psyanic

I'll go read it :3~! and aww, digging through the section it looks like stories don't get too many replies, I'm sure yours is awesome ;_;

Now that I think about it, I draw more in the colder seasons. So maybe that lack of inspiration is because of this heat >: Have you posted any stories yet?

I'll probably do both, sadly I've been in such a creative block that I don't even want to draw/write at all x__o; Need to find some source of inspiration or stop being lazy /sob

I don't have much to show in regards to writing ;o; But I might dig around all the stories... though I probably want to get into the roleplaying section first to help boost my writing skills. q__q

Ahh yeah, I never really ventured out into FF&W ;__; Ironic since I'm interested in writing and roleplaying XD; (another section I rarely go to)

I'm not around much in the same sections you are, it seems D': Mostly OVP and Art Gallery /needs to expand

wahh it's too hot to be outside for long here, the air's so hot I want to choke >: I honestly never saw you on PC before, which is surprising XDD; /is slow

I'm good, though my neck's been bothering me lately ;_; how 'bout you?

Psyy! :3 It's Sheep, hello~

It is a degree course in English, so yes, unless I do something stupid and fail, I'll end up with a degree in English. Books are the cornerstone of my existence, to put it mildly, so I'm more than happy to spend three years studying literature. I may not necessarily work in literature in later life, but an English degree is a pretty good foundation for most of the sorts of careers I'd be interested in, so it's not exactly going to do any harm.

Hemingway and I have a... difficult relationship. I'm not the biggest fan of the way he writes, but I can stand it - except in The Old Man and the Sea, where I throw any remaining morals I might have out of the window and tear into it with undiluted ferocity. I just can't tolerate its existence.

I know what you mean about Joyce. It's taken me two years to fully read through his book of short stories, Dubliners; I read three of the stories, put it away, then got it out three days ago and read all the others. To this day I have no idea why. I think it must be something he told the printers to mix in with the ink for the type - some kind of poison absorbed by touch that makes you only want to read for a little while. Then again, I cannot for the life of my fathom why Joyce would do that. Maybe he wanted people to switch to e-readers, a hundred years before they were invented.

F.A.B.

It's an actual university. Starting in September, I'm doing a year-long course in Art and Design, and then (hopefully) going on to study English at university afterwards. It's not going to be focused on the history of English literature at all - whichever university I get into, it'll be a literature course in general, more about critical analysis than anything else - but it's always good to have an overview. Plus, it means I'm reading great literature, which is never a bad thing.

As for modern texts... Well, I have mixed feelings about them. I love Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens and Austen, you see, and when it came to reading literature of the 20th century I found myself kind of underwhelmed. I get that Conrad is great, but I hated Heart of Darkness; I came to the conclusion that I don't like modernism. And yet I've discovered that I really like Joyce, which kind of implies the exact opposite.

Having said that, I've nothing against modern poetry, either, so it seems all I've succeeded in doing is confusing myself. I suppose for me it's very much about the author's individual style.

F.A.B.

:O DO YOU HAVE THEM ALL?!

Thanks for letting me know about that. I haven't been in the correct frame of mind for the past month, and sometimes FF&W suffered for it. But I really appreciate members like you who are exceptionally helpful.

Also, your avatar. It is exceptionally happy and adorable.

OMFG I USED TO HAVE YOUR AVATAR AS A CUSTOM EMOTICON ON MSN! THE MEMORIES! THERE WAS A WHOLE RANGE OF THEM AAAAA

Oh, I'm not complaining. Well, I guess I was, but it's still a good thing. I just find it incredibly difficult to limit it; since this time last year, I've only written two stories under the 5000-word mark, and one of them's going to be part of a series that form a story, so it doesn't really count.

As for planning... I'm terrible at that. I have one idea, think 'Hey, this is good!' and start writing immediately, making up the rest as I go along, with a (very) hazy idea of what's going to happen at the end. The one exception was a book I wrote two years ago, which was planned out from start to finish, and even then I changed almost every single thing about it (including the ending) while I was writing it.

Contests and I have a strange relationship. I tell myself I'll get my entry in in plenty of time, and then don't start until two days before the deadline. Then I write 8000 words in forty-eight hours, have no time to check it, send it in and hope I didn't leave any inconsistencies or mistakes. It's not exactly the best way to enter contests, but I hold little hope of being able to change my ways.

At the moment I'm preparing for an application to read English at university, so I'm reading quite a lot too - trying to get an overview of the history of English literature, that sort of thing. However, I too have been playing more video games than ever before. The release of the Humble Indie Bundle last month came at precisely the wrong time.

F.A.B.

There was a Yeti thing, too - it was all in the Penguin Mafia story. See, the hippies started everything by campaigning against people going up to where the Yetis live, so the Yetis lost their primary food supply (unwary Adventurers) and became Emaciated Knot Yetis. Then the Penguins moved in to scout out the area, and that was the start of their rise to power in the Kingdom.

I would try not to build worlds in one-shots, but... I always build worlds. Every single time. I'm never content with the real world, or the Pokémon world, or whatever established world I'm supposed to be writing in. Things creep in. One of my novels was meant to be set entirely in the world as we know it, but changes to history ended up creeping in so that World War One didn't happen, the Falklands War was a lot bigger and bloodier, and there were huge wild dogs roaming the British countryside. Plus I set part of it in the afterlife, or at least the world that administers the transition from this life to the next. I'm cursed with an eternal 'what if...?' that leaves its mark on every story I write: what if the characters in stories were actors? What if the Grim Reaper were real, and he refused to kill someone? What if the Pokémon world were biopunk? What if people worshipped cheese?

To get back to the point, I agree about the 500-word one-shot contest: we should totally have one of them. One of my favourite stories is only 100 words long, for instance, and I'd love to try my hand at really short fiction, forcing myself not to expand. A contest would be the perfect way to do it, since otherwise my willpower would definitely break and I wouldn't be able to stop myself going overboard.

I know what you mean about Some Stars. There's been times when I've felt the same way about things I've written, but I'd rather consign them to the ash-can of history than actually rewrite them. Such is the lot of the author, I suppose.

You can see exactly how successful my reviewing drive has been by the number of reviews I've currently done: one, for Some Stars. It's hard to bring myself to review the ones that don't capture my interest with the depth and quality of their ideas and writing, even though those ones need help to actually get to that level, especially when a decent review takes so long to write.

Ah, well. I'd better go and redeem myself now by reviewing something. I will do it this time, and not get distracted by video games, books or my own stories.

F.A.B.

i HAZ a bucket. Random Blurb ^_^

I think I should let you know I've cancelled my fan fiction. Thanks for beta reading! I'm going to continue to write, but only one shots from now on. I will continue Pokemon Rangers when I become a better writer. :)

Penguins? There's the Penguin Mafia, who already had a big thing way back in 2004, with Black Sunday and all, and the whole storyline created to destroy the bugmeat. Don Pygoscelis wrought havoc on the accounts of the rich and wealthy.

As for my one-shots, I really can't do short fiction. I need space to write; I like to build worlds and elaborate ideas - and that, combined with the way I write, takes up a lot of words. It puts me in a serious disadvantage in contests that have a word limit of 3000 or 5000 words; I've never won one of those, and I've only ever written two sort-of all right pieces below that length. Even my chaptered stuff tends to come in installments of 4000-5500 words, and ends up being 500 pages+ in length. I've given up all dreams of elegantly concise prose.

I do hate it when many stories need the same sort of help, which is one reason I don't review; however, I'm aware that people don't improve all that much without outside aid, and also that reviewing is essential to keep the site from dying. So yeah, I kind of feel I have to - as a kind of tithe to be paid by writers posting work here.

Some Stars was great, though; its issues were much more specific, and mainly focused in that last chapter. It's why I chose it to review first: it constituted something that I really enjoyed, and could also offer a little constructive criticism about. Those two things don't often coincide, mainly because they lack the former quality. My literary eye is a scathing, petty little harridan, and she can't stand a deficit of style.

For my part, I'm very glad you liked Hackers. It's a new direction for me, I think, in terms of content if nothing else, and feedback is always appreciated in such circumstances.

F.A.B.

Ah, I wouldn't worry. Pretty much everything I write is really, really long, with the exception of my entires for the Short Writing Competitions; I've long since suspected that the length is kind of a barrier to prospective readers who didn't start reading when I started writing.

And yes, Big Candy was the name of last year's Crimbo boss. He was a Hutt, for no real reason, which is often the best reason the Kingdom has to offer, and indeed the best reason real life has to offer.

As for my review, think nothing of it. I have to get back into reviewing somehow, and your stories provide a relatively painless way for me to do it. Not that I didn't enjoy Some Stars, of course.

F.A.B.

Yes, I'm the same. There's a reason I always play at Christmas, for instance.

As for Serebii... I didn't know that there were people who actually liked the skins. Whoa. The world is a scary, scary place. I'm gonna have nightmares tonight about meeting people who point at screens showing a variety of SPPf skins and smile mindlessly.

As a side note, I just read Some Stars. I've left a more full review in the thread, but while we're talking, I thought I'd mention that it really is excellent.

F.A.B.