Some more meandering on writing

When I tell people that I wrote and self-published a novel, they usually ask me what the novel is about. I do my best to describe the complex plot lines in Progressing Rapidly Over Uneven Terrain. If they still talk to me after hearing about it, they eventually get around to asking me where I get my ideas. I usually joke around, point to my head and say something like “You definitely don’t want to get in here.” But that’s just because I haven’t ever really thought about it that much until I started this project. During this blogging experience, I am really trying to think about what I am doing and how I approach writing. Brace yourself for a big surprise: I have never taken a creative writing class or had any other training in writing. Maybe that is obvious to you. Actually, I have not had much of my work critiqued by an expert. One time, I went on the writer’s forum on Craig’s List and asked people to review “Some Things Just Happen”. One person responded. Although he seemed to know what he was talking about, I didn’t find much value in the critique. Mainly, because all he did was complain about my dialog tags. Also, he pointed out several places where I deviated from “traditional” writing conventions. Here are my thoughts on the topic. I don’t really care if I violate established writing conventions. Nor to I care much about spelling, grammar and punctuation. Is it that obvious? I am trying to tell a story and I do my best to pay attention to the things I consider important. Do I have a good story? Are the characters interesting? Are the events that occur, if not believable, at least reasonably likely to have occurred at one time in the history of the universe? Is there continuity throughout the story? And my little piece of personal weirdness - Did I use there/their/they’re correctly? I can blow passed missed periods, misused commas, incorrect tense usage, incorrect word usage (a instead of an) and the whole plethora of other mistakes you see in my work. But if I use one of those three incorrectly, I am absolutely mortified. That being said, where do I get my ideas? Mainly, I take things that have either happened to me or I have observed directly and I juxtapose them over completely ridiculous circumstances. At least what I consider to be. Frequently, I find myself laughing out loud about things I think about – definitely uncomfortable when sitting in a business meeting with clients or, worse perspective clients. Guess it’s a good thing I am no longer a consultant looking to whore myself and as many of my associates out for the most money I can milk from the mark … uh … I mean client. Hopefully, you find some of what I come up with moderately interesting. Mazeltov! Tags: Fiction, Online Book, Rebeleyeball, Paul Gavin Copyright (c) 2006 Paul Gavin. All rights reserved.