(or maybe smuggle them out so they can live as orphans somewhere else that suits them better)
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Finished a first draft over quite a long stretch of fragmented writing sessions, to learn that the tense changes halfway through 
Even so, I think it’s - short story-wise - the best thing I’ve written so that’s a nice basis for redrafting (and fixing the tense), I s’pose
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I think I’m gonna take a bit of a kamikaze approach and just write some random bits as I feel like it while I’m doing some planning on the side
I am a bit of a perfectionist and don’t really like writing without doing loads of editing as I’m doing it but I like the idea of getting stuff down and then moulding it once I’m more certain of the direction/tone etc
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Good luck!
Or should I say… boo’d luck!!
nah, should probably stick with good luck
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Would anyone potentially be up for reading over a short story draft? I’m open to return the favour (but I’m never sure how useful my feedback would be!)
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So i think i’m going to legit attempt to write a book, of sci-fi nature. I have very seldom gone down this path but of late have been working on freelance things that have helped me get better at plotting and planning. So I did a page this morning that felt… good?
Read here, pls
“You can’t call it that, though.”
“But that’s what it is. An ‘artificial community’.”
“Jim, you can’t call a breakthrough in machine consciousness the AC. ‘Bad news everyone: the AC is broken again.”
Ula snort-laughed at her own joke, not for the first time that morning.
“Fine: it’s an artificial, emotionally intelligent, community ‘consciousness’, as you put it. A-E-I-C-C.”
“Perfect. It’s an ache.”
Jim sighed, pouring another coffee and staring at the day’s miserable schedule.
“It really is, isn’t it? Remind we why we have to go tonight?”
“Because work like this isn’t cheap, and the same should be true of our talents. I’m sick of bringing in depressing lunches.”
She held her Tupperware aloft, a sad fanfare of thin bread and mild cheese. If there was lettuce, it was hiding, embarrassed to be included.
“C’mon man it’ll be fine. Kiss hands, shake babies, etcetera; secure millions; get out of the country before they realise we’ve lost our minds and built the whole thing out of matchsticks.”
Even Jim laughed at that. “This is why I keep you around.”
“That, and because you really need a stylist.”
He walked over to the window and glared at his reflection. Hair as thin as his arms, the latter making his would-be impressive height more spindly than imposing. An accidental beard that had settled in for winter. And - Ula was right - dreadful clothes. She had once described him as ‘Mr Bean without the flair’.
“I have dreams where I’m a debonair ladykiller, you know.”
“Do the police ever catch you?”
He pretended to scowl and grabbed his coat and scarf off the pegs while she checked the backups, then the files for the evening’s presentation, and then the backups again out of paranoia. That was the other reason he kept her around.
“So we’re really going with AEICC?”
“As good as name as any. I hate it when AI projects just have a wet human name like Abigail or Benny.”
They walked out onto crisp frost, the air welcoming them with damp, clingy enthusiasm. Ula, true to form, was in a t-shirt and jeans, the only seasonal concession a bobble hat to spare her freshly-razored head from the elements. She grinned just as she got to her car.
“So it’s called Ache. And we’re doing a fundraising gala. And a gala could be more thought of as a ‘ball’.
“So you could say it was a total-”
“I’ll see you later Ula. Please, please don’t put that in the presentation.”
“No promises.”
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Would be happy to give something a read, if you’re still looking for someone to give feedback (have read things for a few other people on here in the past, and run a workshop at my local library - I find all giving/receiving feedback is useful on both sides). Happy to send something of mine in return (no obligation to send me feedback in return, I think it just makes it easier to feel less exposed when it’s a swap 
)
Hello flaky pal who never does the zooms here.
Just read some stuff I pulled together for a local mothers project but never submitted and I like it, but the project is more visual so I was thinking could submit chapters overlaid onto images. But I want them to be accessible still amd I never find that sort of thing readable.
Any suggestions on making writing more visually appealing?
Remembered I’d done some cyanotypes last year so overlaid the words on to that . It’s not really all that legible in places but I sort of like that as a visual thing.
Will see if they can link to a plain text copy though for accessibility
Anyway, it’s part of a lockdown/mother’s project.
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Aw thank you 
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I have started writing and researching for a play. It may never see the light of day beyond me and my girlfriend but it’s pretty cool to visualise and play with on the weekend.
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The blank page can be so demoralising if you want to be a writer / write something / try doing anything to express yrself - but then having a project, and feeling some momentum of some sort behind it, is so FACKIN rewarding. Good luck wi it!
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Feel like I’ve forgotten how to write.
Got really annoyed last year when CBTR who usually like my stuff refused a piece that I myself actually really liked. Not wrote since 
(admittedly I thought they might as it was, in part, about masturbation BUT they shouldn’t be so prudish as it absolutely fit in with their style and they’ve posted a much “worse” thing of mine before with no qualms)
Reject me once…and I’ll just quit. What an adorable character trait I have there.
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I know this feeling. I got a rejection for something where I pretty much had been told that projects rarely RARELY get through first time, and yet for a few months I was like “No. The writer’s life is not for me, then. Cast these dreams into the sea, for I am to become but a lowly wooden sailor boy.”
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that’s really kind! Thank you
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at the point now where i don’t think i’ll ever write again. just don’t have any creativity in me any more 
I write in fits and starts, and only usuay poetry.
Here’s my latest foray…
Drip drip drop, the January showers
Do pitter upon the plains of day
Wind blows hard through many a barn house
Rivers flow fast and boughs do break
The watery sunrise gives way to grey
Pheasants flock to the tholtans above
Leaves turn to mulch as they tumble with roadsoil
As the mother cow tends upon her calves with love
Rampaging seahorses fight furious on the waves
Sheep look back at you transfixed in their gaze
Wheels spin below you, a cliff overhangs
Another hill, another day
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Thanks! Just realised I hate everything I’ve written for it so far beyond one page that is actually just a verbatim quote of a historical document. So, uh, it’s going great!
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Yeah, but if you get down what you hate, you can edit it into something you like so it’s allll gooooddd
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