Ape's writing thread

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No poem yet. As I commented somewhere else, my poetic muse seems to have up and moved without leaving a forwarding address.

OTOH, I am making some progress on my first couple chapter stories. Might end up as novellas. Can't see myself shooting for a novel yet. One is the one I ranted about a couple posts up. I wrote a whole new first chapter, changed one character into two to avoid a relationship becoming slightly icky, and am rewriting the original second chapter to fit with the changes in the first before moving on. And, yes, I tied up the loose ends around the house.

The other is the long-gestating sequel to my fantasy story Night of the Wind. Basically a new adventure with the same setting and characters that focusses more on Niomi Shen, a priestess and "witch" who figured prominently in the first story but was not maybe the "lead". There's a hidden monster, mysteries about the temple she serves, and maybe some love in the air. Given the popularity of "romantasy" I am having a running debate with myself about whether to bring an element of that in.
 
Got my annual attempt at a Halloween story going and, for the second year in a row, it looks like there will be one. Different from last year's fairly dark Lovecraftian horror. This one has a lighter touch and, more important, a cat (black, of course).:cat: A witch is involved, too, which almost goes without saying. It'll be fairly short, maybe even a Flash (<=1000 words).
 
New competition is up on StoriesSpace. The theme is "Sound of Silence", not so much the song as the idea. here's the info from their forums. It's a Flash Fiction competition, so max 1000 words. Cash prizes are involved.

The Sound Of Silence Competition!

https://64.media.tumblr.com/ecd610a6787541b08d12241ceb9ae568/1e67b102c61caa85-27/s1280x1920/… - The Sound Of Silence Competition! - Forum
www.storiesspace.com www.storiesspace.com

Of course, I have an idea in the works. Strangely, given the "Silence" part, it's about a metal singer. The protagonist draws on my love of female metalcore and death metal vocalists. See the metal thread to see who I might be talking about.
 
Write it down and see if it is listened TU! These things have to be sounded out in psyche ... and I'm told there is not such thing in virtue (that's reality) ... so it must be out there ... outlier, Black Swan? Autonomous ... can't be seen from where you're at ... its a hard grasp that stone grip ...

Carpe Diem ... fish delight ... it is there somewhere in de dark pool ... few grasp the other as a way out ... ET TU? Whose more insane me*is, or you-know-who?

Settles the debate on the Mau SIR! It projects ...
 
You know what's harder than writing? Editing. Especially to a tight limit. I'm working a flash-length (1000 words or less) story for a competition on StoriesSpace (see link below). After struggling to even get a draft going (yes, there's a certain delicious irony in fight through writer's block for a story about writer's block), I bashed out one that was almost 1500 words. Now I'm down 1117. But those last 117 words are going to be brutal. Just running out of redundant words, adverbs, and other easily cut items. It's like compressing a file but without the help of a nice, neat algorithm like Zip, to put it in terms of my day job. Still, I think I've got this. There's already seven entries in the comp, too, so it is going well.

www.storiesspace.com

Writer's Block | Stories Space

You're a writer and the demands of others are weighing on you. You've got a deadline looming over your head but you've been struck with a terrible case of writer's block. We're all writers, we've all been there. We want you to get creative and break free from that writer's block. Perhaps it's...
www.storiesspace.com www.storiesspace.com
 
Why attempt to be concise when you consider how eclectic the world is ... very scattered in reason ... abstractly splintered ...
 
It's a bit over 3 in 12pt Liberation Serif (default font in LibreOffice) :giggle: . I handwrote some longer stuff in my younger days when word processors weren't an option but none of my published works were written longhand. My fingers have arthritis so I doubt I could manage more than a poem that way nowadays.
 
Is there a main way you edit your babies?

When I wrote regularly, I would read it oot loud and I developed an ear for cutting oot the discordant bits...
 
Delightful Life said:
Is there a main way you edit your babies?

When I wrote regularly, I would read it oot loud and I developed an ear for cutting oot the discordant bits...
Click to expand...
That's one approach, for sure, and I do use it sometimes, esp. for dialogue-heavy stories (that was actually a theme for a comp last year, had to be 50+% dialogue). If your dialogue sounds clunky in your mouth, it probably sounds clunky in your character's mouth.

I also just do repeated passes, making sure everything makes sense. Not just style, spelling, and grammar (I'm kind of anal about those) but the story events and character actions. Sometimes I'll see a character acting out of character or a description that doesn't add up, that sort of thing, and have to rewrite a scene or paragraph. Repeating myself is another, e.g. using the same phrase to describe the character in multiple paragraphs. That might work in epic poetry rooted in oral culture (Homer is full of it) but not in modern prose.

The one good bit of advice I got from another writer on my writing sites is once I have a "final" (nothing is ever final with me) draft, put it aside for a day or two, then come back and read it again. If I have been hammering at the same story over and over, sometimes I miss stuff and that "simmering" lets me come back with fresh eyes and maybe see things I missed. That's where my new story is right now, simmering.
 
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So I'm trying to work on a story for a new competition. It's flash (1000 words) on the theme of Summer Love, but they are defining that very broadly. The story I have now goes into my love of metal music again and has the protagonist finding both a new love of music and a possible new love in the romantic/erotic sense. But somehow I'm reluctant. Part of me feels it needs more than a 1000 words and part of me feels I'm going to that well again (music) too soon after my entry in the Sounds of Silence competition which was only 7 months ago. I have other ideas, they just aren't as developed at this point and there's only 17 days left. At least this one has a 1000 word draft in existence that just needs some editing and punchier ending. Here's the comp info on the off chance anyone sees this and want to join in the fun. There's quite a few entries already, which is heartening.

www.storiesspace.com

Summer Love | Stories Space

Summer is the time for vacations, exploring new places, and meeting new people. The chances are pretty high that most of us have had a summer love. Was it something sweet and innocent, or passionate, both fleeting and never meant to last? Did you meet the love of your life? It doesn't have to...
www.storiesspace.com www.storiesspace.com
 
So after trying different ideas, I now find myself going from famine to feast. I have two stories, both 1000 words or close enough that I can get them there easily. So which one should it be? Good problem to have given there's only two weeks left in the comp.
 
There's always more to a story than what hits you immediately ... thus the English Patient! Some are not and do other stuff ...

Like looking intuit ... and appearing far out!
 
So with my entry up in the comp (see The Wonderart Thread), I have two leftovers to work on as followups.

One, the first comp entry I started, is basically ready. Just needs some editing. It's another mild romance, this time with music being the touchpoint between two people.

The other is going to be longer (which is why I didn't use it as my comp entry) and needs some story development. It's a fantasy story about a kid and some giants.
 
I have been kind of light on the writing front for a while. No comps, a long vacation, and so on. I am working on a longer piece, maybe a novella or (dare I dream) novel. It is a development of an idea I have had stuck in my head for a long time, basically a female Robinson Crusoe but in a fantasy universe or maybe alternate Earth. She's not just stranded on an island, but also in exile after her family became targets for persecution (her parents were executed, she was tortured in prison before escaping with help from allies). On the island she befriends ... well, something that helps her. In the older versions it was a stranded cephalopod-ish alien, basically a nice version of Cthulhu. Now I'm leaning more to a small colony of amphibious (can function both on land and in the water) hominids. Not mer people (too fishy and not truly amphibious) or even "Creature from the Black Lagoon" but clearly human creatures with adaptations that let them spend some of their time in or under water. I'm thinking more pinniped (seal, sea lion, walrus) people than fish people but not really a straight pinniped-human hybrid, just humans with some pinniped-like adaptations to enable them to live an amphibious existence. Here's some notes I wrote up for the world-building thread on StoriesSpace.
  • Either hairless or covered with short, fine hair that lies flat to the skin (let's face it, Ariel's long red hair looks great but has to be hell for her hydrodynamics).
  • Sleek, fairly muscular body, esp. hips and downwards, for better hydrodynamics and more powerful swimming
  • Either a greater lung capacity or more efficient distribution system for storing and distributing O2 in their body, enabling them to spend maybe 30 minutes at a time submerged*.
  • Eyes adapted to seeing in both air and water, probably with compromises in both.
  • Small ears flat to the head. Flat or small nose.
  • Feet that are flipper-like, making them better in the water than humans but less efficient at running on land
  • Male genitalia and female breasts minimal, maybe retractable for the men. Again, for hydrodynamics.
  • Generally naked (the setting is tropical) since clothing would be a liability in the water.
  • Technology somewhat limited due to living partly in water, maybe a very sophisticated neolithic level.
Footnote:

*By comparison, humans have done this but (a) with pre-oxygenation (hyperventilating pure O2) and (b) they were static, i.e. just sitting on the bottom of a pool. Without pre-oxygenation and swimming, the record is something like 11 minutes and most people can do a minute and a half tops. These pinnipeople would do half an hour routinely and be actively swimming while doing it. Static and with preparation, they could probably do an hour or more.

As for the adaptations, there are islanders capable of long submersions who have larger spleens to produce more red blood cells. Aquatic mammals often have more myoglobin, a muscle cousin of haemoglobin, than land mammals, too, which stores more oxygen and is less affected by the acidity that builds up during long immersions.
 
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