Writing!

[Blair Bennett]

In the schools I've gone to, I think I'm the only person that knows the difference between there, their and they're.
I'm like...a novelist or something. So, I try to improve my writing skill. Any lack thereof I blame on the public school system.

Where the Hell have you gone to school?

And here is something that I wrote in like, 45 minutes or something, I've been consistently writing creatively (if you can call this creative) for about a year and a half now, and I have definitely gotten better. Here's something I've decided to post, and I know it's hellacious, but keep in mind, I'm 14.

Spoiler: Ever feel like your eyes need to bleed a little? Step right up, mah man!

As I'm writing this, my fingers are burning, as if they were on fire instead of getting frost-bite. They've turned a sickly blackish-purple, and I have no doubt that they will require removal upon my unlikely return to Birchwood. Something that makes me uneasy about attempting to go back, as I can't make my living without my hands, not as a surgeon. Not in this lifetime.

Unfortunately for me, the conditions are getting worse, which is why I must make my decision quickly. My lungs are literally freezing. The moisture in the air and on my lungs themselves is nothing more than frost and ice now I'm afraid. Soon, my hands won't matter. Breathing becomes harder and more painful still. It doesn't matter though, I have made my decision, at least unofficially.

Today I woke up and officially decided to stay in the frozen Hell ( and if that isn't a bit ironic, I dunno what is) for the remainder of my time on Earth, which, mercifully, will not be long. My lungs are little more than icy pink, useless masses in my heaving chest. American Dream my ass...Jesus Christ.....how the Hell did I get here?..

The sun. She gives me no solace. She does not help the freezing, even when her rays burn, they do not warm. I pray that this frigid ***** of a mountain let me go, to where, you may ask? it doesn't matter. I just want to leave. Dead or alive. Preferably dead.

For almost a week, I've been a prisoner of this fucking mountain. I should have been found by now. I am a surgeon, surely the hospital needs its plastic surgeon. Surely? As I've written, and said to myself so many times now, it doesn't matter. I'll be dead soon, I welcome the sweet release it promises.

Goddamn it! Damn it all to Hell! I've lost track of time, and I have no idea how long I've been here, at least a week now it must have been, and I've stopped writing as ofter, My hands hurt too much, How is it, that so much money can be bled into the military, and yet, there are not sufficient funds to finance a competent search party. If there is one at all.

When I am finished writing this, I will walk to the edge of the cliff, slit my wrists, and throw myself over. Just in case I don't die fast enough, if that makes any sense. This truly is Hell. There is no fire, no brimstone, no lake of flame. There is nothing. I can see nothing for the driving snow. This journal is the last contact I could possibly have with the peaceful world below this mountain, I have no regrets. I have made peace with my God, and now, I walk to my death.......

I've recently fallen deeply and foolishly in love with limited omniscient narrative perspective writing, after reading Call of Cthulhu again, and so, a lot of what I've been writing recently is in the form of journal entries and such. So once more, I apologize for the emotional turmoil I'm sure to have caused by posting this sample of filth here, on the internet, where everyone can see/laugh/jeer/burn the witch and her wicked writing.

I go to school in Washington in a place called Wenatchee. Some people are really smart, a lot of people are really stupid.
I kind of thought that you were repeating "lung" to much. But then I remembered that this was a journal entry and I cut you some slack.
I've never read an H.P. Lovecraft book, but his ideas of monsters have influenced what I put in my own writings.
I've been writing a "novel" for a while. In the first chapter, the main character, Allen, fights an enormous tentacled creature that can make you go insane just by looking at it. Allen defeats it of course but it is difficult. I don't think anyone ever won in Lovecraft's stories...

I figured the same thing when I was writing it, but I sort of thought it fit (at the time, God knows that happens far too often) as an example of how everything was getting worse, and how the time to make a decision was drawing nearer. I'm glad you read the thing, I know I would not have resolve enough to read this filth again. If it's not a problem, I'd be interested in that novel, and as a response to your statement about H.P. Lovecraft, few people do win in his stories. Just curious, but what did you think of my writing?

P.S. Thank you for all that slack cutting you did, it was well appreciated.

Everything I've learned about Lovecraft was from hearing other people talk about it or from research on Wikipedia.
Well, I thought it was kind of depressing. And this is coming from a guy who laughed all the way through Schindler's List(not really). I like the stuff about the hands though and through that learn that he's a surgeon. I kind of found his total lack of will to live unappealing. Maybe I would grow to like him in time though. This is written from first person, so how would he know what color his lungs are? That's what I think. I took a class recently and we did stuff like this. It still hasn't worn off. We were really supposed to nitpick.
No matter how bad you think your early stuff is, it's still stepping stones toward greatness. No one sits down and decides to write the great american novel. It just happens.

You've made quite a few good points here, and I must thank you for not sodomizing my writing as you could have. Ok, you caught me, the only possible way for the surgeon to know what his lungs are like would be X-Ray vision, and I highly doubt that that is a skill he possesses. However, in my defense, this wasn't so much the emergence of the world's next superhero as it was poor wording. I was trying to describe what his lungs felt like. Often I catch myself writing only about half an intended sentence, and I end up leaving myself with a sort of obscure kind of poem. God knows that I've done absolutely zero re-writes on this particular piece of writing. And as for the surgeon's lack of the will to live, this was supposed to be revealed with a written prescription for anti-depressants, placed after the initial writing, as it is supposed to be revealed that the surgeon (left nameless intentionally) is suffering from clinical depression, due to the fact that his 23 year old daughter had recently been diagnosed with leukemia. It was just an idea though, and I never really got around to writing it out, though I need to, as without it, the story sort of seems incomplete. I thank you once again for your time, as well as for humoring me.

I try to be more constructive rather than mean.
Stories are kind of like fossils. You can find them buried if you look hard enough, but then you have to carefully excavate them.
That anit-depressants thing was interesting. You seem to have it all figured out. Time to do some rewrites I say.

I'll get on it.

 

[PersianLlama]

I've generally always been a terrible writer. Until 8th grade, where I had an amazing English teacher who got me into reading and had me develop an appreciation for language and literature. In 9th grade, my love for English came to an abrupt stop and my writing de-evolved into crap due to my corrupt English teacher.

Now, in 10th grade, I originally took regular English. It was an easy A, and I didn't need to try, I didn't care much either. However, my English teacher was absolutely wonderful and became my favorite teacher ever. She helped me improve my writing a lot, and brought out my love for English again. Lord of the Flies, the first novel we read, also brought out my love for literature again.

My English teacher saw me advance in writing and how I had a 99% for the first quarter, so half-way through second quarter she decided to try to switch me to Pre-AP English 10. Now I'm in a higher level class, and doing fairly well in it. I get A's on all my writing assignments, including the timed ones, and my only problem is grammar, which I've never grasped well.

Also, I went and looked at my old essays like you did, Shivari. My old writing was absolutely atrocious, and made me feel proud of my current writing. I've also begun to enjoy writing, and especially reading. I recently finished War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and I'm working on Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I plan on taking AP English next year along with Creative Writing. I thank my old English teacher I had for the first part of 10th grade for all this.

 

[NonMagicPoet]

Been writing since I was 12, got rid of my first angst.
Still doing it at 20.
Poetry, essays, short stories, and trying to get my longer ones done.

Here's an example. http://reioa-defoe.deviantart.com/art/Trip-88921283

 

[EeveeElectro]

My writing's improved a lot.
Looking back on my old stories, I was actually embarrassed. (I've been writing for about 7 years)
I seem to work best late at night and after reading a book.

 

[Cahlee]

I'm the opposite, creative writing has always been my strong point with essays being my achilles heel. I've always been top of my year for creative writing ever since they graded it specifically starting in year 10. I never plan my stories, I write one sentence that I like the sound of and keep writing and the story evolves from there.
I dont write as much as I used to and I miss it. But I'll be taking creative writing as an extra course at Uni next year. The saddest thing about this though is that I'm not at all organised and ALL my old stories are gone now.

 

[Berethond]

I suck at writing.

But, 8th grade in '07?
That would make you my age Shivari.

 

[Ionami]

I have found that I do all my best writing a) without any pre-planning, and b) at 2:00 AM the day it's due.

Exactly the same here.

 

[bad rider]

I have found that I do all my best writing a) without any pre-planning, and b) at 2:00 AM the day it's due.

Pfft, obviously you've never done your best writing a week after its due. Also your teachers have become increasingly suspicious about your relatives repeated death's.

 

[AuntyEthel]

I do loads of fictional creative writing. I found that my best work came after forgetting conventional boring grammer and writing what flowed out my head. If it makes sense and its unconventional approach doesn't look retarded, then its good with me.

 

[xitel]

I have found that I do all my best writing a) without any pre-planning, and b) at 2:00 AM the day it's due.

Pfft, obviously you've never done your best writing a week after its due. Also your teachers have become increasingly suspicious about your relatives repeated death's.

Actually I turned in an essay a month after it was due, and my teacher gave me a perfect without ever reading it. I have my ways...

 

[Chunga the Great]

I also wait until the very last moment to do homework, like now.......

 

[Bobby Newmark]

I write my best stuff at four in the morning, full of drink and gonzo self-importance. For me there's only two kinds of writing - "serious" and, well, not so serious. I guess if there's one thing I've gleaned, it's that you've gotta stay loose, ya know? Oh, and if you want someone to actually read something you've written you have to write it on a brick and kosh 'em with it, non?

That said, here's a little something I prepared earlier...

THE WHITE-COLLAR ADVENTURES OF COUGAR McKINLEY
(or)
AN EXECUTIVE DECISION

Everybody's talking about *this* around the water-cooler!

I met my work buddy Fat Cat outside the office and we went for brunch down at the Kaiser Burger. After making a crack about my tie he slumped into an infuriating monologue revolving primarily around locked options and forced equity. I ignored Fat Cat?s bland regurgitation of business know-how and munched at my abalone salad, staring off into the corporate skyline and morosely wondering if anyone would miss this loser.

I rapidly found myself tiring of Fat Cat?s jabbering and promptly wedged my salad fork up his nose. When we got back from the hospital, Fat Cat suggested that we go to the gravity-gym ? so I could work off all that salad, the fat bastard had sniggered. As I blasted my quads I contemplated Fat Cat?s meagre existence.

"Did you hear?" he wheezed, battling a stairmaster, "Gracie had kittens." I nodded vague approval, though I hadn't heard him.
"Why, that's just what I need - more mouths to feed! And things are grim at the office."
"You don't say."
"I'm afraid so, Cougar. Matheson's really got my nuts in a vice about the upcoming merger with Mitsuhada."
"You're speaking figuratively, of course."
"No! Look!"
"Gulp. No thanks."
"He said he wanted all the reports expedited by monday or he'll feed me to rabid wildebeests - and those things don't mess around. It's mating season, after all. The pie graphs, too." He was silent then. Thinking about pies, no doubt. Fat bastard.
"I'll bet it's Jeffries," he said darkly, "he and Matheson always sit together at lunch. And I just know he's been angling for that executive position up in Distribution. You know, with the corner office?"
"Do I know about the corner office?" I asked rhetorically, closing my ears to Fat Cat's inevitable response and staring off into the corporate skyline.

My wife had begun to sleep around because I wouldn't shut up about the corner office.
"It's got everything for an executive," I'd say, eyes glazed with rapture, "Self-heating chairs, windowboxes in which to cultivate my psychedelic fungi, secretive closets in which to conduct my illicit and unnatural sexual dalliances! Oh baby, it's got it all!"
"Cougar," she'd say, arms folded matter-of-factly, "you're drooling again. You have to wake up and realise that it's never going to happen. Your father was a mailroom clerk his entire life, and so too will you be."

*****. I'll prove her wrong, I will. And she'd been wrong about Pop. Everyone thought he'd died in the terrible storms of '39 (when it had rained sharpened candy canes, or so the legend went), or perhaps he'd bludgeoned himself to death with his own briefcase. But I knew that it had been the corporations that had killed him. Indeed, I was convinced he'd died in the dungeons beneath my very office. Matheson had had him fed to sharks.

TO BE CONTINUED (never)

 

[Serenegoose]

I usually only manage to start my days writing at 2am, and I sometimes get about 3 hours of productivity before 5am and then I'm beginning to get drowsy. I spend the time I'm awake BEFORE that just trying to figure out what I'm going to say, or editing bits I wrote yesterday to make more sense (it also functions to catch me up with the tone/setting/dialogue in case I've forgotten anything.)

Sometimes I get about a line a day done, sometimes I get 7-10 pages done. It really depends on what I'm trying to get across. Emotional scenes are tough as hell, lighter conversations or more description heavy scenes are easier.

 

[Tanis]

I have found that I do all my best writing a) without any pre-planning, and b) at 2:00 AM the day it's due.

^This.


Unless it's a research paper, then...eh, you know...crap.
I get a little screwed up.

 

[ElephantGuts]

Wow, this is an old thread. Hard to imagine things were so different just over a year ago.

Those were the days...

 

[Geekosaurus]

I write better with a pencil, I have no idea why. My handwriting is also very inconsistent - it looks completely different on a daily basis.