JonB wrote:

Just to say, I have read your piece, Tin. I don't really know about kids' books so there's not much I can say - I'm sure it's well targeted at a specific age group and the language level is appropriate, but I wouldn't know. I thought maybe the girl should've removed the rabbit from the room with the tiger though, perhaps transferred it to her room. Also I wondered if it was going to take a dark turn when Dad's temper was mentioned (which could be fine if it was for a slightly older crowd), but that's probably just me.

Thanks for taking the time to read it Jon.  It's not going to take an overt dark turn with the Dad, but the notion was that each animal would reflect the character of the person it once was - as such there will be an ongoing suggestion that Dad maybe wasn't the easiest guy to live with throughout, without ever really going into detail.  (I remember a friend once commenting that she viewed kids picture book classic "The Tiger Who Came To Tea" as "clearly being about alcoholism" - and whilst I didn't necessarily agree, the idea clearly stuck with me.)  

As for the rabbit.  Yeah.  I'm not happy with the rabbit in general.  Dad = tiger was a really clear decision.  I agonised over the Mum for ages, ultimately settled on a rabbit (after dismissing meerkats, bees, all sorts), and then almost instantly regretted it.  If nothing else, it doesn't really work with what I have planned for them in the future.  So I may go in completely the opposite direction and make her a bear...

tin_robot wrote:

As for the rabbit.  Yeah.  I'm not happy with the rabbit in general.  Dad = tiger was a really clear decision.  I agonised over the Mum for ages, ultimately settled on a rabbit (after dismissing meerkats, bees, all sorts), and then almost instantly regretted it.  If nothing else, it doesn't really work with what I have planned for them in the future.  So I may go in completely the opposite direction and make her a bear...

It depends what you want them to do later on, and how you envisage them as people. What would a relationship between tiger-man and bear-woman be like? I'm not sure a rabbit is necessarily a bad idea though, just needs more fleshing out. And if it was a rabbit, I'd expect the girl to be more concerned for its safety.

tigerswiftly wrote:

@aaroncupboard & @revelthedog up next.

Cheeky bump. If you don't have anything written, that's cool. Somebody next in line might have something to share.

Or if not, I do. Heh.

I'll stick it in a doc and link it

Rev - Fine to post it however you like. What a few of us have done is posted it as a Google doc and linked to it with Comments enabled. That means readers can easily annotate what they like or what didn't work for them, as well as any suggested changes, things like that. But the above is fine too.

I've had a read - Will try and get back to you with comments later today.

Ladies and gents, I missed my slot (and feedback for others) due to 10 days stuffing myself and imbibing wine in the South of France, to then return to my aunt's passing. Would love to post some stuff up, but won't intrude on Rev and Aaron's slots (f'nar, f'nar). Tiger, perhaps you could give me a budget to upload stuff during the next lull? Will post thoughts on others' stuff later this afternoon.

That would need great, cheers Jon. Will get a few things together for the 10th then.

Congrats Tiger. I'll get on everyone's work so far soon.

Cheers guys.

Not as good as my first sale by a long shot. Indeed, I almost feel a bit... off with it. Got fed up of rejection and jumped down the market somewhat, despite having had decent feedback on the story. Still, I'm trying to work with the "Write a story, edit it, never touch it again. Just keep submitting it until nobody takes it or you decide it doesn't work. Always move on to the next piece" mindset.

I've submitted the story I posted on here to two places without any luck so far. Here's a rejection I got for it from the place I got my first sale with. Might be interesting for those of you who read it. 

It's interesting. I started off the story with only a loose description of the magician because the story was going to be wholly about the owl at the outset. Things changed as I wrote it, but the distance from the now-main character didn't. Fair comment. Tempted to have a tweak and bring more depth into it.

That particular mag are driving me mad. I've sent them 4 things since they bought from me and I've had nothing but kind rejection. The only story to get through to the ed. board is the one I just sold elsewhere. Yet, I feel, it's really not my strongest writing at all.

In lovely/disappointing news, I came in the top 10 of a recent Orbit Fantasy Writing Workshop thing. That's a cool thing, though it's disappointing to come close and not win. They're going to give me a free book though. So that's something, I guess. Can't figure out what I submitted either. I think I know but I can't really remember.

Also got fucked off with the publisher for the last story I sold so I retracted it. They were fucking useless with the contract and I couldn't be bothered to wait for them.

Um, anyway. Anyone want to give me some feedback on something? I've got a short that I've edited a fair bit so hopefully it reads ok.

You have 6 minutes. No more, no less.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d4N3B7HvzrOlAd0l-idM8XVEcIPlJziRegOSABp_j6w/edit?usp=sharing

Nah, seriously. Take your time. I've had this rejected from a few places and it's still on submission. Any thoughts are welcomed, whenever they come.

a) It gets easier once you've shared a few times.

b) I've been slaughtered on writing forums. "What is the point? II don't even know what this is." I know people here will be nicer. I got seriously put off by some cunt called Osalugh on another forum. But you know what? Fuck him. If I can polish writing enough that I like reading it back, surely someone else will like it too?

c) I'm an egomaniac.

d) You almost certainly think you're worse than you are. You're your own worst critic (usually). Unless you only want to write for you, you simply have to start sharing at some point.

e) I want people to read my stories and my !monsters and my worlds. I have to share at some point if that's going to happen. 

f) I'm a tiger. Tigers ain't scared o'nuffin.

what should i share? I have a number of odd half polished stories between 1000 and 8000 words.

Djornson wrote:

Hello. I've been sporadically writing for 10 years. I've ocassionally shown a couple of bits to my brother but nobody else. I'm kind of terrified of sharing. How can you be so brave?

I absolutely hate sharing stuff I've written.  I have an entire novel, that's been read by all of about 3 people, one of whom is my wife.

On the other hand, if you don't share stuff, you never get feedback, and to some degree you never get better.  Also, whilst most things I've written have never been allowed out into the wild, as DS says, it's absolutely great when they are, and people enjoy them.

If nothing else, everyone on here's pretty damn helpful and pleasant, so if you're gonna share anywhere, it's not a bad place to try.

(I'm actually a bit odd about sharing stuff, in that I've now bagged a gig writing a regular medical column for a GP educational site, and it doesn't bother me at all to send it off.  But stuff I've written for myself, because I felt I needed to get the story down somewhere, is an entirely different matter.)

Tempy wrote:

A whole novel? Christ. I can barely sit through w few thousand of my own words before I want to give up. Kudos.

I keep meaning to start another - I have several kicking around in my head wanting to get out.  However it's nigh on impossible to get the mixture of both time and motivation - though I found it got much easier once I'd started.  My main problem now is that having had said novel gently rebuffed by those I sent it to, I'm even more lacking in the motivation department.  

(Though by all accounts I had a much easier ride with my rejections than most, and actually had some very nice, very positive feedback, usually followed by the phrase "but I'm afraid I just don't see a market for it".)