Author Topic: Your Background  (Read 72955 times)

Chaos

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Your Background
« on: November 19, 2008, 08:15:19 AM »
So, in order to break the ice between different writers, I think it would be helpful if we got to know each other better. This way, we are more comfortable discussing things. Talk about any pertinent background about yourself that you are willing to share, or anything else you'd like everyone else to know. That would make this topic like the introduction topic elsewhere on TWG, but this pertains directly to our writer-ness, so it works being here.

A small profile about yourself couldn't hurt, or why you write what you do. Really, it's any background knowledge you want to give out. For example, your name, if you are want to give it out. Anything which makes Reading Excuses more homey for you.
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AvalonDreamer

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2008, 08:31:25 AM »
Oh joy!

You guys can call me Avalon, and as my name suggests, I tend to write with a slight old-Celtic influence to my works. Over the past few years, I've written the beginnings of a space opera involving chilled ginger-ale being sipped from martini glasses, an odd sci/fi fantasy story, a super-anti-hero book about a hero with no real super-powers as one would think of them (concept inspired by the Watchmen, a little...), and now my current work:

It's an Epic Adventure Fantasy, with undertones from the romance, sci-fi and horror genres. I began my original work on it in eighth grade and keep coming back to it with little success, until recently. Just today, in class, I found the perfect opening line - I came home, scrapped the 3 chapters I had written out, and begin afresh (it all felt contrived before.)

As a lover of literature, my influences are the usual: OS Card, R.J., B.S., Phillip Pullman, and the others. I've heard David Eddings, and Salvatore are good, but I haven't gotten around to them yet.

I'll do just about anything for a joke (lie, cheat, steal, murder, etc.), but I've never contrived a storyline to make one work, and I hope I never do.

I'm happy to be working with all of you guys, and I look forward to reading all of the reat material that I'm sure will come in.
My friends held an intervention, to stop my ridiculous plans to take over the world (Jake ended up in the hospital). I convinced them to let me take over other worlds though.

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firstRainbowRose

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2008, 08:40:50 AM »
I'm nothing fancy.  My first book was inspired by trying to keep myself from offending someone by saying that they acted like they were two going on sixteen (and the claiming it was dream, that in turn became the plot.)  I write mostly fantasy (one sci-fi, which really doesn't make sense because I rarely read it, so I'm kind of hesitate to even write the book.), with major romance driven aspects in most of them.

My book right now is actually the first one in my 21 years that I've actaully forced myself to sit down and write and thus sucks equally.  I've written four short stories that I allow the genral public to see (you can see them at http://firstRainbowRose.deviantart.com in the personal fiction section.  I know there's more pieces there, but one is a stupid poem, and one is a weird flow of thought thing.).

Pretty much, call me whatever you want.  I'll respond to most of it if I realize you're talking to me.  If not, just wack me and I'll notice.
"The custom of royalty in referring to oneself is to naturally employ the royal 'we'.  We are very happy, we are very sad, we are bored and suffer from ennui.  For a royal prince there's no such word as 'me', It's always 'we'.  So rightfully I should be two or three, don't you agree?"

Silk

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2008, 08:52:01 AM »
Whee.

Let's see. I'm a full-time undergrad who double majors in English and Creative Writing. I work mostly with fiction, and my long fiction is pretty much exclusively fantasy. (Of course, my "long" works consist of an 11k word novella, a novel that's halfway through, and two novels that I have yet to write.) I used to think of myself mostly as a novel writer but lately I've become enamoured of the short story form, as well. A lot of my short stories aren't fantasy at all, but tend towards liter- umm, something that is not literary fiction, because to say that myself would be pretentious.

I'm doing NaNoWriMo for the first time this year, using it to work on my current novel, which you guys probably won't be seeing, because the first eight chapters have already been workshopped to death and need significant revisions, and it would be silly to give you chapter nine. I will be getting started on another novel in December (here's hoping I can finish the first one first, don't really want to be working on two at once) that's related to the novella I mentioned before, and some of that you guys might end up seeing. Until then it'll probably be short stories from me.

I also do some songwriting and playwriting. In fact, a couple of my major projects this year will be a musical (hopefully) and a story album thing. If I knew more about those, I'd tell you. I have a lot of work to do ;)

As for WHY I write what I write, genre-wise? I have no idea. I just tend to go with whatever fits the story best, and lately I'm finding that I have some things to say that don't have to be speculative fiction, which is why so many of my stories end up as, umm, mainstream fiction.

Chaos

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2008, 09:16:49 AM »
My name is Eric (you can call me either Eric or Chaos on the forums; it doesn't make a difference to me. I've gotten used to Chaos though), and I am a full-time student at Montana State University - Bozeman. Bozeman being a city in Montana, as you have hopefully figured out at this point. I'm a Physics major, actually, because I decided that if I was an English major, I would just get burned out from all the writing I'd have to do. There wouldn't be enough time to work on what I want to do.

And what do I want to do? I like fantasy, and for my purposes, I define "fantasy" as "anything with magic". I do it that way because you don't find elves, dwarves, or other races in the stuff I write, so the only fantasy element truly being leftover would be magic as well as, I suppose, a completely new world.

Why do I like writing? Well, I remember waaaay back in junior high, around 5th grade, where I would play a video game and get through its storyline. I would get enamored in it, so much so that when I was finished, I would imagine the plotline for my own sequel. This would probably be my creative beginnings, which eventually evolved over a long period of time into my own writing.

I've been thinking about my novel a lot. Long time. My earliest known concepts came back (again) from 5th grade. While that sounds weird, it was only around a hundredth of a percent of actual thinking that came on back then. It has evolved so many times I can hardly keep track of it (my guess would be at least nine massive evolutions). Luckily, though, in this latest incarnation, I have begun going at it with a sledgehammer, cutting out the useless worldbuilding. This has given me a far tighter story than before, and I like it so much better. I don't want to say much more about it until you get a chance to read some of it. I've corrupted you enough already :P

Hmmm, what else? I don't only have my novel. I have a grand side-project called Ascension which I collaborate with two other people on. In theory, we the authors of Ascension would like it to turn into an anime, and what an anime it would be. I've been the main contributor for most of the plot and magic system over its five "seasons" that could, theoretically, be made. It's funny, because while I call Ascension my "side project", it has the capability to be far longer than my novel. (While we would, in theory, make it into an anime, right now it is just prose fantasy-fiction. It is very in-depth)

So those are my main writing commitments, and probably a lot more than I should have said about them. I have the beginnings of two other projects forming in my brain, too. I'm letting those ideas ferment a while :P

I am not doing NaNoWriMo, even though I need to write more in my novel. Schoolwork and any semblance of a social life has reduced my writing time to almost none, so I decided NaNo wouldn't be very helpful. I don't want my grades to slip, naturally.

While I am a Physics major, that doesn't mean I don't take English courses if they would be helpful! I have my eye on the Creative Writing class here :D They don't actually have a Creative Writing major at MSU, just a single course on it (which moves between genres each offering). I came to MSU for the physics, not the writing :P.

Hmmm, is there anything else to say? Oh, I write darker fantasy. That's something that should be disclaimed right out of the box, I think...
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maxonennis

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #5 on: November 19, 2008, 02:41:35 PM »
I'm a twenty-one year old male from Oklahoma. I spent from the age of two until eighteen in foster care.  I've always loved books and wanted to be a writer--even if just for personal entertainment. On the summer of my senior year in high school--I was still months away from aging out of the foster care program--while I was living on a farm, I'd gotten extremely bored and a little depressed and started to write a fantasy novel. I never finished it because I did everything that you're not supposed to, jumping POVs while in the same chapter, clique dialog, and the extreme over uses of internal dialog.

I set the jumbled story aside as I finished my senior year. After which I moved out on my own and began working, about a year later I picked up the old story and read through it--what I could anyway, I'd hand written it because I didn't have access to a computer. I hated it and wanted to try again. So now I'm on my fourth novel, and one I'm very excited about.

I never use serious romantic tones in my works--flirtatious, yes, but not anything serious--,I don't use the "family theme", I don't write idealist character, I avoid having a true definable antagonist, and the closest thing I've ever written to a happy ending is a story where the characters ended up right back where they'd began.
"Don't argue with ignorance. And when you argue with me, that's all you get!" Mike

Maxonennis’ soliloquy on Frog relations: “How can I bake the hall in the candle of her brain?”

wcarter4

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #6 on: November 19, 2008, 04:41:10 PM »
Name's Jake

I'm a fourth year at the University of Georgia. I'm majoring in newspaper journalism. Most of what I write tends to be military science fiction or something akin to fantasy. I've been a student in various Martial Arts since the 6th grade, and it shows in my writing.
If you ever find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

M

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2008, 04:57:47 PM »
You can call me M.  I'm 29, graduated with a bachelors degree to teach high school Social Sciences, but never have used the degree.  I have a really good job that pays the bills and am grateful for it.  If I didn't have my current job, I would enjoy teaching greatly.

I never have dabbled, experimented or even contemplated writing a novel before...until last year.  I have no experience in writing, other than long papers for college.  I have some of the most unique friends in the world and one day last year I decided I wanted to write a fictional book about the three of us.  The genre, I suppose, would be fictional comedy.  I love writing but like most people, find that my time to do it is robbed by external forces.  My major battle for time is taking care of my wife (this is not a chore or an inconvenience...just a necessary requirement I enjoy doing).  My wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and she and I are fighting that while she attempts to bring out second child into this world. 

I feel like I can take criticism, but my biggest fear is being the "noob" amongst seasoned writers.  Looks like many of you have already polished off your first book or two...whereas I am still working on my first and only.  I hope to learn a lot from your experience and knowledge.

Loud_G

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #8 on: November 19, 2008, 05:17:32 PM »
I'm a recent graduate from the University of Maryland. I started out in Electrical Engineering, but as I went a long I began taking a lot of geography and cartography courses to help in the writing of my novel. I enjoyed it so much that I eventually switched my major to 'GIS and Computer Cartography'. I apply the earth sciences to the world I'm making and I get to design my own maps! :D

I started writing in 10th grade. It wrote a short story (if 20 some pages at the age of 16 can be called short (the assignment was to write 2 pages)) I decided that it would be cool to expand that story into a larger world. So I spent my remaining High School years ripping off all the writers that I had read up to that point. The Belgariad had a "bore" so my world hada bore, the Wheel of Time had 'X' so I had X, etc., etc..

Then I went on a mission to Mexico for two years and didn't get to write or plan anything. I came backin 2002 with a desire to start fresh. I threw out all the crappy, stolen bits and worked on creating my own world. I decided that I was sick of the "British Isles Medieval Fantasy" setting and decided to go epic jungle fantasy with a smattering of a treasure hunt(/mystery) through ruins (a la Indiana Jones).  So that is my main project. It is called "Eriadhin: People of the Choice" and probably be a trilogy with a prequel.

I've written several short stories since I began this epic, I am very ADD when it comes to writing, I have lots of ideas, and so little time. :D

I've taken a couple of creative writing classes, which is where two of my short stories came from (a slipstream story of a boy in middleschool and a horror story taken from a nightmare I had once) I've also written a scifi story about what REALLY happened during the moon landing, among others. I have many shorts, and perhaps novels, planned but it is very difficult to find time....

I love to research things, so writing bizarre stories gives me a good excuse :)
George the Dragon   <---- My webcomic. 

WARNING:
Features a very silly dragon. Hilarity MAY ensue.

Chaos

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #9 on: November 19, 2008, 05:39:20 PM »
I feel like I can take criticism, but my biggest fear is being the "noob" amongst seasoned writers.  Looks like many of you have already polished off your first book or two...whereas I am still working on my first and only.  I hope to learn a lot from your experience and knowledge.

I don't know about others, but I'm not all that "seasoned". I haven't actually finished my novel before; it usually gets around 30,000 words and I decide to rewrite. Never finished any project, really.
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maxonennis

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2008, 06:33:38 PM »
I've only finished two of three--a third of the way through the fourth--and believe me when I say that I'm not seasoned either. About the only things I've lernt from my first two and a half books is how to write bad endings.
"Don't argue with ignorance. And when you argue with me, that's all you get!" Mike

Maxonennis’ soliloquy on Frog relations: “How can I bake the hall in the candle of her brain?”

Silk

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2008, 06:54:53 PM »
M - The novel I'm working on is my first, too; I haven't finished it yet. So you're hardly alone.

Maxonennis, even if your endings are as bad as you say they are, just getting there is a huge accomplishment. So congratulations.

maxonennis

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #12 on: November 19, 2008, 07:04:48 PM »
I just realized I misspelled learnt on a writing group thread!  ;D
"Don't argue with ignorance. And when you argue with me, that's all you get!" Mike

Maxonennis’ soliloquy on Frog relations: “How can I bake the hall in the candle of her brain?”

Dangerbutton

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #13 on: November 19, 2008, 07:39:31 PM »
I'm a freshman at Weber State University in Utah, majoring in Art with a Visual Communications emphasis.
     My writing career began at the age of eight, when I wrote a whopping 3 page novel (1/2 of each page was illustrations). I have no idea what is was about. At age nine I wrote the sequel, about 10 pages, in which the bad guy was Megaman. . . I had drawn a picture of him in the same notebook as I was writing, so when I got to that page I just decided to incorporate it into  the story. Later that year, I wrote my third book. 30 written pages (each one 1/2 illustration (stick figure style)), Entitled "Crono and Scott". It was about me going on an adventure with my favorite video game character. . .
     I didn't write anything until seventh grade when I wrote 100 page book.... notebook page... it came out to about 50 pages typed... it was pretty lame....
     The next year I wrote one that took me about a year. It turned out to be about 90k words. Unfortunately, I'm ashamed to even read it, it was so bad. The first chapter was blatantly ripped off from a video game. I tried to go back and change it, but it had such a huge part in the rest of the story that there was no way to salvage it.
     Over the next several years, from the time I was 15, until I was 21, I started a bunch of stories, but none of them got anywhere more than 15k words. In July, however, I began my current novel, Pathros Ascending, in which I am making more progress than I have in anything since I was 15.
    It is a Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel, about dragons in space, basically. Right now I'm at 30k words, and I'm thinking I'm about 1/5 of the way through.
    Hmm... can't think of much else to say about myself.... With most of my works, I spend a LOT of time on World-Building, but, surprisingly, my current novel has very little.
   Well, thats me.

Flo_the_G

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Re: Your Background
« Reply #14 on: November 19, 2008, 07:44:32 PM »
Right, you can call me Flo, everyone does. I'm 22 years old, a student of English Language and Literature (with a side dish of History), and I wrote my first (extremely short) novel when I was eight or so. I believe it was a sort of fanfic of the Famous Five series (or some other similar series, I can't remember), featuring the search for a stolen necklace that ended with an encounter with aliens emerging from UFOs that had landed in the robbers' cave.

Anyways, I have one technically finished manuscript that I'm in the process of rewriting, and once I'm done with that I'll throw a coin to decide whether to continue with fantasy or sci-fi - and I hope to be done sometime early next. Apart from that I've had a few periods of not writing anything, and a few more of writing the first few chapters and then losing interest. Working with a proper outline and and ending to aim for seems to have taken care of that habit, though.