1. Forever? I won a young authors contest in 4th grade. I have a bunch of angst-filled notbooks from high school. My rehab journal is quite a read.

2. Most regularly, drunken poetry type stuff. I try to write little train-of-thought poems. I've delved into other things, and they've often been much more successful.

3. *Ahem* I have a book out on Sybaritic Press called Somewhere in the Middle. It's a collection of my emails home from my time in the Middle East.

4. I've flirted with fiction but my ideas always tend to be a little too lofty for me. I'm not very good at finishing what I start, so I'm always looking for ways to get around that. Publishing your email is an excellent way to do this.

5. I wrote fairly regularly about a year ago, almost daily. I was also drinking almost daily, and that helped a lot. I've got other things keeping me busy right now, so not so much anymore.

6. Inspire me? Ernie Pyle. Elizabeth Wurtzel is keen.

7. It's always semi-autobiographical, no matter what I'm writing about.

8. No, and that's part of my problem. I never figure out an ending and just sort of put it away.

9. No comment.

10. There's a crappy book excerpt here. There's a bigger, much better excerpt from the book in November/December's Punk Planet if you have access to a copy of that. And since I'm feeling sporting, this little piece of crap prose almost got me fired from my job. Someone with an axe to grind at work found it and reported that I was "involved in lewd behavior unbecoming of my position."

Rotten Tanx wrote:I guess I'll pose this as a questionnaire but feel free to disregard it and reply however you see fit.


1. How long have you been writing?

As long as I can remember

2. What do you write? Short stories? Poems? Have you written a novel?

Yes to all

3. Has your stuff ever been published? Do you write to be published or for your own amusement?

No, but I've won various monies in poetry competitions. I write for my own amusement

4. Do you or would you write genre fiction? Do you dismiss that sort of writing?

Don't know what it is

5. How often do you write? Do you have a ritual?

I ran an internet writing group for a few years. Each member had to submit a story on a topic/brief suggested by a member once every two months. Each member then had to offer criticism on every submission.

6. Which authors inspire you?

American ones, mainly

7. Do you tend to write about a particular subject? Is it semi-autobiographical or entirely fictional?

8. Do you have a method for composing a story?

Usually an element of autobiography, to varying degrees. No method that I know of

9. What do you consider to be the cardinal sins of creative writing?

1. Being boring.
2. Being so in love with an author that the writing ends up crippled by stylistic conventions and little more than a fawning pastiche

10. Would you let us read something you've written?

One of my first posts was a short story of mine. I was quite scared putting it up here. It's here

Ta.

Welcome.

Ty Webb wrote:

hogrot wrote:

Rotten Tanx wrote:9. What do you consider to be the cardinal sins of creative writing?

trying to use heightened language, big words that nobody uses in real life

That's a good one. But I think what makes that such a sin is not its inherent flaw, but the fact that it's so rarely done well. If you establish your own unique, compelling voice and, in that voice, that's how your characters talk (including your narrator), it can work. It's just another element of setting. But it's tricky as hell to pull off.

i'm not sure i've really found anyone who does it well. for a writer i have a fairly shit vocabulary. case in point: i just read 1984 for the first time. fucking loved it. so then i thought I'd move on to Brave New World. I couldn't stand it and put it down after 30 pages. Heart of Darkness I tried reading but the language just seemed so dense and forced to me that it made me want to throw up.

recommend me someone who pulls elaborate language off in a good way and i'll give it a shot.

1. How long have you been writing?

Since I was a kid

2. What do you write? Short stories? Poems? Have you written a novel?

These days almost exculsively song lyrics and the occasionally music article and loads of internet message board posts. I have written short stories, poems and about 120-pgs of a novel. I have done some lyric writing for a couple bands other then my own which was fun. I am a better lyric writer I think then a short story writer, though I should get back to writing short stories.

3. Has your stuff ever been published? Do you write to be published or for your own amusement?

I’ve been self-published/zine level, I got the hell of dick around from McSweeney’s for something I had written which is the closest to “real published” I’ve been. I generally just write to write and if something is going to be published or w/ publishing in mind then I work on cleaning it up/perfecting it. Do song lyrics count as being published?

4. Do you or would you write genre fiction? Do you dismiss that sort of writing?

I have written genre stuff, there is great genre stuff out there

5. How often do you write? Do you have a ritual?

I try to write daily, but I am hell of lazy. I should ritualize it more. For awhile I forced myself to write something once a day everyday.

6. Which authors inspire you?

All the obvious ones, though Richard Meltzer, David Foster Wallace are probably my two biggest inspirations.

7. Do you tend to write about a particular subject? Is it semi-autobiographical or entirely fictional?

Both

8. Do you have a method for composing a story?

No

9. What do you consider to be the cardinal sins of creative writing?

I don’t know, not writing anything probably

10. Would you let us read something you've written?

I have a lot of posts, I have something coming out in friend's zine shortly

1. How long have you been writing?

Since I was about ten when the Star Wars films were re-released. At the pinnacle of my first ever obsession, I would write little stories involving all the characters from the movies, except they lived here on Earth or on planets I created in the Star Wars galaxy. It kind of just went from there.

2. What do you write? Short stories? Poems? Have you written a novel?
Long-winded short stories, poetry with little respect for the rules of the form. Essays, reviews, articles when I worked for a newspaper. I'm currently working on a novel and I've been flirting with the idea of writing a screenplay.

3. Has your stuff ever been published? Do you write to be published or for your own amusement?
Yes, a couple of times in different forms. I wrote a play that my high school drama troupe performed to mixed reviews, I've been published in a few literary journals and such. I've self-published stuff before in small numbers for friends. I've been rejected more times than I'd like to admit.

4. Do you or would you write genre fiction? Do you dismiss that sort of writing?
No I don't dismiss it, but no, I don't write it.

5. How often do you write? Do you have a ritual?
I write a little to a lot every day. I got into the habit of writing every day, but I wouldn't call it a ritual. I hardly ever write anything during the day, but at night despite fatigue and the occasional drunk, I'll usually write at least an hour. The day is spent working, going to class and reading.

6. Which authors inspire you?
Henry Rollins raved so much about Henry Miller in Get in the Van I bought Tropic of Cancer. I've still never read anything that affected me so much. I couldn't get over it. Still haven't gotten over the brilliance of Henry Miller. Charles Bukowski, John Fante. Jack Kerouac's approach to writing is something I've somewhat adopted. Nick Cave... And The Ass Saw the Angel is quite possibly the best book to have been published in twenty five years. Nelson Algren.

7. Do you tend to write about a particular subject? Is it semi-autobiographical or entirely fictional?
Most of my writing lately has been kind of depressing. I find the darker, more melancholy side of life and people much more interesting than heartwarming romances and sugar-coated storylines. Semi-autobiographical somewhat, but mostly fictional.

8. Do you have a method for composing a story?
Write it.

9. What do you consider to be the cardinal sins of creative writing?
What Hogrot said about big words; when people think that writing about addiction, drinking, or pussy is automatically brilliant and cutting-edge. It can be done well, but not usually. High-browed, nose in the air, overly intellectual and analytical fiction is very boring to me.

10. Would you let us read something you've written?
PM me.

Rotten Tanx, are you a writer?

Rotten Tanx wrote:1. How long have you been writing?

Since I was small I've scribbled nonsense, but I wrote my first proper (deliberate) story when I was 17 or 18.

2. What do you write? Short stories? Poems? Have you written a novel?

I haven't written poems in a while because I don't have the knack, but I've written some short stories and I am working on a novel.

3. Has your stuff ever been published? Do you write to be published or for your own amusement?

I love writing when I write something that I'm happy with. I want to have a novel published, but I realise that this is a slog and a struggle. Everyone has at least one bad book in them, after all. I've had two short stories published.

4. Do you or would you write genre fiction? Do you dismiss that sort of writing?

I don't think that I'm disciplined enough to write genre fiction. Why dismiss it? Crime fiction is ace. Spy novels are often great: Len Deighton is a star, for example. I might move on to pirate novels, one day.

5. How often do you write? Do you have a ritual?

Not often at all. I'm moving somewhere new next week where I plan to spend the next four months writing intensively. A published writer friend of mine was recommending that I spend at least eight hours a day writing once there. That seems hardcore to me, but I'll give it a go.

6. Which authors inspire you?

This varies depending on what mood I'm in and what I've been reading recently. I like Angela Carter, Cormac McCarthy, James Joyce, William Burroughs, Jorge Luis Borges, Laurence Sterne, Charles Willeford, Haruki Murakami, Samuel Beckett, Shusaku Endo, Ralph Ellison, Dostoevsky, Andrea Ashworth, Mishima, Irvine Welsh and Margaret Atwood.

A more current and representative selection would have come to me had I not been sitting with the book shelf in front of me.

7. Do you tend to write about a particular subject? Is it semi-autobiographical or entirely fictional?

Autobiographical elements can seep in, but by and large it's mostly fiction.

8. Do you have a method for composing a story?

No.

9. What do you consider to be the cardinal sins of creative writing?

Pissing around too much?

10. Would you let us read something you've written?

Sure. There's a link on my profile.

Rotten Tanx wrote:
1. How long have you been writing?

The first thing I wrote that wasn't for a class was when I was 15. So five years, really.

2. What do you write? Short stories? Poems? Have you written a novel?

I used to write short stories that were basically homages to Raymond Carver, but with fewer alcoholics. Now I write poetry.

3. Has your stuff ever been published? Do you write to be published or for your own amusement?

I had two stories in anthologies for competitions when I was 17, 18. But nothing since then. I write with the hope of being published in the back of my mind.

4. Do you or would you write genre fiction? Do you dismiss that sort of writing?

I'd write anything if it paid enough. I don't dismiss it. I don't think writers should be in the business of dismissing other people's work, regardless of what it is.

5. How often do you write? Do you have a ritual?

Every day. My ritual is smoking.

6. Which authors inspire you?

B.S Johnson had a relentless drive for experimentation, authenticity and invention that I dig. I have a quote from him stuck next to my desk that says 'Telling stories is telling lies'.

As for poetry, Charles Olson and W.S Graham are my main idols. Olson would get up in the morning and read about all sorts of things that interested him, lots of historical accounts, archaeology, anthropology and all, and then write poetry in the afternoon. His idea of poetry as being that open to other schools of thought is appealing, as is his idea of a poetic form based on breathing.

W.S Graham lived in a shack in Cornwall most of his life in abject poverty. He wrote poetry about writing poetry, really, and he's probably my favourite poet. Again, there's a struggle for authenticity and truth that I admire.

7. Do you tend to write about a particular subject? Is it semi-autobiographical or entirely fictional?

This is different, I guess, for poetry, but mainly I write about things that happen, but without it being anecdotal, you know?

8. Do you have a method for composing a story?

When I used to write stories it was mainly along the lines of, 'think of something weird then hang the rest of it on that'. Like a man in a wheelchair painting a gate or something.

9. What do you consider to be the cardinal sins of creative writing?

I guess it's assuming that anyone would want to read about your feelings.

10. Would you let us read something you've written?

This is a poem I wrote a couple of months ago:

It was not a congregation
although
paths lead & in absence
we sometimes like
to think,
in order to place,
recall.

what stillness,
you said

walking near the river,
where so much movement
ends up static.

you said
it doesn’t make sense, it
doesn’t just.

and when we’re told,
here: there’s time, try to
think,
all it lightly rests on
is, there are walls always,
and nothing is still.

far off, voices called to one
another, sounded young & those
shouts, they didn’t,
shatter a thing,
the bustling trees stayed thrown.

nothing halts, you just.
& if it did, well.
it is seismic enough,
just the fact that
it happened.

Sorry for such a long reply.
[/i]

hogrot wrote: for a writer i have a fairly shit vocabulary. case in point: i just read 1984 for the first time. fucking loved it. so then i thought I'd move on to Brave New World. I couldn't stand it and put it down after 30 pages. Heart of Darkness I tried reading but the language just seemed so dense and forced to me that it made me want to throw up.

recommend me someone who pulls elaborate language off in a good way and i'll give it a shot.

A good vocabulary is indispensable.

Check out Kingsley Amis (or his boy, Martin), Faulkner, Joyce, many others.

It won't be be easy at first, but there are rewards for being challenged by a writer.

houseboat wrote:B.S Johnson had a relentless drive for experimentation, authenticity and invention that I dig. I have a quote from him stuck next to my desk that says 'Telling stories is telling lies'.

You've made me stare up guiltily at the copy of The Unfortunates that I still have not read. I admire the guy, and respect the motto. I would aver mean-spiritedly that this can lead to a scarcity of new and interesting material, though. Unless you are Indiana Jones.

Hell, it served Proust well enough.

the Classical wrote:
3. Has your stuff ever been published? Do you write to be published or for your own amusement?

I’ve been self-published/zine level, I got the hell of dick around from McSweeney’s for something I had written which is the closest to “real published” I’ve been.

Same here. It's happened to a lot of people from what I hear. That operation gets so many fucking submissions, a lot of good ones fall through the cracks.

I got an email that said at first "we're interested, wait for further consideration" blah blah after 4 months, then two months later, "a we are still interested, but it does not fit with the theme of coming issues" blah blah blah. Then a "we'll keep it in mind," rejection. Nick Hornby or David Sedaris probably needed the extra pages or something.