Ooh ooh a chance for me to do some blatent self-advertising. Go to my under-visited poetry site at http://www.geocities.com/between_whispers and tell me what you think.
Thanks.
I’ve been working on a SF novel for several years. I’m on page 280 of ~400 of roughly the fourth draft. (Using wordprocessing, the drafts seem to bleed together a bit.)
In the mean time I’ve written a handful of short stories. Nothing published, but the short stories were more or less diversions or exercises between drafts of the novel. For one of the shorts, I got a nice handwritten letter from a judge at the (L. Ron Hubbard’s) Writers of the Future contest.
Also got an offer of publication from a small press for two of the shorts, but I didn’t want to make the suggested changes. Turns out I liked the stories as they were more than I wanted to see them published at any cost; the changes would’ve turned the stories into completely different animals. It surprised me to make that decision. I guess I’ll wait to spread my cheeks when I decide to tackle the big leagues.
Other than that, I’m just occasionally writing procedural docs and technical bulletins as part of a Help Desk group.
I write a lot of legal briefs and opinions - don’t know if that’s what you’re thinking of. (Doubt that your readership at your website would be interested.) Recently had an article published (yay!) to favourable reviews. (O.K., my dad read it and said he thought it was “grammatically sound.” Thanks, Dad.)
I journal every night before I go to bed. It helps relax me and helps me see things in perspective.
I write poetry and have tried repeatedly to start a novel but two roadblocks always pop up.
I have to be in the mood to write. If I try to force it, I’ll just sit there chewing my pen. But when the mood hits,I’ve written for 4 hours straight w/o a break,longhand.
I am my own worst critic. I have been so tempted to just chuck the poetry book in the fireplace on numerous occasions but if I get that feelignI just call one of the Girls-who have all read the book-and they talk me out of it.
Lately I’m now writing lyrics for one of the Girls…a new avenue 
dodge_this, I really like your poetry. Your work has music, soul and grace. I doff my hat to you. People, go visit the site.
As for my writing – I have a collection of poetry as yet unpublished. One day, it may be. Since college (or high school, for Americans), I’ve written around 25 to 30 unpublished science-fiction/fantasy novels, and around 15 short stories. Can’t see them being published yet. Mind you, my writing partner is also my heir, so if I pop off this mortal coil anytime an’ she survives me – well, ya never know.
Currently, I’m writing a local history of the place where I live. At this site (click on “Our Town”, then “History”, then “Town Centre Timeline”), you’ll find part of a timeline I’ve been working on with the local business asociation. It’s only about half of what I’ve got so far on the history. I intend to publish in hardcopy either later this year or early next – big news in this little pond.
I try, but I rarely finish the story. One of two things happens - either I start rewriting before I finish, and I will redo the first couple of chapters so many times I get sick of it and throw away the story, or I get a ways into it and then find out that the same story has already been written (or a story that shares enough elements that people would think I ripped it off). The latter happened most recently, I was getting further than usual on this one story, partially because I was posting it a chapter at a time, unedited, on another message board so I couldn’t keep redoing the same chapter, and so that demand from the readers to find out what happens next would keep me inspired to write. I was really proud of it, and then I read ‘Snow Crash’, which was written 10 years earlier and shared enough elements that anybody who read both it and my story would see strong similarities.
I seem to be coming off of a period of not-writing that has lasted almost five years now. The biggest block there was being rather emotionally…busy. There was also the matter of my entire worldview sort of coming apart at the seams and rearranging in a much healthier manner.
These days, the biggest block is the my-own-worst-critic thing. I tend to start writing, get a few pages in, and start rewriting immediately to tweak and massage things more effectively. My brain starts racing far ahead of my fingers, and I get fed up. Bad habit that I’m seeing hope in now breaking.
2 “award-winning” plays (3rd place is an award, right?)
5 books of poetry
8 underground magazines
5 unfinished novels
2 abandonned musicals…
On the plus side, I’m batting .9375 for grant writing. My proposal to move to a beach-side palm frond hut in Belize to layout bamboo grids & document changes in mollusk populations densities as an indication of the effects of global warming on precursor lifeforms was inexplicabley turned down. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce to foot the bill.
Yup, I write. This is a great idea for a thread btw, I’m sure there are loads of writers on the boards.
I’ve been writing articles for magazines for a few years now but I also do a lot of creative writing for myself, everything from poetry to attempts at novels. Eventually I plan to try and get some of that published, but I’m not disciplined enough yet.
I’ve also done some work for a couple of TV and radio shows, which involved writing among other things.
— G. Raven
I get paid to write. Which is good, because I’d actually pay to write if I had to.
Soooo… What do you write Barb?
— G. Raven
I have had several technical articles published in various electronic type magazines.