How many writers on the SDMB?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I’m a former columnist. Former reviewer. Former magazine editor.

Since those days I’ve also freelanced as a reviewer and feature writer on occasion. I also spent some time as a technical writer and EO.

I’m currently (moonlighting) helping construct a website that will feature articles about life and living in the naughties and part of the contract includes writing articles (atm the first two will concern Speed Dating and Why Bastards Are Attractive).

{cliche}
One of these days I’ll write that novel
{/cliche}

42

I work closely with my SO - he’s up to about a dozen children’s books and we have our first joint young adult novel due out in Sept. It features a goat and a young man’s burgeoning libido. It took us some time to find a publisher ;). I do some articles and need to kick myself in the bum and do more. I wrote a book on miscarriage but had a falling out with the publisher and it never saw the light of day. Apposite, really given the subject matter.

Umm I am spouting off in another thread about Public Lending Right and I am now certain I don’t know whether or not the US have this. Compensation to writers for the use of thir books in libraries?

primaflora

43

AAARGGHHHHHHHHHH “whether or not the US HAS this”

their, not thir!

blaurghhhhhh

p

44

I so want to quit my job and write for a living. The only problem is that every time I come up with an idea for a novel, it ends up seeming so contrived or derivative. The last time I sat down and wrote a first chapter, it felt so good, but the more I thought about it, the more the whole idea sounded like a modern day Gulliver’s Travels social commentary. I haven’t touched it since.

(But if I catch any of you stealing that lousy idea, so help me…)

45

I’m probably one of the best known East Coast Theatre-Style Live Action Game writers. This is akin to being the largest fish in a specific 2’ radius pond, but I take what I can get.

(Quick dissertation on Live Action Gaming, and specifcally Theatre Style, for those unfamiliar with the concept. Are you familiar with the idea of “Mystery Dinners”? You know, the kind of theatre where you go in, interact with six actors, one of the actors gets ‘killed’, and then you get to figure out who did it? Right, okay, take that and reverse it. That is, rather than the six actors getting roles and the audience just playing themselves, every member of the audience gets handed a sheet telling them who they are for this play. Who you are, what you do, who you know, who you love, what you want to do during the course of the game- all listed out in your sheet. And then the game starts, and everyone starts pretending to be their characters, and usually people have a blast. Games tend to be either ‘mini-games’ (lasting four to six hours) or ‘full-lengths’ (lasting from Friday night until Sunday afternoon).

As this dissertation is getting a bit long-winded, I’ll just say that if people actually want to hear me spiel off about my bizzarre hobby here, let me know and I’ll start a “Live Action Gaming” thread or something.)
Anyways.

I’ve written 5 full-length games in collarboration with others:
*Help! The Paranoids Are After Me! (set in West End Games’ Paranoia universe)
*Tales From The Floating Vagabond II (set in Avalon Hill’s TF2V universe)
*Murder Mystery Weekend (set at a murder mystery theater)
*The Four Aces (set in the middle of a gang-war in 1929 Ohio)
*Drink Deep (set in the Silverlocke universe)

and one strictly by myself (making me one of only two people in the field to do so):
*Pax Romana (set in the Roman Republic, Ides of March weekend, 46 B.C.)

I’ve also written 3 mini-games by myself:
*I Was A Teenage Mutant From Outer Space (set in a collage of 50’s B-movies, and available for downloading if you’re really bored)
*Battle For Control of the Soul Of the Republic Party (heavy-handed spoof of the 1996 Republican Presidential Campaign, as seen from a myopic 1992 viewpoint (Newt Gingrich? Who’s that?))
*Pin the Tail on The Donkey (heavy-handed spoof of the 2000 Democratic Presidential Campiagn, as seen from a myopic 1994 viewpoint (Bill Clinton will never win re-election!))

And I’ve written one continuing campaign:
*Outpost Chi. (The players thought it was a sci-fi game. About half-way through, they found out that it was a horror game.)
Okay, I’ve blathered enough about my pointless prattle. I’m a hobbyist, not a professional; I’m just a very devoted hobbyist.

46

Yep, I love language and words, and am probably one of those guys the “but you know what I meant!” whiners in the Pit grouse about when someone admonishes them for misuse of a particular word (e.g., “dilemma” is not synonymous with “problem”).

My writing has taken three forms. The first is a textbook now in its fifth edition, and the royalty checks twice a year are always welcome. The Speaker’s Handbook

The second incarnation is as a tech writer for many years before being booted up into management.

The third is the familiar world of unpublished novelist. Yeah, just wait 'til after the IPO and I’ll have enough time and energy to wrap some of these projects up. I hope! Or else have enough free time to be exposed as a poser.

47

I do write, but as I have yet to attempt to publish anything, I don’t know if I’m considered a writer. Most of my stuff is dark/horror/suspense type stuff. I am so easily scared and freaked out by my own imaginings, I figure someone else might enjoy a good scare from them too.

48

Why not? What do you have to lose?

49

Well, noon turned out to be several days! Anyway:

CrankyAsAnOldMan – hey, I wrote three stories for them! But 2 cents a word just wasn’t worth it!

Satan – well, I wrote for Huster, Penthouse Forum, video blurbs and blurbs next to photos in the glossy picture mags. Also a bunch of other sex related things. Very, very good money and I actually enjoyed it. I still write erotica but of a much softer bent. Also, most of that stuff goes down in LA and I moved to Utah. Not a big demand for that kind of work around here! :wink:

Shirley Ujest – echo, echo, echo! I carry a note book too! And what you said is the key: write, read, lather rinse repeat!

Eutychus55 – was that supposed to sound scary? Brrr! We’re gonna find out, huh? Brr! :wink:

pepperlandgirl – I can’t seem to get into your site. Could you email your best story to me?

Pink Slinky – yep. A writer writes. You don’t have to be published to be a writer at heart!

Yue Han – I’m sorry! It was late is my only excuse. I hope I didn’t mangle it too badly! I’ll go back and read it again.

Thanks for all the links, folks! Looks like we have a grand group of writers! Keep up the good work and even if you don’t publish, you are still a writer!

50

I’ve always wanted to write a book called Why Do They Stare, and just write some of my experienced with the fuck heads I’ve had to deal with having a special needs child. I’m sure I can’t possibly be the only one out there who has dealt with people’s open ignorance.

51

That sounds like a great idea, CanadianSue! My cousin is autistic and we get a lot of weird looks and a lot of ignorance. You might be able to write it for Redbook or WomenFirst as an article. Let me know! TWPM!

52

well, according to my business card…

Back in the 80s I wrote promotional copy for a medical publisher until I decided I couldn’t bear to cudgel my brain for one more brochure headline proclaiming the benefits of dermatology texts and gastroenterology journals.

So I quit, went freelance, and continued to write headlines for dermatology texts and gastroenterology journals. But this way, I got to pay for my own health care benefits.

Been freelancing, mostly copywriting and editing, mostly in the health care fields, for 13 years now. For a while I was getting personal essays published here and there, 'specially in Sunday supplements, but as the newspapers began folding their local supplements and demanding all rights, including e-rights, for any articles they picked up, I got disenchanted with the prospects.

Yep, I have the obligatory unfinished novel in the drawer. I used to think I was a crappy fiction writer, but a year or so ago I got a grant from the state arts council based on a novel chapter I submitted, so I’ve been trying to take my fiction more seriously.

It’s definitely tough to find the time and energy for personal writing when you’re writing the rest of the day to pay the bills, though. I often think about quitting the freelance racket and looking for work in the private sector, just so I’ll have more energy to write the stuff that’s important to me. But then we’ll get a gorgeous sunny day and I carry my laptop out into the garden to do my editing with the trees overhead and the cats underfoot and I remember why I left cubicle land.

53

CanadianSue: I definitely agree you should do more than just think about that book. Hell, I’d sure read it. I’d like a useful guide to appropriate behavior so I don’t make up the same well-meaning thing everybody else does and look like an idiot.

UncaStuart: You wrote that? That was the textbook for my public speaking course a few years back. Pretty cool. Oh, and by the way, you have the lowest ratio of post count to how long ago you registered of anyone I think I’ve seen.

And… Following up on my own previous post, I finally got around to sticking up a bunch of pending movie reviews, for anyone who cares about that sort of thing. Chicken Run, Titan A.E., Perfect Storm, and What Lies Beneath, and X-Men tonight or tomorrow. And no, I’m not planning on seeing Nutty Professor 2, and I have no idea what a responsible reviewer could say about Gone in 60 Seconds, so that’ll be it until I do Hollow Man and Space Cowboys this weekend.

54

Hey, Canadian Sue!

If you write that book can I submit a chapter titled “He may be retarded, but he’s smarter than you are”?

The OP:
I too am a writer, in a few senses, although I have only twice made money from my writing (both from technical writing). I have written three children’s stories which I probably won’t send out, a science fiction story which I did send out (I’m waiting for word), and I just this morning started two more SF stories which look promising. I also have a couple of unfinished mainstream novels, one of which might be worth something.

There ya go.

55

I guess I’m a writer. I’ve never had anything published, or at least, not for money. But then, I’ve never tried to get anything published either. I’m not even sure where to start.

I’ve only written five or six short stories, mainly because whenever I get an idea for a short story, it quickly expands to novel proportions. So I’m working on several different novels at once, none of which are anywhere near completed. But I’ve been told that I’m best at writing opinion columns.

56

Suo Na, you bet you can. I definitely am going to do this one day. Byz and Cervaise, thanks so much for your support! I learn more and more about people’s intolerances every day.

57

IRL, I work as a print journalist.

58

You’re welcome CanadianSue! And isn’t it amazing the things you can learn talking with people over the internet? :wink:

TWPM!

59

Oh, yes, Cervaise, for a while there I was thinking of adopting as my sig: “‘What a moraine!’–incrementing my post count at a glacial pace.” Both in speaking and in message boards I seem to be taciturn. The strong, silent type . . . yeah, that’s it . . . the strong silent type.

60

Right you are Ms. Byz, this mode of communication has come in so handy on so many different occasions, especially recently. I feel so much more knowledgeable than I did just a short while ago.
TWPM