Hello everyone,

I've been exploring the site on trial membership at present - and I've been really impressed by the kindness and support shown in the forums; it's a real credit to the site. 

I actually run a writing company (corporate writing) but have been sneakily writing fiction for years (definitely a secret guilty pleasure!) and have finally decided to 'take the plunge', get my work out there and see if it gets anywhere. 

However, this is all completely new territory to me! Does anyone have any good tips - or are there any useful groups on here that have advice for newbies? I've recently been on a writing weekend (amazing) and have signed up for a creative writing course in my local area, but if anyone has any other useful advice, I'd love to hear it. 

Looking forward to reading lots of your work on here! 

Hi Lucy,
A very warm welcome to WW from myself. I see that you have already commented on mine and James' stories on IC. Thanks. It is appreciated. Haven't read your comments as yet.
There is a Finding Your Feet group in the graveyard section. I'm in that but nothing has been happening. As for Groups it depends on your preference for writing. I write for Womags - Women's Magazines as well as having some Children's adventure stories published in my native Oz. I act as a coordinator for Women's Fiction Group and, if that is of interest, we can crtainly help out.
In general reading and contributing as well as posting your own ideas has worked for me when I joined 15 months ago.
Having your background you would be well on the way to success as I imagine you have the necessary grammar/ etc skills already. Are you interested in novels or short stories? If short stories I know some ebooks that I would recommend. Hope to see you active and enjoying the site. Generally we're a helpful bunch of writers here. Any questions please feel free to ask or you can email individual members too.
Alan
Alan

Thank you Alan, I really enjoyed reading your story - it's great to see other peoples' work. (And I really did like the title very much!)

I've mainly been focusing on full length novels, but have recently been branching out into short stories (which are actually more fun to write than I had realised!) so yes please to recommendations for eBooks! 

 

Hi Lucy, welcome to the site, i'd recommend joining something like the flash fiction group, it has weekly prompts and challenges, really good for making your mind work and getting a story out. I've been published in a few mags recently, and quite a few of the stories started on here. So it's a great site for feedback and encouragement. Hope to read some of your work soon :)

Thanks for the recommendation - I'm on the trial membership at present, and can only join the one group - but I think I will probably be signing up for full membership, so I will definitely join the Flash Fiction group when I'm able - I love the sound of weekly challenges! 

Short Stories & How To Write Them - Kathleen McGurl
How To Write & Sell Short Stories - Della Galton

I've met Della a few times. She is a prolific short story writer.
Let me know your thoughts if you read them.

I love the sound of weekly challenges! 

Great, there's a flash poetry group as well. I certainly recommend the full membership, I've been here about 8 years now myself...!

Thanks for that - are they on Amazon? (I have zero experience of downloading eBooks - I'm presuming it won't be too tricky... I'm still to be winched forcibly from my antiquated preference for paper copies!)

Poetry - that's very out of my comfort zone... my attempts in the past have been woefully dismal... :-)

We all start somewhere, i used to never write poetry, now i'm writing it all the time :)

You can buy hard copies on Amazon I assume. These are a couple of the only e books I have. Yes. I can recommend Flash Fiction also. Like you I'm not into poetry but if Bazz recommends it as an experience then it's worth looking into.

Welcome Lucy! Nice to see a new member. I'm also a member of Intensive Critique so hope to read and comment on some of your work if you're thinking of posting anything. It's been a bit quiet lately, but hopefully things will liven up soon. 

Hi Lucy, and welcome to WW. Everyone's v supportive here :)
 

Hi Lucy - and welcome.  Don't feel guilty about writing.  It is a wonderful thing to do.  One day we'll all die, but words never do.  Keep writing and do it well!

Hi Lucy and welcome to WW

Been offline for a few days, and everyone's said what I'd have said - and you're doing all the things I might have suggested!

I've no idea about you, obviously ;) but my experience of aspiring writers who do a lot of professional and business writing - or indeed many other writers who are starting out - is that it can be hard to kick over the traces of everything having to be well-explained, clear, properly punctuated, grammatically correct, and so on... It's not, obviously, that those things don't matter, it's that what you're trying to do with the words, punctuation, grammar etc. is a different thing: you're trying to work on the reader, not just convey information, and focussing on getting it "right" in the first draft isn't necessarily the best way to do that. This was a blog post of mine ages ago about that, which you might find interesting:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2012/09/crazy-first-draft.html

Emma