easy come....best to stay?

Where shall I start?

Our house is relatively small, and whenever I write, be it a blogpost, a chatline in facebook, an article for an agricultural monthly, or any work in progress, the very action of writing is obvious to anyone in the house. It just can not go unseen.

I have gotten used to it, and it kind of inspires me, too.

The kids don't seem to care, but my husband sometimes notes that I write so fast and am so immersed in writing as if my life depended upon finishing it, while at other times I type, do something and type again and so forth.

He claims that there is a correlation between the speed I write with and the quality of the outcome. He thinks the pieces I write with much enthusiam are better.

I am not so sure... :) 

But there might be a tendency.

When the scene is right in front of me, the feelings I want to convey are clear, (I type faster), the story is more vivid for me, at least. But for the reader?

My DH is just one of the readers :) :) 

What's your experience?

the gastro story

There is this short story, totalling to about 4000 words, that I have been writing since late August.

It's been a long time, but as per usual, I have my good reasons for not finishing ever since.

(I had to finish articles for the monthly magazines I work for, I even had a translation job in between)

And then there are the usual bad reasons...

Waiting for inspiration, waiting for something else.

At times I didn't even bother to open the file for days or at times, for a week or two.

Sometimes I came accross ideas, facts, interesting aspects, and I slap my forehead and thank myself for having waited for such a wonderful component of the story. I even praise myself saying 'how good it was to NOT write the story... see? This one piece of idea/fact/aspect was just what you needed'

But I think it is the other way around.

Since I have the urge to finish the story (do I, really?) anything that rings that particular bell reminds me of the story.

Do I classify as a procastrinator?

And also, if a story is not coming out by itself, is it worth writing?

Owe me, owe you

Yesterday I finished a short story, where the ending is based partly on my memories. This is a haunting, a nightmare~ish memory, the one you keep repressing, yet eventually, it has to see the sunlight.

I worked along the story to have this memory well grounded, and when I was writing, memories of the past have, for some minutes, become things of the present, and I underwent the same pressure again.

As with all therapeutic writing, it took much of the stress away from me and I felt liberated.

But here comes the uneasy part:

This writing was not intended to entertain/educate only me, this writing will be read at a reading evening of our writers' group this Friday.

(I have already contacted someone to read it aloud for me...so I am not worrying about my massive stage fright)

The question rather is that am I able to make the experience as important for the reader as it was for me?

I owed myself this story, but I also owe the reader (or the listener) to be able to grasp it.

This is the trouble of writing from one's own experience: the writer has bits of information he knows so well and feels so minute and/or evident that he leaves them out of the story. Yet these are needed for the experience to be complete.

On a second thought....

I know that no reader/listener will feel the exact same thing what I felt. No problem with that.

But he has to feel something not unlike to what I felt.

How do you overcome the problem of writing things out, writing about haunting memories? How do you make the feeling as memorable for the reader as it is/was to you?

NaNo knocked on my door, bringing memories of 2010, but I resisted.

I do not participate, neither did I in years 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Yet the memories are so strong that when October is about to say goodbye, I feel the urge to sit down again and write, but with each year coming, the call gets easier to resist.

I think I have to finish the first novel before starting a new project.

This is just how I work, I guess.

It took me some months and even years to figure out the faults of the story, the story arch, the characters. Well I write 'figure out' meaning 'gaining awareness of'.

I am well detached by now to start rewriting.

Geez. I have just written that down.

:)

I guess Charles is working in a much more practical, useful and economic way. But he is a published author, which I am not. :)

I allow myself to be this way, while I do acknowledge the talent of those who keep steadily on writing, boosteed with ideas, plots and twists and all.

too close

I have not written anything in the past couple of months. Summer is almost never a creative period for me because of my daily routine (I tend a garden) and whenever I sit down in front of my laptop it's for 2 reasons: either for fun (movie, chatting with friends) or for work. And for work I write.

And also, there is a story in my head, but it is so heavily related to my own life that I have issues about it. Actually, it was a first-hand experience in 2009 - and although I think I have analyzed, over-analyzed the whole thing over and over again, I just can not let it into words after words as a short story.

It is not a story per se, it is rather a bunch of emotions stuffed into a kind of funny situations. Maybe there is nothing to write about it. Maybe I am just not suitable to write it, or to write about it now.

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For this story I was thinking about a gastro-setting, where the characters eat and the way they eat and the things they eat kind of reflect their respective personality and/or the type of relationship they have with each other.

how my short story did

at the contest***.

As you may remember, the contest was dedicated to the 100 anniversary of beginning of the first World War (1914). This war re-wrote the map of Europe and devastated Hungary, as it resulted in loosing two-thirds of the country's original territory. (This is no typo here guys: 2/3).

Participants were expected to explore the effects of war, the deeds of heroes and those that served them silently in the back-country.

Anyway, pieces written about WW II. were also eligible.

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There were two categories: one for prose and one for poems.

The story that won the first place in 'prose' was a superb story with so many emotions that it lifted your spirit in one moment and let it sink at the other. It was excellently written and left you in awe. A well-earned first place indeed.

The other winning entries kind of left me untouched. There were 1st , 2nd and 3rd places and a special prize for both prose and poems.

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I got none of these prizes, but I had the chance (as I had a year ago, too...) to talk to two of the three judges (acknowledged Hungarian writers and poets) and I have their opinion to share with you here.

One of the judges liked my short story so much that reading it left him wanting to meet the writer in person. I take it as a compliment. He also said that my writing was within the first 5 best of his choice but he dropped it because it was longer than the limit. Unfortunately not only it was longer but at times it was way too elaborate, unnecessary detailed and winding at places. Had I chopped it down to the character limit, the winding-style would have gone, too, he suggested. I was glad to take this advice and was overwhelmed with the praise :)

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The other judge I talk to also said that my writing was within the first 5-7 best of his choice but he dropped it because it was looong-ish and way too elaborate at places. Whew. :)

He also said that in one particular scene I was quite obscure where I should have been more to the point. I thanked him too, for his time and personal consultation.

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I am so glad that the faults they found are faults I am aware of.

I did know that my writing tends to be way too winding (meandering) and/or obscure at times. I know the problem which means I may find a solution.

Geez, I am happy.

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:)

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***
This is the third year of the contest. It is organized by the town where I live and is growing bigger and bigger as years pass. The awarding ceremony is hosted by the mayor of the town. It is held in the town library (a very famous one) and the results are published in the local paper.
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http://writerswrite.co.za/30-famous-quotes-on-writing-in-plain-language

on the writing front

Dear Charles :)

Dear readers,

if any...

This is to recollect all my activities and questions on the writing front.

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I wrote a short story based on real events in WW II. This 6-page story has been submitted to a local contest where the main theme (inspiration) was war, the effect of war on families, on people, on humane feelings, and the like.

The story is about a family that lives in the countryside and takes place in the last year of the war when the Germans are gone, but the worse is still to come: the Russians, but the family's worst night comes when Hungarian soldiers roam the village. These soldiers pretend to be ill to escape the end of war, but they are hungry and greedy. The end is good, though.

Someone who lived through this hell allowed me to use his story, which I re-told from a perspective of a 11 year old girl.

I will update you on the contest.

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I wrote a really short story (3 pages) about a 40 something man (he's the pov, first person) who is fed up with being overflown with information. Basically he is freaking out, turns into a catatonic state and feels utterly happy there. He doesn't care about being institutionalized, fed by a nurse and so on: he is happy to be able to watch the whitewashed wall from his bed because there is no information on the wall at all and it satisfies him. Until one day he finds out that there is a spider in the corner watches him. The end is quite a horrible one, but the character likes the outcome.

This piece was sent into a competition and it won me some money and the story got published in a magazine that is issued like 6 times a year or so.

The quality of other writings that came along my story in that particular issue of the magazine are quite good, but almost all of them are as dark as my story. Still I feel I am in good company.

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I have not written anything since February.
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(more may come...)

writing projects for January UPDATED

I plan to write at least one, but preferably two short stories by the end of January.

The first I am working on right now is a story set in the last days of the 2nd world war. The idea was given by someone I know at the writers' course I attend in town.

He was 2 at the time the war reached his village.

I am writing his story, or rather, the story told by his older brother, the one who was 6 at the time of the events.

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It is not really and outstandingly difficult to see the world with the eye of a 6 yo boy, as my son (who has just turned 17 this December) once was 6, too.

I am a bit confused, though.

Am I to write the story to be read to kids? Is this a story to be read by adults? UPDATE: I definitely think it's the latter.

I have to use the voice of a 6 yo to entertain adults.

Hm...

Any suggestions?

There is a massive plot, with things going on, it's the voice that is crucial I guess.

I am opting for a first person singular point of view character. That is, I am telling the story as if it was told by the kid himself.

Any opinions?

Thank you!
UPDATE:
I finished the first draft and so far, two test-readers (betas) have read it. One of them said the voice was too mature for a 6 yo, the other one said my protagonist looked/felt younger than a 6 yo.
Go figure.
:)
(there will be more betas in the future, for I am planning to introduce the story in a competition.)
As you surely know 2014 is the 100 year anniversary for World War I., and in Hungary alone there are at least 3 or 4 war-themed contests going on right now.

Contemplating...

I have not really written much these weeks.

My computer broke and I had to reinstall and restart the laptop.

I switched from Chrome to Firefox and this stupid thing makes blogging more difficult.

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I may not frequent the blog as much as I used to, but the main reason behind the lack of posts is the lack of writing.

I do have ideas, and I get them on paper. I play with them for a while but I usually find that the idea has already been written by great writers, and even if it seems a novel idea to me, there are great writers out there in the past and in the present, whose work worth more than mine will ever do, and also there are writers out there, whose work might not be as good as mine, but they are published while mine are not.

I just contemplate and enjoy the good writing of famous and not-so-famous writers these days.

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an exhibition

This Friday, I wish you, my kind readers were all here to celebrate the opening of an interesting exhibition.

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The story in short:

Some young fine artists living in the town created drawings, photos and paintings. They let us, members of the writers' group see copies of their work months before the exhibition.

Any member who found inspiration in any of the works was free to write anything using the artwork as a prompt. There was only one restriction: the writing should be readable while standing next beside the original artwork in the exhibition room, that is, no writing should be long.

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I wrote two poems and one short prose for three of these artworks and there will be two exhibited. One of the poems will not be placed there because the artwork itself will not be displayed for reasons beyond my understanding.

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First of all, I love that this project inspired me to write three pieces. I find it so difficult to get anything written these days, I am not urging or pressing it, I miss writing, that is :( So having written these two poems and a short prose was quite fulfilling.

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The exhibition starts this Friday and will be available for anyone interested for a month at the local library's exhibition and mess hall for free.

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So should by any chance any of you come to Hungary, please contact me and I will guide you through the exhibition. :)

And I would love to share my writings here, but they are not translated yet :(

Here's a link to the artwork, I don't think it will work, but let's try it for once.
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And here's the invitation:

and the bad one...or is it?

i won nothing at the local, art nouveau-themed local literature contest.

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there were 93 entries for poems and prose.

as it was legible, i entered two poems (a haiku and another one) and a short story.

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i'm telling you, i was disappointed - i mean, i'm not used to failures, but not to wins, either. go figure that it still felt a disappointment.

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okay, lament is over.

the good thing is that i had the chance to talk with one of the judges (a 40 something poet) about the reasons for not getting into the final 3.

(both my haiku, and my short story got into the final 15 - whoa, i just reconsider my disappointment, hee-hee.)

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so, this man was kind enough to give details about where, just exactly at what paragraph went my writing astray. he pointed out just the way i understood.

he did not give me the method, any method to correct the wrong, but he explained me what went wrong.

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wow, it took me a week to go from feeling miserable for not winning to feeling lucky to have been given a short, but thorough analysis of my writing.

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geez, i am lucky.

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the good news...

is that now i have my very own copy of the anthology we (the writers' group) published.

And what's more, we had a very bright and thoughtful evening to celebrate the book. The event was held in the town library on 31 May.

It started with a little discussion about issues related to writing, publishing and literature in general, and then the moderator of the event (a 30-something contemporary poet) with the help of the leader of the writers' group guided the audience through the various sections of the book.

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Some of the poems or short stories were partly, or completely read aloud.

One of my contributions was too, read.

Listening to my thoughts being read aloud felt a bit awkward as this flash fiction is quite an emotional one. I wrote it just a couple of months ago. It still works within me, I guess.

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The book was for sale at the end of the event and it sold quite well.

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I keep the book on my windowsill so that I can read it as often as I wish :)

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photo credits: empowernetwork dot com

sitting on two horses is ...

this post was triggered by Vesper's question.

for more details please refer to the post right below this one.

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her question was this: is it possible to submit the same short story to two contests?

i wrote a somewhat mystical, folktale-like piece.

i wrote it upon a prompt given by one contest and decided later on that the writing is more suitable for the regional writers' contest (with the latter being focused on art-nouveau).

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were the two contests at least two months or so apart, i wouldn't hesitate to enter my writing to both.

but they are not.

the deadline for the regional contest is 5 May, and 15 May for the other one.

which is practically the same.

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my first thought was that it was unethical to enter both (or more than one contest for that matter) with one single writing when said contests are held at the same time.

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i asked some of my fellow writers.

i got some 6-8 answers from aspiring writers, published authors and editors. about half of the answers said it is unethical and may cause copyright problems and any writer entering two contests with the same writing will be considered unacceptable by publishing houses. (this latter opinion came from an editor who works for one of the most successful publishing houses in Hungary).

the remaining half assured me that it is my writing and it is my right to enter as many contest as i can and to the hell with the restrictions.

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i asked the organizers of the two contest.

only one of them replied, the one working for the regional contest. she said i may enter my story to any other contest just as i like.

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so, here i am, the deadline is coming and i'm entering the regional contest.

then i'll have another 10 days.

shifting from one contest to another

there are two writing contests i plan to enter this May.

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the first is a regional one, it is for writers of a special region, you guessed it right, to the region where i live.

the contest is annual and was founded in 2012.

since i am a member of the local writers' group, it is my duty to enter - or so i (and every other member of the group, for that matter), was told by our leader.

so, this year the contest focusses on art nouveau and submissions are expected in this style.

none writing however, will be excluded from the competition for NOT meeting this one particular requirement.

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deadline is May 5 and my writing is already being beta-read at the moment by at least 2 friends (who are also aspiring authors).

it is a somehow mystic story, told in a folk-tale fashion.

it's full of shiny colors, creepy animals and is set in a magical forest.

i absolutely loved writing it.

it has many symbols embedded i took from Hungarian folk tales and from intuition.

i am so sorry i can not let you read it, but i guess things just might not work in English.

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anyway, the trouble is that i wrote that piece for a second contest.

this second contest provides art-work (paintings) as prompts.

here's what happened.

i found one of the painting compelling and i wrote a short story.

on finishing i found that the story meets the requirements of a story written in art nouveau style.

since entering the first contest is a 'must' for me (being part of the local writers' group), i think i will submit my writing to the local competion.

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and finally, if these two contests had totally different submission dates, i would not hesitate sending the writing to both.

to see how far it goes on both contests.

but now i have to choose one.

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here's the painting that inspired me.

writing a what? :) UPDATED

oh my...

you know our writers' group is publishing an anthology, a second in the row and i have some writings included in it.

well, yesterday i was asked to write the blurb for the back cover.

guess what i am doing with google :)

i have found this site for example.

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any tips?

what is your definition of a good blurb?
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UPDATE
i wrote one, but the leader of the writers' gorup did not like it really much. than i came up with a blurb that basically told the same things as the first version, but consisted only of questions.
this second version was appreciated.
so i made a third one, a kind of combination of the first and the second one.
this was even more appreciated.
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a short report from the writers' group

yesterday we had a meeting.

we had to read our homework and we tried to spot the mistake (see the post below) in each others writing.

it went like this:

i read my piece aloud, and each time anyone spotted/suspected a mistake he raised his hand.

not all the mistakes were found, and i came to the conclusion that this game is most effective when the piece is printed and made available for free reading for everyone.

for one of my groupmate had had the chance to read it before i started reading and she kept rasing her hand, and raised it at every other or third sentence - just as often as the mistakes were written in the text.

it was fun.

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we also talked about the presentation of the second anthology which will come out in softcover at the end of May.

for almost all of us, the idea of sitting in front of a somehow larger audience  (we expect about 150-200 people) and talking about writing seems frightening.

an interesting homework

in the writers' group i attend we had a fun homework.

we were given a list of seven, really serious writing mistakes.

we had to write a short story (more of a flash fiction) and we had to commit all the seven mistakes at least once.

as soon as i found out the plot i began writing and began seeing the characters behaviour and interaction.

it was a shorty short piece and i kept it under 250 words.

at first i wrote the 'good version' and then the 'bad'.

:)

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limiting word count is an extremely useful tool. it shaves off all the unnecessary words and the useless ones, too.

i can't thank Jason enough for introducing me to this technique.

i use it even when i write articles for the agricultural monthly paper.

:)

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and Vesper, this little exercise was uplifting. i liked writing it, liked the polishing and kind of like a naughty child, liked committing the mistakes. hee :)

fearing the influence?

a friend of mine is the middle of writing her first novel  - i didn't know about that and offered her the first anthology our writers' group had published two years ago.

since this friend of mine has just joined our group i wanted to give her some perspective about it.

i think it was a neat idea, hm?

she politely refused, saying that she was writing at the moment and didn't want any influence on her style.

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she may be right - even if the writer has his/her own strong way of writing, there is still an unwanted influence.

when i was writing Copper Moon, i read nothing.

right now i don't particularly write anything, so i read a lot. books, all style, articles, scientific or everyday.

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how about you?

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is 'not reading' while being heavily engaged in writing is the sign of uncertainty? a sign of weakness? or is it just the lack of time?

can a certain reading have a positive influence on your writing?

say one of your characters is a vain young lady and you read something about the hype around the opening of a new shopping center. this might just be the necessary bit of information to make your young lady more alive. hm?

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what are your experiences?

snowflakes in the spring

does any of you have experience with the snowflake method (speaking of writing)?

right now, just right now, i am not writing anything fiction, but i have an idea (or three) in my head.

since i consider myself a plotter (as opposed to a pantser) i have a serious intention to give the snowflake method a go.

any personal experience, good or bad is welcomed.

rewriting

i wrote a short story while attending the online writers' course along March-May 2012.
our job was to show what we gathered during the course.
but i think the study topics were just too fresh for me and they had not yet settled in properly and my old routines show. which means that while descriptions, narration and characters areall right, the story lacks a real plot. there are just too many things jammed into one.
some make sense, others do not. it is like a big lake with lots of currents. you don't see which is important, which is not and you get lost.
there isn't any real conflict at all.
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i let the story rest awhile, but during the last two weeks i revisited it.
i marked each different plotline with a different color.
i made myself think to create one real conflict. or a threatening aspect.
i tried to create an arch; where characters start and go somewhere and have a goal.
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unfortunately it is in hungarian so there's no use sharing it here with you... :)
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there are three betas plus my two kids to guide me.
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and yes, this was the first time i re-wrote fiction with a definite target audience in mind.
and also, this was the first time my protagonist was punched in the stomach. so far my characters avoided any harm and i was taught that characters need to undergo soma harsh times to develop and to show their real face.
on a second thought i don't think this punch went really well this time, but hey, i have to start somewhere.