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[Stephanie]

Gross.

[M]

I’ve got an idea for a seduction story, but I may not have time to write it. When I was working on a master’s in English, I got a letter from a friend of mine who was one of the lawyers at the firm where I worked during the summers. There was a newspaper clipping with it, and a picture of a woman I had had some long conversations with in law school. She had been murdered, likely because of her political involvements. Her body had been found chained to submerged logs in a pond. The note said, “Aren’t you glad I talked you out of this one?”

[Caitlan]

M wrote: "Kat, you’re a moderator! Congratulations. I have a feeling you’ll make a great one. I’ve just gotten back in town and tuned in, so I have some catching up to do."

Thanks, M :D It means a lot :D

[Kymela]

I wanted to take a creative writing class, but they force you to take college comp. first. I hate that!

[Edward]

The composition class I'm in is terrible. Mainly because more than half the class isn't about composition at all but how to ... improve yourself? He does a lot of preaching in class and gives all these tips on how to be amiable in society.

Half my notes today:

"People go astray who blame ways or things for thwarting them. When you are thwarted, it is you own attitude that is out of order." - Meister Johannes Eckhart (14th century theologian)

Attitudes to having a productive mindset:
- Benevolence
- Empathy
- Curiosity
- Equanimity

It isn't that I disagree (although I think that quote is a little ridiculous if applied wholesale, as the wording implies; peoples lives and plans are, in fact, thwarted by outside forces with regularity) but composition class doesn't sounds like the place for that.

Especially when the teacher starts on about how limiting God to narrow, defining ideas is "crap." Really, I thought believing in somethings indicated you didn't believe in others - which means believing something about God is limiting Him to some degree (as in, defining Him as one being and not many), which in turn means that if you don't limit Him you don't really believe anything about Him. My composition teacher certainly doesn't seem to really believe anything discernable about God.

Oh, and our writing assignments have all been two or three paragraphs long. So, to top it off, he kind of makes writing dull.

[Kymela]

I would argue with him about the relevance if I could manage to hold my tongue about religion...

[Kymela]

Rose (from another group) gave me some really funny writing prompts to learn about my characters. Anyone here have any?

[Stephanie]

That does sound horrible, Edward. And boring.

[Edward]

On my fifteenth birthday ...

My first love ...

My hometown ...

Games ...

Not really funny, but writing with these openings (in first or third person) can be helpful.

[Kymela]

LOL Trying to write about Deniol or Anara's fifteenth birthdays. XD

[Edward]

Am I the only one who think Comp I is just a high school review?

Then again, I never took high school English. My understanding of writing comes from sheer experience, so I could be mistaken.

[Edward]

I make just round perfect on my placement test, but they wouldn't allow me to bypass any class.

[M]

When I started college, I didn’t know what a noun was. They gave me the choice of taking freshman English or being hanged.

[Kymela]

I got perfect which means technically I tested out of comp I. If they don't let me go to at least comp II when (if) I start on English, I will start screaming at them. They are a horrible school that doesn't seem to know what's it's doing half the time. I will go straight to a professor and tell them to let me pass or the school can just not get money from me. I hate TCC.

[Stephanie]

So does anyone have any tips on how to learn French or foreign languages in general? I just totally failed a test and I only have like three left for the whole class. Advice is appreciated.

[Kymela]

Sorry, I can't really help. I just read the chapter, mostly and I've got it down. I learn quickly and have a hard time slowing down for others.

[M]

Stephanie, I’ve heard that the way they used to do it in the service was just to read until they picked it up--read French newspapers, French novels. After a few thousand hours of that, they could read it. That’s the way I’m learning it, and it works.

[Edward]

Speaking help too.

Also, reading something you actually knows may help even more. Don't try to translate it, just read it as M suggested. For instance, if you were to learn Latin, the Latin Vulgate or the Harrius Potter series could be immensely helpful.

[M]

I used to have Mary Poppins in Latin (Maria Poppina).

[Stephanie]

How are you supposed to read it if you can't/don't translate it?

[Edward]

You can sound it out. Read it aloud. You'll start to feel the flow of the sentences, especially if you know the story pretty well and already have an idea of what they're talking about.

I seem to recall learning English much the same way, actually.

[Stephanie]

You can sound out French? Huh....the thing besides my French text book that I have with French writing is an old journal (at least I think it's a journal) my mom got in a box full of geneology stuff from my Meme whose first language was Canadian French.

[Edward]

French is easier to sound out than English. French, at least, has stable pronunciation rules.

[Kymela]

Even if it doesn't look like it. Hell, even Gaelic has more stable pronunciation rules than English.

[Caitlan]

English is the only language that is spoken in the front of the mouth. Every other language and culture speaks with their throat.

[Kymela]

That is not true. H is said with the throat, as are k, g, and a few others I can't show you because they use the IPA. There are a few vowels that are said at the back of the throat. There are languages that have less than that such as Japanese and Spanish. It's either Hindi or Indonesian that also has few throat sounds. Throat sounds are usually guttural, though not all. Tones I can't tell you, yet.

Japanese has a lot of dental and frontal sounds, they don't use any guttural sounds and their only glottal sound is an h. There is also a k and a g.

I can go on and on, but I'm not in the mood to look through my book at the moment.

[Edward]

Hm ... I think video games might actually be a good model of free markets. For all our gamers' bellyaching, the industry has come far in forty years. When prices go up, they don't go up nearly in porportion to quality that is added - the quality increase is almost always greater than the price increase. We had a lot of variety between genres (though not much variety within genres, I'll admit that).

Oh, and then the big companies tried to price fix their games. The consumers are rewarded with Minecraft, a low resolution but highly entertaining game for about fifteen dollars. Bethesda knew they needed something really good that the creators of Minecraft couldn't pull off - and put out Skyrim. Consumers win again, since this is a game that can be played on any recent desktop and even some laptops that has the immensity and complexity of Middle Earth and the graphics to go along with it.

We complain that games have nothing new to offer and some genius invents Portal.

The only real legitimate complaints about the gaming industry are the rackeetering levels of profit Game Stop makes at the expense of the game makers and piracy - and the makers are starting to work around that without ill-conceived bills like SOPA.

So ... yeah, just some midnight snack musings.

[Kymela]

This is so cool! I'm on one of the computers at school and it's a touch screen. :D I haven't used the touch screen part, yet, but this is much faster than my computer. XD

[Stephanie]

Edward wrote: "French is easier to sound out than English. French, at least, has stable pronunciation rules."

Huh. I guess I should learn the pronunciation rules then...

[M]

I clicked the link and read your story. On a first reading, it isn’t very clear to me what’s going on in it. I haven’t read the contest rules, so I don’t what they’re looking for, but one thing I might be inclined to do is move some things in the story up front so they don’t have to be explained later. I might start the story something like: “Erin was a hard girl to get to know. When she was six, she had seen a man murder a woman. . . .”

[Kymela]

AL wrote: "I went off in a tangent because I need action and suspense in my stories and hate writing lovey-dovey crap"

I hate the lovey-dovey crap, too, which is probably why I couldn't add more to Mary.

[M]

I agree. Collin is a clinging vine. In real life, his constant attentions would make Erin feel as though she couldn’t breathe, until finally she’d just want him out of her life.

[Edward]

I'll try to look into it. Won't necessarily give my full-attention, to be honest, but I'll try.

[M]

But the thing to do is to find out what the magazine wants and to write something that more perfectly matches it than anything else submitted.

[M]

You’re almost certainly an INFP.

[Edward]

I liked it. I didn't find it confusing and I only found that one line cheesy, which you said you changed.

The rest was pretty good understated writing.

[M]

I’d take Edward’s word for it. Submit the story and win!

[Edward]

That sounds ... suggestive.

Anyway, writing for the market sounds incredibly dull. Sounds like real work ... something I only apply to chores. My livihood should be something I'm willing to do for free but don't have to.

Hence combat engineer writing books on the side. That's the career I'm aiming for.

(Note: I'm not ignoring the importance of smaller jobs like flipping burgers. That's good and respectable work, just not a career ...)

[Kymela]

I want to be a liguist who writes in different languages. XD

[M]

I shouldn’t have posted that. It’s late for me. I think you have a lot of talent, Alex, but I think you’re going to find out that magazines are looking only for what will sell. I think you’re in a position to write the very thing they’re looking for, but whether that’s what you want to do is a decision only you can make.

I got lucky--or unlucky, depending on how you look at it--and didn’t have to make a living off writing, so I haven’t had to put up with the lost fees and all the rejection slips that inevitably go with doing it for a living. On the other hand, I never became a writer.

When you approach something like this competition you’ve supplied a link for, you have to find a way to steel yourself, remove yourself. These are people who are selling a product. All they care about is how well it sells. That isn’t entirely bad. Think of the writers who have made fortunes off what sells. Think of Dean Koontz.

No one likes the idea of prostituting himself, but there’s a great deal of that in writing, or in business of any kind. I don’t mean to discourage you from submitting to the competition, but I think you should see the competition for what it is. They aren’t interested in you as a writer or in anything you may have to say or have to offer as a person. What they’re interested in is how many subscribers they have.

Your purpose is to make sure they have more subscribers next issue than last.

[Edward]

Lord of the Rings never did sell while Tolkein was alive. If I can write something as important and well done as that and never make a dime, that'd be more than enough.

I doubt I'll ever rely on writing for income.

[M]

I hope you become a clinical psychologist. I don’t think you’ll like the education and training, but I think you’ll make a very good one. It will give you a lot to write about, but you’ll come to realize that most things aren’t worth writing about.

I went to see a clinical psychologist about a year ago. I would never have dared, but that I had suffered through four years of college and six years of graduate school virtually unable to read tormented me.

The hour and a half I spent with the psychologist was worth far more than I paid him. He told me things about me so simple I couldn’t have seen them for myself. Of the things I might caution a student against becoming, a clinical pyschologist or an architect aren’t among them. Those are beautiful things to become.

[M]

It’s way past my bedtime and late into my cocktail hour, and tomorrow I’ll probably wish I hadn’t posted any of these things. Things don’t seem as simple as they were when Spades and Penelope were fighting things out and you were the modern Mona Lisa, at the head of some disorganized world of pirates and uber-evil-doers nobody on our side could understand. Good night, Lisa. Don’t take anybody’s advice, especially mine!

[M]

Please don’t.

[M]

No more late nights for M! M will be a good boy from now on, and go to bed when he’s supposed to, and not wake up the next morning wondering what things he probably shouldn’t have posted the night before. M’s probably lucky he didn’t get booted out of another group he’s in.

Well, I set my coffee down somewhere . . .

Alex, Edward’s right. You should submit your story to the contest. You might want to work it over good first, though.

[M]

I thought you were very patient! I’m usually sound asleep by 8 p.m., and when I glanced down at the bottom of the screen and saw that it was midnight, I wondered how in the world it could have gotten so late. I know exactly what you mean about that icky feeling from lack of sleep. I’ve got it, too. My stomach is trying to communicate with me. I think what it’s saying is something like, “Donut shop. They have kolaches there.”

[M]

That little devil! I’ll have to have a talk with him. I misunderstood my stomach. It’s actually saying, “Beverly’s Cafe.” I’d better get over there. Be back after while.

[Edward]

...

[Edward]

A little better than I was yesterday. Ironic, given that I'm actually a little more harried; I have to create two new monsters by tonight, transfer notes (which is how I study) for a quiz on Monday, write an essay on a Jewish movie also by Monday, and memorize sixty-odd elements by Friday.

Oh, and clean. My mum just decided on that one.

Oddly enough, I tend to get more work done when I'm also doing something irrelevant, like chatting on this group.

Something I'd like to point out: I never told you to submit the story. It said that I liked it, which is a very different expression than, "It is good." I use first person pronouns when expressing opinions that have a good chance of not meshing with everyone, especially an editor.

Also, I glanced over the story again. I think an editor would find the ellipses overused.

When dealing with a word limit, something I find useful is to seperated it into distinct Acts based on word count. Your limit is 1,500, and the first act can take up to a quarter of that, the third act another quarter, and the middle act is a full half. So split up the acts 375/750/375 with about a thirty word variance. That way, you know where you can remove words without upsetting the pacing quite as much. Again, this often works for me.

Okay, time to create a virtually sentient trap to scare my players with.

[Kymela]

I have swollen sinuses this morning, but the weird part is, the right is swollen, but the left is the one I feel the problems with. I feel absolutely nothing with the right, it's nice and clear...

I gotta do dishes, study for French, do my Russian homework, read my library books that are due this week and write. Definitely write. Oh, and figure out where my medical records are...