Thought my first post should be to say hi! *waves to everyone*

Never really had much to say about myself (probably due to my boring life).

I have always been interested in science fiction and fantasy and up until a few years ago I read all I could get my hands on. Then work and a busy life took over and I haven’t read much since.

Now the children have grown up and left home the wife and I have lots of spare time on our hands and thought I would have a go at writing instead of reading.

As a child I had (and still do have) a good imagination. Mum always called me a dreamer, especially after the teachers told her this on parents evening ever year. My trouble is getting those images from my head down into readable text. I am at a disadvantage too because I didn’t do well at English in school (or anything else for that matter).

Another problem is I am embarrassed about people reading what I have written, when the wife asks to read it I tell her to bugger off and I try to write in secret! What the hell is that all about?

Anyway I have written about 4000 words and would like someone to read it and tell me I have no hope so I can stop. But I am to scared to post it!

On a side note, do you all touch type? If so do you use QWERTY (like me), Dvorak or just plain two finger typing?

Mark

Hi, Mark, and welcome to WriteWords

If yuo need any help navigating the site, just give us a shout.

Another problem is I am embarrassed about people reading what I have written

Oh, me too! It's a fear that affects us all (it's a wonder anyone gets published, we'd probably all prefer to be cowering under our beds clutching our manuscripts shouting, "go away, you won't understand it"...Or maybe not).

4000 words is just the start of the journey - Hemingway once said (apparently) you need to write a million words before you can call yourself a writer - well, maybe that's a bit on the high side, but a few tens of thousands is probably a good place to aim for.
A another author once said 'If you don't write it, you can't edit it', and perfecting the writing comes in the editing.
So keep writing, start editing, and sooner rather than later, you'll find you're a significant way towards your first million.


- NaomiM



<Added>

Oh, and I'm a 4 fingered typist, which probably explains all the 'yuo's in my posts.

<Added>

...although, stangely not in this one. Probably because your question promted me to look at my hands as I typed and count the number of fingers I was using. - um, 5 this time.

Hello Mark

Welcome to WW.

Just started writing myself. Everyone is very helpful on the forums, especially when reviewing your work.

I am querty person myself, but still make the odd typo!

Beverley

Hi Mark, and welcome to WW.

4,000 words is beginning to get somewhere, which is great: you're beginning to know what you've got. I think it's incredibly common to feel very shy about your work. Just putting something imaginative down on paper is very exposing, because you're taking something out of your head and offering it for others to understand, or hate, or whatever. I think most writers start writing secretly, or at least certainly not showing stuff to anyone else. The advantage of showing it to other writers, on WW for instance, is that they know where you're coming from.

I'm a qwerty person, meself, but still not terribly accurate.

Emma

Thanks guys for the warm welcome!

I will post some of it soon, someone with some experience needs to tell me to work at it or give up.

I don’t want to waste time with the false hope that one day I might get published.

I am trying out Dvorak at the moment to see if I can take to it. Being a qwerty typist I am finding it quite tuff to change. I didn’t realise qwerty was developed over 100 years ago to slow typists down.

Mark

I didn’t realise qwerty was developed over 100 years ago to slow typists down.

Ah, so that's my excuse...and here was me thinking it was just plain old procrastination - either that, or sticky fingers.


- NaomiM

Ah, so that's my excuse...and here was me thinking it was just plain old procrastination - either that, or sticky fingers.

I`d go with the sticky fingers Naomi as I think procrastination always sounds such a painful word

I think I am ready to post some of my... err... *work* should I call it that? I don't know what to call it at the moment....

Where do I do that?

"Where do I do that?"

If yuo look at the top of the page you'll see a tab that says 'Groups' (sometimes the groups are listed down the right hand side of the page):

http://www.writewords.org.uk/groups/

You can either join one of the genre forums (eg, childrens, chick-lit, SF/Fantasy) or one of the general forums (eg, Beginners, Fiction, etc).
Click on the name and it'll take you to the forum's home page, there (unless it's full) you'll see a sign that says 'Click here to join this group'.
You usually have to wait a few hours while yuor applicatio is pending, before you can upload work - you upload work via your 'My WriteWords' page, which you'll see in the top right hand corner of the page.
As a part member yuo can only join one group, and upload one piece of work, and you will not be able to edit that piece of work once it is uploaded. Any feedback will be left in comment boxes tacked on to the end of the work.

If you have any other questions and/or get stuck, let me know.


- NaomiM

Naomi, thanks for taking the time to read it… and the comments. It has encouraged and at the same time made realise how hard it is.

It is easy for me to see the scene in my head but to get it down on paper the right way to make the reader see what I see is hard. It looks like I’m giving the reader too much information. I didn’t even realise I was doing it.

It seems I have a lot to learn but not so much that it seems an impossible task, which is what I was hoping for.

I think I might carry on with it and learn some as I go, especially now I know at least one person liked it.

Again thanks for the time, much appreciated

It looks like I’m giving the reader too much information.

Oh. I do that too, and a lot of it is plot ideas which I realise I'll need for later. It's good to write it down as you think of it and then you can move it around as the novel progresses - if I get stuck, I find it helps to read back over earlier chapters as there will always be something I can pick out and expand upon.
It is a learning curve, you can't expect to be able to sit down on day one and knock out the prefect 80K novel. It's trail and error, and experimentation, and of course editing, editing and yet more editing. The first draft will always be the roughest draft and all the novels on the bookshelves will have gone through several rounds of reworking, correcting, rewriting, etc, before they are ready for the readers. It's all about perserverence.


- NaomiM

Mark

I had a quick look at your work. Obviously Naomi has given you a very in depth critique. My first impressions were: I really liked the characters, you brought them alive.

Keep writing.

Bev