issue too. It's a brand new word and there's already a double meaning!

Welcome newcomers! I've been quite lazy the last few weeks with my travels, so I've fallen behind on this thread.

Hi. My name is Jim Miner, I am a 58 year old professional fire chief from buffalo ny. Finally got the time to do the writing I always wanted to do. Have submitted last three quarters. Received first rejection today. I have to say I am a bit surprised. I have read a bit of sci fi and I thought mine was very good. Anyways, good to participate in forum. Jim

Hey Jim!

Welcome to the board. Don't let the rejection get you down--any number of things can contribute to a rejection (including bad day for the judge, your story was too similar to a number of other entries in theme, characters, world, subject matter, a few errors in the opening paragraph...the list goes on). Stick around for a while and you'll start to figure out all the things that might be contributing to the rejections--or not--in which case we have a rant thread in the writing section of the board. Hope to see you around.

Thanks for reply. I will keep at it. I submitted a story of about 1000 words that as yet I haven't received reply. Does that qualify as flash fiction?

Thanks for reply. I will keep at it. I submitted a story of about 1000 words that as yet I haven't received reply. Does that qualify as flash fiction?

yep, that would be flash. Flash is a hard sell in the contest, but not impossible. Dave Wolverton has been picking some short short stories along with some of the longer ones. Bottom line, length doesn't matter, but quality does. It's when your story is up against another and comes up short (sometimes to achieve a flash story you have to give up on one or more elements to make it work and although it's a good "flash" story, it may or may not be as good if all those elements were fleshed out--but it all depends on the story--so you don't know until you try). I always liked to look at my submissions as experiments or data points that I would send off to see which ones produced a reaction, so when one would come back, I knew it didn't work--I'd send it off for critique and if I got back a ton of the same type of response then I knew what to work on for the next story. Everyone's strategy is different.

Thanks for reply. I am going to write what I am inspired to write, and things that I have faith in, I hope it fits in with Writers of the Future, which I hold in very high regard. It is very generous of you to spend your time responding and helping strangers. Good luck to all. Jim

Thanks for reply. I am going to write what I am inspired to write, and things that I have faith in, I hope it fits in with Writers of the Future, which I hold in very high regard. It is very generous of you to spend your time responding and helping strangers. Good luck to all. Jim

You'll do good then. And thanks for stopping by my blog--hooray, another Star Trek fan!! Hope to see you joining in on other discussions on the board.

Thanks for reply. I am going to write what I am inspired to write, and things that I have faith in, I hope it fits in with Writers of the Future, which I hold in very high regard. It is very generous of you to spend your time responding and helping strangers. Good luck to all. Jim

You'll do good then. And thanks for stopping by my blog--hooray, another Star Trek fan!! Hope to see you joining in on other discussions on the board.

What Tina said.
Nice to meet you, Jim!

Welcome Jim.

Received first rejection today. I have to say I am a bit surprised. I have read a bit of sci fi and I thought mine was very good.

Hi Jim. I definitely understand this feeling. I am regularly encountering pubished material and saying to myself, "How did this stuff get published? My stuff is far better than this!"

I think that part of the problem is that when reading our own work we still have the ideas in our head that we tried to write down.

ISHMAEL'S FIRST LAW:

What I have written + The ideas in my head = Brilliant writing

The problem is that no-one else has those ideas in their heads unless you have put them there. When I couldn't get anyone even to look at, much less publish, my novel, I put it aside for several years. When I went back and read it again I was amazed to discover that a lot of crucial material had not been written down at all. It was still in my head. In addition a lot of what I had written was simply digressions that had seemed interesting when I was writing but just seemed irrelevant several years later.

I have received a lot of very valuable advice both directly on this forum and through crit exchanges. It's good to have feedback without having to wait ages in order to provide it to yourself.

ISHMAEL'S SECOND LAW:

What I have written + a little help from my friends = Brilliant writing.

Of course the second law is just a theory until such time as I either win the competition or sell some of my work!

Welcome aboard me hearty. Or should I say "Ar, Jim lad, Oi knows where there be more gold than any man in the world! Oh Ar!"

I think that part of the problem is that when reading our own work we still have the ideas in our head that we tried to write down.

A very good point.

This is exactly why I've quit writing. Now I just smash my head against a blank piece of paper (or occasionally a typewriter, if I'm feeling adventurous) until the blood and grey matter coalesces on it in brilliant, lucid clarity. ... Or maybe it just looks like that due to the brain damage...

Thanks for the reply is it OK if I call you Ismael? You know I recently read Moby Dick. People talk about it being a classic, brilliant, or on a pedestal. I think in a lot of it Melville is just having a lot of fun with his writing. The scenes at the inn in the beginning of the book are very funny. Anyways, your comments are right on. Wrote a novel in the early eighties. At the time I thought it was great, but when I went back to it, years later it was far from that.

Welcome all! In a similar vein as the above comments, Orson Scott Card wrote once that all writers have to be crazy, because to be successful, you must believe two contradictory things at the same time: (1) that your work is genius, and (2) that your work is crap. The belief in genius lets you write on your bad days and gives you the courage to submit. The belief in crap lets you humbly ask for and accept advice, and helps you edit your work.

So I repeat...welcome!! We may all be crazy here but we never bite. Except the Gator. Watch out for her