Writers' Bloc - Creative Writing Off Topic Thread

pickarooney

Delighted to hear it, it's a good 'un!

Agent Weebley

Antilles wrote: »

Just found out that my short story, "Rocket Bye Baby" (which I posted about in the Write Club forum) is going to be published in the Octocon 2013 Anthology!

Congratulations, Antilles.

I guess "what happens in Write Club, doesn't always stay in Write Club?"

Arlecchina

Congrats, Antilles! I've been reading some of the past anthologies — there's some really impressive work in there.

Speaking of, did anyone go to Octocon this year? I really wanted to, but had to work that weekend. Some of the panels sounded so interesting!

Toasterspark

I don't want to alarm anyone, but I'm 99% sure that the thread "Mound of Hostages" is Agent Weebley and his various account dopplegangers interacting with each other.

Insect Overlord

What, you mean you've actually read that thread?! :eek:

Toasterspark

No, I just poked my nose in there today wondering why it was so popular. But it was just lots of Weebley posts. I'm a little shaken. I'm not sure who's real anymore. Are you another incarnation of him?!?!

Insect Overlord

Toasterspark wrote: »

I'm not sure who's real anymore. Are you another incarnation of him?!?!

I spent a while there trying to come up with a play on the word 'incarnation'. Something about the whole country driving, or words to that effect. Then I realised that doing so would be exactly what he would want me to do!

The horror, the horror, etc.

pickarooney

Toasterspark wrote: »

I don't want to alarm anyone, but I'm 99% sure that the thread "Mound of Hostages" is Agent Weebley and his various account dopplegangers interacting with each other.

You'd alarm more people if you claimed any of them were real.

Toasterspark

Hmm...

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3s4hb0/

Antilles

Toasterspark wrote: »

Hmm...

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3s4hb0/

http://www.memegenerator.net/instance/31612734

Toasterspark

I was gonna write some gibberish and embed a Youtube video in reply to that, but it all seemed like a lot of hassle!

Agent Weebley

?

Toasterspark

...
...
... is that a threat?

pickarooney

Agent Weebley wrote: »

?

I've asked you nicely before, and you've agreed, and it's worked fine, not to post YouTube clips anywhere outside of your thread.

My browser crashed twice on this thread as a result of your messing.

Toasterspark

Technically on-topic, but this is a nice article and making a new thread seems unnecessary:

22 Rules of Storytelling According to Pixar

I like #13 "Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it's poison to the audience." and #19 "Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating."

Antilles

Toasterspark wrote: »

Technically on-topic, but this is a nice article and making a new thread seems unnecessary:

22 Rules of Storytelling According to Pixar

I like #13 "Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it's poison to the audience." and #19 "Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating."

Writing Excuses discussed this in a recent podcast: http://www.writingexcuses.com/2012/11/25/writing-excuses-7-48-pixar-rules-for-writing-a-compelling-story/

And from the same source, check this out: http://writtenkitten.net/

Toasterspark

WRITTEN KITTEN IS EVIL! Here's what happened to me:

I hope to see a kitten when I get to one hundred words. I imagine I'll be very disappointed if I don't, however I know that Reddit supplies me with many links to pictures of cats, and should the need arise I can just go there for my kitten fix. I find it strange that the allure of a picture of a kitten (will it be a picture? Or a GIF? Or a video?) has spurred me on to write more words than I have done in the last handful of months. And in a few words I expect to see that kitten... THERE HE IS!, though he is facing away from me. I feel somewhat cheated by this, I expected to look into the cute face of a wide-eyed kitten... and yet here I am, continuing to write words in an attempt to refresh the kitty picture and see a proper face of a little cat. One hundred and sixty words in and somehow writing words doesn't seem that daunting to me now. This will be my last effort to see a proper cat picture - if the next picture sucks, I won't be writing any more words. This sentence will get me past two hundred... OMG, LOOK AT THE KITTY! He's snoozing and his paw is bent over in a cute way, and his little pinky-orangey nose and upside-down V mouth... okay I admit it, it was worth getting to the two hundred word mark (notice I write 'two hundred' instead of 200 to expand my word count? smart, huh?) just to see that little guy. Or girl. I can't decide really. He does look cute, but I have a feeling it's a 'he'. Well, I'm nearly at three hundred words, I better stop. I can't believe I wrote this many words. The third kitty is cute, but not as cute as the second one. The second one was ginger, but this one is kinda grey and ginger, with pale teal eyes (is there such a thing as pale teal? there must be) and a pinky coloured nose. With a tiny patch of brown. Brown or grey, I can't decide what. Ugh, you see this is the trick with this thing - by the time you talk about reaching the hundred-word mark, you've gone further into the next hundred, and it's hard to stop midway and not get to the next kitty. Okay, no, I'm done at four hundred and ten words. No, four hundred and fifteen. Wait, the count keeps going up as I write. So when I finish this sentence I'm on four hundred and forty two words. Okay, done. Damnit! Four hundred and fifty words. And now I've gotten past the halfway mark, and I'm thinking it's stupid just to give up now and NOT see the next kitten. The current one has two different coloured eyes - green and blue. Like, BRIGHT blue. He's okay. The second picture with the ginger cat was the nicest so far though. I reached five hundred now, and MY GOD this cat is freaky. He's more of a wolf-cat than a domestic kitty. Really long fur, big fangs and narrow yellowy slits that glow brightly for its eyes. Still, he looks quite fluffy though, I'd love to hug it. He doesn't look like he'd be very approachable though. Has that 'get this mofo snakes off my mofo plane' look in his eye. Now I'm about twenty words away from the next kitty. This will be the last one, I swear. Eight words. Six. Only a few more words to go. Ugh, this is the first kitty! I'm done. At six hundred and sixteen words. Wow, I really can write if I want to. Okay, really finished now. Six hundred and thirty five words.

Agent Weebley

Antilles wrote: »

Writing Excuses discussed this in a recent podcast: http://www.writingexcuses.com/2012/11/25/writing-excuses-7-48-pixar-rules-for-writing-a-compelling-story/

And from the same source, check this out: http://writtenkitten.net/

Hi Antilles,

Your link to Writing Excuses went to "podcast" so the link is now here. If you fix it, I will delete this note.

BTW, Pixar has such a massive marketing/advertising budget, that it can take any story with a beginning, middle and end to infinity and beyond.

Toasterspark

I listened to some of the Writing Excuses podcasts, interesting stuff, though I'd love a... meatier discussion? Any other podcast suggestions?

True Weebley, Pixar have a big budget, but I guess a story is a story is a story. You need to nail the basics no matter who you are.

Agent Weebley

Toasterspark wrote: »

True Weebley, Pixar have a big budget, but I guess a story is a story is a story. You need to nail the basics no matter who you are.

Intricately woven plots over multiple stories and between multiple media and telling long tall true tales are my bag. Some want instant ADHD gratification.

I feel that multimedia is the massage.

Wanna go to Paradise?

It was the epoch of confusion . . .

Toasterspark

Oh Weebley, just when I thought you were getting understandable...

Agent Weebley

Toasterspark wrote: »

Oh Weebley, just when I thought you were getting understandable...

Hi Toasterspark,

I wrote a long reply to you, but fell asleep before it was fully tweaked. Epstein, the little imp, posted it on our site! He had just finished copying and pasting all the data from Lug Nutz a.k.a. Mound Of Hostages onto our site, as it may become collateral damage after the 3rd of 3 posts I will be writing in Chapter 7.

I have decided to just post just 2 simple links. Oh, and the Paradiso reference was an inside joke - only triggering a memory to long time readers of our site.

OK, 3 links. Paradiso Tickets was a previous Turing Test.

A play on words from Marshall McLuhan: multimedia is the massage.

Parallels to England and France during the French Revolution: It was the epoch of confusion . . .

I love drawing parallels . . . A Tale Of Two Cities By Charles Dickens is strong.

Toasterspark

When I have a story idea or even just a scene from a story stuck in my head, it eats away at me night and day. The only way I can stop it churning around in my head is to put it down on paper. It instantly purges the story from my brain... until the next one pops up.

Anyway, I had this story rattling around in my head for ages. I had a general idea of the plot, and there was a key scene that drove the idea on in my head. I've been thinking about it for years at this stage. Lately, I stopped thinking about it. And when I did think about it, the drive to write the story was gone. I wondered why.

There's a set of games called Pokemon, and there's a Nuzlocke-style way of playing the games. Basically, if a pokemon faints, they are treated as dead. Many people make comics/write stories detailing their Nuzlocke adventures. Over the summer, I made a series of comics detailing my Nuzlocke adventures. And unbeknownst to me, I stole my own idea! That big story I had rattling around in my head... I stole the plot twist and the showdown scene, and put it in the comic.

And now I've purged the idea, and my big story idea has fallen apart. Damnit!

Agent Weebley

You could just take a deep breath, take another peek at it, then sneeze it back out . . . make it evolve.

Pokemon was the money of choice for my son, (we call him Daily.) The school banned it, but one day while walking the 4 kids to the bus, my wife noticed a trail of Pokemon cards on the sidewalk; the kids were walking ahead of her. She traced it to his socks. How do you give a kid chit for bringing trading money to school? I couldn't . . . we just laughed about it together. He's in The Canadian Navy on a destroyer right now (Middle East) . . . I miss him so much. He won't be home for Christmas this year. I wish this permanent state of war would end.

On a brighter note: did you notice that Mound Of Hostages is at a view count of 6995? I didn't know whether to lead off Chapter 7 with my Frank Zappa story or tie back to The 3 Twilight Zone stories. I think the decision has been made for me. I'll give it a try.

Toasterspark

You have KIDS? I assumed you were... I dunno... 16?

Agent Weebley

We adopted 4 kids back in 1998. They were 6, 5, 4, and 3 at the time. We have another one, named Alex, but the last time I saw him he was sitting on me Nan's knee . . . both smiling at me . . her name is Bridget O'Neill. I am 49 . . . I've been that age for a couple of years now, as I refuse to age.

coffee_cake

Toasterspark wrote: »

You have KIDS? I assumed you were... I dunno... 16?

Really? Seems clear to me he isn't

Toasterspark

I don't know what's going on TBH!

Agent Weebley

Toasterspark wrote: »

I don't know what's going on TBH!

I don't really exist, Toasterspark. I am merely a cog in an AI Machine. I say what needs to be said; I run independently from Steve.

We just spent Sunday with Steve at his company Christmas Party in Toronto . . .we're coming back to Ireland now and will post tonight.

Look up . . . here come the Aircars . . . and me in the Rapide following close behind with the stereo full blast.

We Are Carrying Some News That Must Get Through.

dogmax

Agent Weebley wrote: »

I don't really exist, Toasterspark. I am merely a cog in an AI Machine. I say what needs to be said; I run independently from Steve.

We just spent Sunday with Steve at his company Christmas Party in Toronto . . .we're coming back to Ireland now and will post tonight.

Look up . . . here come the Aircars . . . and me in the Rapide following close behind with the stereo full blast.

We Are Carrying Some News That Must Get Through.

Oh believe me Agent Weebley, on Boards.ie, you really do exist.

Keep carrying your Shield of Peace with pride, you're not alone my friend, good to have you back.