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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.122.107.34
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2011 - 03:20 pm:   

An odd thing happened the other day - I sent some shorts off for a publisher to look at (they said I could!) and ever since I think I've got better in my way of writing/imagining. It's like I've been able to see where I'm going wrong and know now how to change things I think I've done wrong. It's as if the act of pushing myself a little has drawn me along.
Is this common?
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2011 - 03:24 pm:   

Yes. Absolutely.

(And good luck, by the way!)
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2011 - 03:26 pm:   

In regards to writing, this uplift you are experiencing is partly about breaking out of a small circle of isolation and moving into a larger circle which contains at least one proper reader (in your case the editor or publisher or whoever)...

It's a sociable act: it's on the way to being a professional act. And that's important.

You can only get a diluted effect from letting your girlfriend or boyfriend or family or friends, etc, erad your work... It MUST be an 'objective' third party, a real reader...
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2011 - 03:32 pm:   

* For some reason I can't seem to spell the word "read" when I type. It nearly always comes out as "erad"... My apologies for that!
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.108.225.56
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2011 - 11:21 pm:   

>>* For some reason I can't seem to spell the word "read" when I type. It nearly always comes out as "erad"... My apologies for that!

Yeah, I've the same thign with "thing": always comes out thign.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.108.225.56
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2011 - 11:22 pm:   

Bugger.

I've the same THING with "thing": always comes out thign.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.180.41.149
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2011 - 11:30 pm:   

...and I often put "teh" instead of "the", but I believe that's commonplace.
Sorry Tony - back to your thread subject.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.145.134.216
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2011 - 11:53 pm:   

Were we talking about boobies or has Zed not got involved in this thread yet?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.170.126
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2011 - 10:03 am:   

I have problem with 'certain'. It always comes out 'ceratin'.

In fact, I once thought about writing a story about a creature called the Ceratin. It would haunt the lives of editors who couldn't be bothered correcting typos in mass market novels.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 81.155.107.43
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2011 - 10:21 am:   

Ceratin seems like a sort of drug to counter bombastic certainty.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 81.155.107.43
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2011 - 10:22 am:   

I wrote something recently about a Tug towing two cream cakes, that was a play on the typo tow/two.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.170.126
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2011 - 10:54 am:   

>>>Ceratin seems like a sort of drug to counter bombastic certainty.

Then give some to George Osborne!
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2011 - 12:00 pm:   

> ...counter bombastic certainty.

I didn't know you could get bombastic certainty over the counter. I thought it was by prescription only.

I love the word "bombastic", by the way. It's almost an autological word (it describes itself). The myth that it was derived from the name of Paracelsus (Bombast von Hohenheim) is incorrect apparently.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2011 - 02:25 pm:   

Tony - I experienced a similar thing several years ago.

A chap I met on the internet - some weirdo called Gary Fry - asked to see some of my stories. Right then, everything changed. That one act of sending the stories out for someone else to see changed everything and made me realise that someone other than me might actually get something out of my writing.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.170.126
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2011 - 02:49 pm:   

You owe it all to me, you mofo.
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John Forth (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.24.1.217
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2011 - 02:49 pm:   

I'll admit to limited experience, Tony, but I've found that my occasional story acceptances tend to leave me with a real sense of clarity in my writing, similar to what you describe above. I suppose it's vindication that you're not just some nutter pounding out incoherent rubbish, which I suspect is a fear that lurks at the back of many a young writer's mind.

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