Mental Purgatory

This story is a spin-off from story #4, meaning that I could do both stories and build up a universe surrounding this tyrranical society. However, while in the same society, this story takes place after the fall of the empire. This story centers around a scientist who was involved in the genetic engineering plans and [...]

The first idea I’m going to put out is one I’ve been playing with for a while, and have probably documented here. The story would likely be a combination of Juno, City of Angels, and A Beautiful Mind.
My proposed premise for the story is of a teenage girl who finds herself pregnant. She struggles with [...]

So I stumbled upon this site a while back called NaNoWriMo.org which basically stands for “National Novel Writing Month.” The purpose of the site/organization is to help get writers to finish a novel. To do this, writers are tasked with starting a novel on November 1st and finishing it by November 30th. You can’t start [...]

So this post is going to be a double feature of story ideas. No real exciting stuff here, just some story ideas for you to chew on and for me to remember them myself.
Heaven’s Waiting Room
This piece is nearly done with a first draft, probably around 2,000 words. This could potentially be called a [...]

So as a lot of you know to some level, I entered the McKinney Writing Contest at school for fiction and essay entries. I ended up taking first place in both categories, winning for my “fiction” piece, The Best Years of Our Lives, which reflected on the passing of friendships, and for my essay, Understanding [...]

Our Creative Writing Selections return in this very rough draft. I went to the park the other day and while sitting down, decided to write this piece. It hasn’t seen a single revision, I’ve never even read it myself. I’ve simply taken it from my journal, typed it onto my computer, and placed it here. Inside, I provide a little more context as to what it is and what I was working to achieve with this post.

I thought I would use this post to discuss writing tactics based upon my own writing from last week. The piece has already seen another two revisions since then and will likely have another two before I’m confident in submitting it but it still can offer enough points of discussion. Anyways, let’s get down to [...]

As promised, I’m offering a glimpse into my own work this week so you can judge if I walk the walk as much as I talk the talk. This piece is based on the ideas presented in my Sunday piece. It’s around its fourth draft and will likely undergo two more before I’m fully happy with it. The last two paragraphs will likely be thrown out and the ending will be revised. They are from a version of the piece that started as nonfiction, and I think I’m going to redo them to make it a purely fictional piece. All comments are welcome of course. Next week I will do a discussion on revision based upon this piece with examples to help you with your own writing….

So I’m breaking the mold here to do one of those 25 things about you posts that have been going around on Facebook. I didn’t want to do it on there since I wouldn’t know who to tag and feel awkward trying to target people to do it for. I thought it would be a neat challenge to try and as an after note, it’s a pretty tough activity. I started struggling at the end but think I was finally able to pull through. Anyways, here’s my list!

1. I am a person of extremes. Most of the time I’m either very happy or very sad.
2. I hate being alone and I hate being in groups. I live for one on one interaction.
3. If I wasn’t in computer science, I would probably have been an English major.
4. I had never had alcohol before three weeks ago, and I’ve never had coffee.
5. I love R&B music, Tony Rich is my favorite artist by a long shot.
6. …

So I feel like I’ve got a reputation now of apologizing more than anything else. So today, I’m not gonna. The post is late because it’s late. Deal with it . Haha sorry, I’m just playing, let’s get down to business.

One of the interesting concepts that’s been discussed a lot lately in my writing groups is the notion of controlling the pace of your piece. Sometimes your writing will be moving WAY too quick and it leaves the reader confused and a little overwhelmed. By slowing the pace down some, you can build further suspense and give the reader more bearing. However, it’s a difficult balance as if you swing too far in the other direction, you’re going to bore your reader into passing on your writing for something a little more lively. So how can we find the compromise?

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