I was a freelancer for roleplaying games for about five years; I've done gigs on professional writing and a few academic essays in journals and hardback collections; I've done freelance writing for magazines and websites, and I've got a couple books on the market through a small press publisher. Royalties are few, and that's largely why I don't try to make a regular job out of it: to be able to live off your writing, you need to write and sell a lot. Confession: The single greatest influence on Lois Lane's Night Out is Larry Niven's essay Man of Steel, Women of Kleenex
John Wick, is that YOU? (If yes, Kudos on 7th Sea, but you were right, the Heroes and Villains book sucks.) (If you hadn't ruled out WEG, I would have guessed Bill Slavicek... Just don't be Kevin Siembieda... please don't be Kevin Siembieda...) And I love Niven! Well, some of his stuff. He seemed to morph into "Bitter old Man" Somewhere in the 90s.
No. You've never heard of me. Back to confessions... I once made a mistake and ended up misplacing an entire branch of the current story, 4 chapters long, which I then had to copy over and delete the originals.
I really, really, really, hate proof reading. Especially late at night when I want to publish a chapter right before bed and I am very tired.
I actually rather enjoy proofreading, unless it's because I'm about to upload the chapter, in which case I feel like bashing my head against a wall. Confession: My biggest fear is starting a story and losing the motivation to keep writing to it. Because of this, I'll only publish work when I've planned and written a substantial portion of it. As a result, I have approximately 60 half-works in my folder that have never seen the light of day. It's always good to have ideas, but it's best to ensure they can actually work as a story before setting anything in stone.
That are some weird dark fantasies on this site but that is the most twisted thing I have ever heard of.
OMG, that essay. The first time I read it, I was nodding along, with a tiny cringe here and there. The second time I read it, after a lapse of time, I thought, "OMG, that visual of Superman's climax. Oh. Science fiction conventions. Girls Not Allowed club."
A "this story has it all!" story in fact didn't have much gay stuff. I twisted the established lore, for my own chapters, to make that happen. I am not sorry. I have a hard time keeping my names straight. I have noticed a distressing tendency to change between second and first-person midstory, but have an eye on that, and correct it. The Edit button is my best friend.
Vocabulary blooper - content warning: buttholes So one tries not to use the same adjectives all the time, right? There I am, hanging up on the right word to describe, yes, a timid-but-eager butthole responding to a tender touch. And the word that suggests itself is "quavering" - I like it! something between quivering, quaking and wavering - that works! ...or DOES it? Horribly unsure, I pop over to my dictionary tab (Merriam Webster) and make sure it's a word. Good news: it is a word! Bad news: that is not what it means. "To quaver" doesn't mean to quiver, quake or waver. It means to play two distinct, or trill between, musical notes. But even though this totally changes the scenario, where buttholes are concerned, I still liked it, and let it stand. 9 readers out of 10 will roll right past it, but I hope the 10th gets a laugh.
My plans for writing a new story for 2023 fell out the window because of real life stuff, and because I want to finish Lois Lane's Night Out first. Speaking of LLNO, back when the epilogues were getting a lot of likes I sometimes tried to "sabotage" a branch by throwing in a new and unexpected kink. This never worked.
I think using words that evoke certain images even if they are not technically correct is actually great writing craftsmanship! I suspect many illustrative terms started that way: some enterprising writer* going out on a limb. Language is not static, it evolves! Maybe in 50 years we'll all be quavering (though hopefully not all the time), and it'll all be because of your spark of inspiration. * Shakespeare. It's always fucking Shakespeare. P.S. I almost wrote 'invoke' instead of 'evoke'. So meta! P.P.S. Musical buttholes? Sure, I'm down.
Also, it's a sex story. And while not exactly sexy themselves (unless - no judgement - that is your thing) toots do happen, and are funny. I do feel free to fiddle with language, but try to be thoughtful of readers for whom English is not their native tongue - it's got to be a bear to learn, already.
