Hi. I'm taking my first stumbling steps at writing this year and finding that I could benefit from feedback. I heard about 'Reading Excuses' on one of the 'Writing Excuses' episodes so I decided I would try to see if its a good fit. Still feeling my way around. Brief bio: I'm an older guy, happily married and with a great kid. I'm rediscovering the creative portion of my self late in life (I've always been interested in storytelling and creative stuff but it wasn't considered 'real work' when I was growing up). I returned to school at 48 and got a degree in animation - unfortunately only a little before the big economic downturn, so after a glorious year working with a lot of talented artists (all 30 or so years younger than me) we all got laid off. After a year without dependable work I finally had to take a job doing other things to feed the family. I'm still stuck here 7 years later. I had been talking about writing for a a chunk of my life but kept getting tied into knots at the outlining stage - not sure why but my brain refused the structure. Probably the same reason I have only ever been a 'hobbyist' programmer despite a lot of effort and even an independent study degree in Computer Programming. This year, at 55, I finally said 'the heck with it', decided to stop fighting my brain and just started free writing. A story started to appear. I have heard all types of opinions on writing, including locking yourself in a room and not showing your work to anyone until you have the first draft done, but I feel the need since it is obvious one size doesn't really fit all. I've started to get bogged down in details recently and decided I need to see if getting feedback would work as part of my yet evolving process. Though I am by nature a bit of a lone wolf hiding in the shadows type guy I'll do my best to pay back whatever assistance I receive. All the best. Burt
