I Remember That Day. I finished the first chapter of a sci-fi story in which a sentient AI navigating a spaceship by herself was dancing, or more like gyrating to a tune playing through the ship. She moved from deck to deck by sliding down something like a fireman’s pole. Someone in my writing group looked at me and said,
“So…you don’t like women huh?”
Strike one.
Then there was that horror story I wrote which had a bad guy chased by an unknown creature. The creature surprised the man in the backseat of his car. It carried a powdery substance in a bag which I never explained. (think of Chekhov’s gun) After some dialog, my creature yells out ‘Flame on!’ turning into a torch. Bad guy gets away by running into the Baxter building. Sound familiar? (too close to the fantastic four)
Strike two.
Then I tried to make it easier for the reader to distinguish who was speaking in my dialog. In the SAME paragraph, I had ‘Sam’s dialog in bold as he talked ‘ and ‘Nancy’s dialog italicized as she spoke’. I won’t discuss what my writing group had to say about that one.
Strike three.
I’m OUT. Or am I?
That was the day I discovered writing is not easy, but I didn’t give up. I realized that bad writers quit when they learn the art of writing is difficult. A good writer, on the other hand, will continue writing….and learning. It did get better for me. Howso?
By talking to and exchanging ideas from other writers. I enjoy reading original stories from other bloggers and commenting on their work. Getting a comment or a like from fellow bloggers encourages more writing. I also exchange stories with my writing group for on the spot critiques. First draft work in progress is shared too. At the end of the day, I leave with more ideas and a better script.
Whenever I doubt myself, I go to the digital shelf and reread all of my problematic stories. Then I remember the encouragement from writer Stacey Levine:
“all the problems associated with being a #writer I consider good problems to have.”
~ Stacey Levine
Fictionista 
That’s what I like about writing – there’s so much to learn from yourself and others. It’s also an evolving form of art, which means certain styles were popular then but aren’t as trendy now. Just experiment, have fun, and make it the best it can be!
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LOL! I forgot about this post! Thanks for the comment. I will bring up this topic on my next Amp radio chat.
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It is certainly tough, although I’m not sure I agree with the criticisms of your writing group. I think it’s ok for the AI to do some dancing, fireman’s pole or not, and I quite like the different characters in italics or bold, it’s good to experiment with ideas like that. That said, I’ve never got along with writing groups. I’ve tried, but there’s a mutual misunderstanding. The act of being in a group seems to stifle imagination, everyone conforms (although that may just be my cynical view). Do you find them useful?
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You make very good points. For now, I find them useful like spell check programs. I have a habit of switching POVs. They help correct that. As for the dialog in bold and italics – the criticism was ‘if my work were an essay, it would have been thrown out immediately.’ Hence the stifling of imagination. I use them until a mutual misunderstanding takes away the value I have of the group.
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That makes perfect sense, use what you can and don’t let them stifle your creativity. I hope you write more about them, it’s an interesting perspective. Happy writing my friend! 🙂
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It is really hard to write. I lost a chapter of my book (don’t ask me why coz I don’t know too) and had to do it again. It was frustrating, nothing was good enough
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Wow! Losing work is tough. Seems like you cant redo it better than what you had. Been there. Now I create backups on SD cards, save work in Google Docs, and save in Dropbox. Thanks for the feedback. What are you using to backup now? I hope you are!
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Thanks. I’ll start using multiple SD cards, I just hope I’ll remember where I put them
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