Aspies For Freedom

I've had some stuff in print, like an interview I did with Micheal Graves from The Misfits and a few bits of fiction. I write for a local magazine from time to time, but haven't had anything published in a while.

What about you lot?

A little book of poetic works written between 1993 and 1997. There's an interpretation of one of them in this part. And the original version in Swedish.

In Swedish? Cool!

i want to, but i'd be too embarassed to have my book out for everyone to read, and i'd have to change all their names cause they are based off real people. But then if i changed thier names it just wouldnt be the same and yeah....

Write because you want to, not because you have to (unless necessary).

4 books of plays, mostly full of stage combat scenes (my AS fixation).

Mostly poems so far. I'm aiming for a "first novel" in the next year or so.

I won third place in a short story contest and had my story published in an e-zine as a result.

Here's my history:

Record reviews in two consecutive issues of a now defunct local music publication in Portland, Maine. ( The Publication was a mag called 'Head Cheese' which was in circulation from late spring to early fall, 1988)

Article in a local Gay paper in Portland Maine, fall of '88

Local Scene report in a global underground punk fanzine (Maximum RocknRoll, december, 1988)

Letter that was allegedly published in a punk Zine out of Florida, in 2000.

I'm generally very lax about sending stuff off, but when I send stuff off, it usually gets accepted.

Update on mine:  I have also had three poems published, since my last post.

Hello.

Between the ages of 17 and 21 I've had poetry published in around 20 small press horror 'zines.

I've had about a ten year hiatus from seriously writing. In the last year I've got the itch again. I don't think anything would mean more to me than to be published again. I wish I can write like I used to. Life isn't as mysterious as it used to be.

I'm also hoping to get some short stories published. But they're even harder to write than poems. And I've taken a writing course!

I know what you mean.  Short stories are the hardest of all for me.  Poetry I can do, novels I can do even better, but short stories.....
And I've hardly written anything in a year.  Everything I do write, and everything of mine that I reread, looks like crap to me, even when other people say it's good.    I desperately want to write, but it's like I've forgotten how.

Exactly!

I become frustrated with my short stories. I never start anyting I finish. A can writer a paragraph, a page, maybe, but that's as far as it goes. I read some old stories I had to write for my one writing course from years ago and they're so hollow. I want to write things that scare the crap out of people. Dark and disturbing things. My poetry was ok back then, maybe because they were short. But I seem to not be able to follow the "show don't tell" rule. I don't know how to describe things. And I can't make my stories flow. I read other horror writers and I'm always asking myself "how do they do that? Where do they find those words?"

I can't step out of my mundane life and see life through a writer's eyes, you know what I mean? Like, a writer can see a tree as more than a tree. A horror writer can describe a murder with such gruesome detail and so much more descriptively than a news broadcaster would ever dare to. I see writers as fearless.

I can see that, somepeople say that my stuff's pretty good.

  Oh, no, novels are easy!  I love novels because I can just let the plot line unroll itself and branch out however much I need to, and I have plenty of room to let the characters grow.  I don't need to tell you all about them on the first page because you've got a whole novel in which to learn everything!  It's so much easier to avoid infodumps and to slip in short subplots and make my language more flowery and pretty without losing any important points.
But short stories give me no room to do the things I enjoy most as a writer or show off my real talent as a writer.  I mean, my actual writing is good- better than average for my age group, even- but it's nothing special.  But I write fantastically complex plotlines.  They get really twisty and weird.  And I spend most of my time working on a story doing the worldbuilding.  I adore worldbuilding, it's my favorite part.  I can tell you the primary imports and exports of the capital city of the country in which my first novel takes place.  I can tell you the names of the kings of that country going back twenty generations.  And on and on.  Most of this never makes its way even into a novel, let alone a short story, but just having it there makes it infinitely easier to do the writing and maintain consistency.  I spend a great deal of time describing the world in which things happen, although I try to do so without losing the reader's interest or abandoning the plot line.
In a short story there's no room for that.  I've tried writing a short story the way I'd write a novel, it just can't be done.  They get far too long.  I've never been able to do short stories because I've never been able to restrain myself to short plot lines or to reduce the amount of information I include.  The only short story I've written that I'm actually proud of is a re-write of Cinderella, which, if you care to, you can read here:  http://Luai-lashire.deviantart.com/art/P...s-40762641

....   Yeah, I definitely prefer writing novels.  Now if only I could get over my revulsion with everything I've written so far and get back to working on mine.