Who are you?

[Silk]

Welcome back!

[JamesW]

Well hello everyone, I posted earlier in the general "Introduce yourself" forums, but I'll repeat some of that here and maybe add a bit more.

My name is James Wood (There is no S on my name nor do I look anything like the actor) and I get the question "Oh just like the actor?" at almost every introduction I do.

I've been listening to the podcast by these authors nobody has heard of (especially on this site right?) for about a year now, and finally decided to start writing.

The podcast was probably the inspiration to start writing, although years of people saying that I read so much that I should write probably helped with that.

I'd been kicking around an idea for a book, and am currently discovery writing my way through it. I'm only about 12,000 words into my first, my very first, creative writing endeavor and I enjoy it greatly.

Well other stuff about me. I'm about to be a graduate from UCLA with a degree in Mathematics, with plans on getting credentialed and becoming a high school teacher.

Favorite books: The Name of the Wind, Chronicles of the Black Company, Every book in the Riftwar universe by Raymond Feist. Listing every favorite book and why would be a novel by itself.

Anyways, I hope to be an active part of this community and look forward to contributing and helping others out.

James

[Aminar]

I just finished editing the very first thing I ever wrote for my novel. It's a bizarrely emotional thing.(That being for those who've read my stuff, the scene where Keth summons a spider and kills a raptor right up until the giant glowing splosion thing) I was really bad... I might resubmit the changes later.

[Snarkangel]

New member incoming!

I'm John D. Hughes (the D. stands for 'not the Hollywood director') and I write all sorts of things. Done so for years. When I was younger, it was just for the fun of it, and it never went anywhere. In fact, most of my writing is for the fun of it; what I really like doing is maps. My previous project is a fantasy-based German Unification parallel, in which there were about a hundred different city states to keep track of. This is now the setting for my Pathfinder game, but that is neither here nor there, because I discovered something very important.

I hate writing fantasy.

It's true! While I love little more than reading good fantasy - and this would probably be a good time to name-drop my very favourite authors; R. Scott Bakker and China Mieville -, and my imagination runs wild with fantasy plots, I never write them because I don't enjoy it. I enjoy writing sci-fi/horror.

So I abandoned fantasy Germany and started a new project, with mind-snapping, hyperluminal space whale monsters with cities in their stomachs for everyone (shut up, I like China Mieville and H.P. Lovecraft, okay?)! I'm still grasping at the basic tenants of the genre - I've only been going a month now - but thus far I am enjoying the writing process infinitely more than I ever have before. I've always had a macabre bent to my writing, but now I spend a great deal of time wallowing, rather than indulging, in the dark and twisted. Most of my writing will require all four content tags, I think.

I also read a lot of non-fiction, but I don't think that counts for much here.

[cnr87]

Hi everyone!

My name is Carey. I'm 25 years old and from Alabama. I have been writing since I was a teenager, but I've never completed anything. I joined up hoping that I could find some accountability and see what others think of my writing.

I have a pretty wide range in the books and authors that I love. Some of my favorite (non-Writing Excuses) authors are Robert Jordan, Orson Scott Card, Larry Correia, Jim Butcher, Janet Evanovich, Gail Carriger, Cherie Priest (Boneshaker and the others set in that world, mostly), J.K. Rowling, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

I look forward to getting to know you guys.

Carey

Edited January 21, 2013 by cnr87

[little wilson]

I just realized I haven't done this yet...

My name is Kendra. I'm from Idaho. I've got a BA in English from BYU-Idaho. My degree emphasized in Creative Writing. My love of travel showed itself in my minor, which was International Studies. I work in a hotel. I have found, like Brandon, that working a hotel front desk can lend to a decent amount of time to write. Not to mention meeting some eclectic people that can help with character development.

My current story I've been working on since 2008. It's gone through many incarnations, and I even sent it out a little bit on RE over at TWG. Those few who are here who may remember that, however, won't recognize it. It's changed that much. Unfortunately, I've never actually completed it. But this time around, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that makes me absurdly happy. I've never finished a book before. But this one, this time, I will.

As for reading. I grew up on Michael Crichton and John Grisham, with a little bit of Tom Clancy thrown in. It wasn't until I was in junior high that I found sci-fi. This came in the way of Orson Scott Card. At this same time, I thought I'd never read fantasy (other than Tolkien). I tried the Shannara books in 6th grade and it gave the whole genre a bad name to me. In 7th and 8th grade, I even made fun of some fantasy...specifically Harry Potter. No, I'd never read it. That changed in 9th grade, when I followed my sister into the living room, where she was going to read a chapter of The Goblet of Fire to my other sister. The chapter she read was the Dark Mark, and from then on, I was hooked. I read Harry Potter, and I loved it. I went on to David Eddings, and the Belgariad. Loved it. And now I rarely read anything outside of fantasy/sci-fi. I still love Orson Scott Card, David Eddings, and Harry Potter, but I have since added Patrick Rothfuss, Cassandra Clare, George RR Martin, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Libba Bray to the mix. Just to name a few. I'm also a rather large fan of Phil and Kaja Foglio. And that one Brandon dude someone mentioned above.

Anyway. That's me. Nice to meet you all. :-)

Edited for--more detail into my reading.

Edited January 21, 2013 by little wilson

[AubreyWrites]

Hi everyone!

I just joined reading excuses this week and just saw this thread for introductions.

I am Aubreywrites and currently I am a stay at home mom and Natural childbirth educator in Texas. I have been writing off and on since high school between stories and poetry. Hopefully one day I will publish- the stories-not the poetry. I enjoy critiquing others work as well.

I am addicted to stories in all their forms whether on the page, the screen, or the stage. Even if the story isn't particularly original if it is well executed then there is a pretty good chance I will pay attention. I read pretty much everything except horror and harlequins. I love sacrifice/fantasy, historical fiction, westerns, classics, and well done YA,

My list of faves is way too long but here are just a few of the authors on my shelves. Zane Grey, Timothy Zahn, Jane Austen, Brandon Sanderson, Thomas B. Costain, roger Zelanzney, Robert Jordan, Charlotte Bronte, Anne McCaffery, Stephenie Meyer (the Host ), L.E. Modisett jr, John Grisham, Pat Frank, John Cambell, Suzanne Collins.....the list goes on and on.

Thanks for letting me be a part of your group!

[yankorro]

Greetings all,

I'm new here, arriving by way of the podcast. I'm NM, I live in Barcelona where I teach English (an experience gratifying and frustrating by turns) and write SF so soft you might call it "science fantasy"(I was an English major).

After some time practicing with short fiction (I have one story published, link below), I have finally finished a longer work, a novella (I was shooting for "Great Gatsby", "Fahrenheit 451", "Slaughterhouse 5" territory ie 50K, only made it to 33k). Just finishing the thing has been a learning experience. Now Im curious as to whether you nice folks think it saleable, publishable, intelligible or just horrible.

Reading-wise, I grew up on S&S (Conan, the first Drizz't books) and Robert Heinlein (my older sister gave me Stranger in a Strange Land for X-Mas when I was about 11), then kind of stopped reading genre fiction in high school (not counting Kurt Vonnegut of course). I got back into SFF by way of PKD, Ballard, et al. Now here I am. Enough rambling.

Shameless self-promotion: https://sites.google.com/a/newmyths.com/nmwebsite/fiction/god-s-plan-for-the-lunar-colony

[Mandamon]

Shameless self-promotion: https://sites.google.com/a/newmyths.com/nmwebsite/fiction/god-s-plan-for-the-lunar-colony

Read through this a couple days ago. Nice! I liked the story--very different from a lot of what I've read. Good job on getting something published.

[yankorro]

Read through this a couple days ago. Nice! I liked the story--very different from a lot of what I've read. Good job on getting something published.

Cool! Glad you liked it!

[Guru Coyote]

So, I reached the "reply to this topic" text area at the bottom of this page. Now what.

 

Oh, right, who am I?

 

Well, as you can probably guess, I'm neither a Guru nor a Coyote, but I do aspire to be at least one of those someday.

I started writing seriously and regularly sometime around August of '12, but am not at all new to writing. Doing over a month of "750 words per day" last year has jump-started quite a few projects and by now I actually finish most of my stories.

I tend towards short story length (2k to 8k), and have recently been writing mostly Fantasy, although I prefer to read SciFi myself.

 

Authors/Books... well, as others have said, there would be many. Recently I very much enjoyed Vernor Vinge, Cory Doctorw, Neal Stephenson... 

 

A very current (writing) obsession of mine is what I call "Figurative Origami," basically taking idioms and phrases of figurative speech, and building short narratives from them. 

 

What else? Well, I'm looking forward to sharing some material, giving feedback and also receiving some. What I really like about the idea of Reading Excuses is that the material itself is NOT public, allowing writers to share their work with more peace of mind.

 

So, let's see how this goes!

 

###

Some Figurative Origami to knot all your minds, I promise my other writing is less obscure:

 

 

Larry Clam was so happy he could have gone over the top in a nutshell. He’d been to hell and back on a pogo-stick and even wrote home about it. Between the devil and the deep blue sea he had kissed a loving seal. He told that to the marines, but they thought the kiss a bit made up. So after he had been out to sea and then hung out to dry a bit, he was content to kiss the dust. And while he lived, he resolved to tell the truth and shame the devil with the details.

[Silk]

Oh, I really like the Figurative Origami idea! Very cool.

 

Welcome to the group.

[andyk]

Morning all (or afternoon, evening, depending on where in the world you are)

 

I've just signed up for reading excuses, and thought I should introduce myself before I start offering opinions.

 

I'm Andy, I live in one of the wettest, greyest corners of the UK, and that may help explain why I write scifi and fantasy. I've been listening to Writing Excuses for a couple of years, and listened to the rest of the back catalogue last year. I mean to make use of something from the podcast each week, but I seldom remember.

 

I mostly write short stories, and I've had about forty published in the past few years, mostly in semi-pro places. My aim for this year is to up my game and get into some big name magazines.

 

My favourite authors include Iain M Banks, China Mieville and Neil Gaiman (just noticed that it's all Brits - not a deliberate choice, honest). But my all time favourite book is The Great Gatsby - only time I've got to the end of a book and gone straight back to the beginning.

 

When I'm not reading or writing I indulge in all sorts of gaming, gardening, and watching American TV dramas - TV is one thing we're not so good at on this side of the Atlantic.

 

Looking forward to joining in the discussions.

[cjhuitt]

When I'm not reading or writing I indulge in all sorts of gaming, gardening, and watching American TV dramas - TV is one thing we're not so good at on this side of the Atlantic.

 

I'm not convinced we're good at it here, either -- but British TV always seems good.  It's probably a case of the best stuff making it elsewhere, and the nonsense staying home.

[Guru Coyote]

Well, a prophet will always be "that guy from downstairs" to his neighbors (they might tack on 'weird' later, when asked by the media.)

[Carcinios]

So hello Reading Excuses,

 

My names Tim Hubbard. Born and live in the UK and have been writing slowly in my spare time for about six or seven years. I am currently working on a project 'Atlantis' which places the classic legend in a more High Fantasy setting complete with some magic systems I have been working on.

 

I think one of my favourite fantasy books/ authors has got to be 'The Curse of Chalion' by Lois McMaster Bujold. as stand alone books go it is without equal. Needless to say Rothfuss, Jordan and Sanderson are the ones who fill the majority of the fantasy section on my shelves.

 

One last thing (and this is probably coming from me being a technophobe) but I couldn't work out how to read other people's submissions I am assuming there is a mailing list somewhere but a friendly pointer in the right direction would be much appreciated.

[cjhuitt]

One last thing (and this is probably coming from me being a technophobe) but I couldn't work out how to read other people's submissions I am assuming there is a mailing list somewhere but a friendly pointer in the right direction would be much appreciated.

 

You'll want to read through the "Welcome to Reading Excuses" near the top of the Readiing Excuses page.  In a nutshell, you need to send Silk a Personal Message asking to be put on the mailing list, and then you'll start to receive emails with attachments containing the works to be critiqued.  Generally on Mondays, or at least near the beginning of the week.

Edited May 26, 2013 by cjhuitt

[Silk]

Exactly that, yes. Just let me know what email you'd like to receive submissions at and I'll add you to the list.

[Robinski]

Hi, my name is Robin, I am a transport engineer by profession, and have been writing for a very long time. In the last year however I discovered Writing Excuses, and then NaNoWriMo, and have upped my game considerably in terms of trying to my stuff out there. I'm on a mission!

 

Amongst the various things I've been working on for some time is an adventure trilogy (doubtful I could call it fantasy, as there are no fantastical elements in it). First novel is finished at 225,000 words, with 100k of the second one down and about 50k of the third. I've also finished the first draft of a 100k word contemporary story set in the place that I live.

 

My goal for this year is to finish catching up with Writing Excuses podcasts, which I take notes on, and apply these in my writing. I hope to submit to Reading Excuses a historical 'horror' series (6 stories) that I'm working on, although I not entirely convinced about it direction-wise, I do like the characters - so I'm really looking forward to hopefully getting some feedback, which will be very much appreciated.

 

My favourite authors are Jack Vance, Robert Jordan, our man Brandon ('natch), David Gemmell, Peter Hamilton, Iain Banks (r.i.p.), Jeff Noon, David Wingrove, etc.

 

Great to meet you all.

 

 

(p.s. I submit the excellent 'Sherlock' to counter Andy's suggestion that UKTV is inferior, although it might just be the exception that proves the rule (Games of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Firefly, X-Files, West Wing, Mad Men, True Blood uniformly brilliant) - I'm in two minds about Doctor Who and Torchwood since Russell Davies moved on.)

[Mandamon]

Writing Excuses podcasts, which I take notes on, and apply these in my writing.

 

Me too!  I think that and this forum have had some of the biggest impacts on my writing in the past year.

 

And I second your Sherlock comment.  I can't wait for the next series to start up.  I'm reserving judgement on Doctor Who until I see the Christmas special, though.

[andyk]

I accept that Sherlock is an exception where UK TV's concerned, and when he's on the ball Moffat's one of the best writers out there (if you've not watched them, find his Coupling episodes where he plays with timeframes and parallel narratives - I think the best ones are called 'Split' and 'Eight Minutes' - for really interesting examples of story structure). But even as a Dr Who fan, I find that show inconsistent in quality compared with the good US stuff.

 

Oh yes, and welcome to the group!

[Robinski]

But even as a Dr Who fan, I find that show inconsistent in quality compared with the good US stuff.

 

Yup, I'll agree with you there. I fear Matt Smith leaving might be the start of a second decline comparable with the departure of Tom Baker in the original run - no offence to Peter Davidson. Sorry to continue off topic, but I'm interested to know where you stand on 'Utopia'? (Apart from, not too close to the edge of course. Boom, boom!!)

[andyk]

Sorry to continue off topic, but I'm interested to know where you stand on 'Utopia'? (Apart from, not too close to the edge of course. Boom, boom!!)

 

I loved that show. Good writing, excellent performances, especially from the young lad. Just a shame that their casting helped sign the death knell for Misfits, my other favourite recent piece of UK TV.

[Robinski]

I loved that show. Good writing, excellent performances, especially from the young lad.

 

He was good, wasn't he - well cast all round, no 'obviously attractive' people - I did find Jessica Hyde rather annoying though, seemed sometimes to be trying a little too hard to be cookie and mysterious.

[edonil]

Hm. Probably should stop in here and post at sometime...now seems good. Name's Jon, I'm an electronics tester/theology student. Been writing for a long time, but the journey to become a serious writer and author really only started in the past couple years. Since then, been working on improving as much as I can, which eventually led to me finding Writing Excuses, and through that, Reading Excuses.

 

I've been a reader my whole life, and started in on scifi and fantasy early, which has really influenced the genres that I write. At the moment, I'm working on a steampunkish novel, Shadows of Real, and started a short story scifi for a bit of a lark that is rapidly growing out of control.

 

Favorite authors would probably be David Weber, Brent Weeks, Michael A. Stackpole and Dan Abnett. No offense to Brandon Sanderson, just only started reading his stuff, would be hard to call him a favorite author just yet!

 

Looking forward to seeing what everyone in here comes up with for things.