ITT we share what we're writing and judge each other. Novels, short stories, poems, etc

stopped reading after the first sentence

>vomit

About two weeks, but I promise it was bad. What would your plot be like? Why schizophrenia? What does he do in this mansion in the forest? What is the element of horror?

Mental illness and horror go nicely together in my opinion, being a schizophrenic myself, because horror tends to represent the outcast odd ones who can't make it in the regular world.

First post here again, I didn't really think it through at all, it's based on a dream I've had. Mansion in the forest is isolated and may contain strange secrets from the past. Schizophrenia because it seems to be useful for a story to have a protagonist whose mind is playing tricks on him. But I wouldn't really be content with just him hearing scary voices or something, I'm more interested in megalomaniac fantasies, interpreting mundane objects and events as horrible and significant etc.
I'm sorry to hear about your illness, is it very severe? How does it manifest for you?

So, like... what does it mean?

Sounds good to me. If he's got megalomania, I suggest making him also bipolar (it's called schizo-affective = bipolar and schizophrenia) with horrible manic episodes; bipolar people often hallucinate when manic, stay up for days and days high as a kite, and tend to believe weird things in that state, like that they're god.

My illness is mild; medication takes care of it. It's like social anxiety, nervousness, and a spaced out mind.

Your post is too cute to mock you :(

It doesn't make sense at all

(1) The brief tragedy of Agata Grzeskiewicz

Agata didn’t speak anymore. She couldn’t. She used to spout nonsense to fill a lull in conversation, she hated them, the lulls. People would rely on her to fill them too, they hated them but wouldn’t do anything to stop them. Agata always did. The things she said were lame, and belittling, especially towards herself, not directly but they certainly had that influence on how her listeners saw her. But, people laughed and so she attracted a group of strange friends.
When she stopped speaking they would ask “What is wrong, Agata? You haven’t spoken all day, something must be wrong.” “you’re not yourself today, Ag, are you ok?” and she would look at them with her thin lips shut as though gently glued, and her eyes wide and dark and sad, similar to an old dog’s eyes, tilting upwards from the ground to see instead of lifting her head. They stopped asking soon and some of them left when they couldn’t laugh anymore. Ida beamed at the ones that stayed. Usually, they were the ones who didn’t laugh when she took it took far. With her silence, Agata began to see more. Her dark eyes became lenses and she saw how men saw her tits, she always had, but now she saw what they imagined doing to her. And her jaw would clench, her lips arch inward and when they laughed at her silly face, which sometimes they did, she wanted to throw a tantrum and stomp away, but she knew she had to stand there.
When she could speak she didn’t mind so much, she took the compliment and on the occasion considered approaching one or two of them and showing them what she, herself, was thinking of doing.
Her lenses, as lenses are, seemed dark from a distance, but if you were close enough you would see an icy depth and a life within them.

Now you know what has happened to Agata, who she is. You can hear her story.

(2)
Common imagination assumes that when somebody stops speaking, they begin to listen. True or not, this was not true of Agata. Noise would wash over her, she had no response to it. It would drift past her ears which were unwelcome to it. Why hear it. It was petty but if her voice was gone then she wouldn’t listen. Fuck you. Instead, her lenses became responsive.
(more)

I've never really shared anything before. I'm too self conscious to ask for feedback. Is this worth me writing more of?

Thanks for the info, sounds very interesting. If I go and actually write this I might incorporate that.

...

Damn, that font is aesthetic. What's it called?

Baskerville, and I know, right? I love it.

The U.S. Forest Service recently erected a billboard next to the Love Valley pullout just off of S-7. A forest in flames, black silhouettes of trees framed against a wall of orange flames, Smokey the Bear clutching a fawn one-armed in the foreground, a distressed look in his eyes. Bold red script emblazons the scene, “Our Most Shameful Waste!” with the legendary phrase “Remember – Only YOU can prevent forest fires!” on a white backdrop at the bottom, the U.S. Government's defense to Imperial Japan's tactic of weaponized wildfire, a devastating but ultimately failed strategy. Americans love their land. Smokey is the physical manifestation of the bond which we feel to the American Backcountry. It belongs to us all; we are all shareholders in the National Forest System, one like no other. Millions of acres open to recreate on 24/7, the only regulations being those to prevent the destruction of the land. No rangers breathing down the back of your neck, the only chirping that of the birds and the squirrels and the chipmunks. The coyotes howl their sorrowful song, falsetto notes reverberating across a continent of canyons, mountains, and plains, a reminder of the wild within the hearts of Americans, the kind of fire even Smokey can't put out.

Much better than all the other crap posted ITT.

Thanks! I'm proud of what I've been working on, although I think my story is paced a little too quickly. I need to slow more moments down into detailed descriptions like these, I think.

...

good edits

Thanks user

Do you write?

No, but I might like to eventually.

np

thanks

How are you so good at critiquing?

As if a dreamlike drunkenness were under my employment, I have schizophrenia to make my life odd, which is not altogether fruitless, for the strangeness of being it presents is quite a fascinating sensation to turn over in my thoughts. Life is, anyway, a terribly nonsensical adventure when the mind is pushed to consider it deeply.

My mental illness is most fortunately a manageable case, nevertheless, one that hinders me socially but as long as I remain fairly alone, excepting for the company of my wife, Jane, I do well enough, always on the outskirts, however, always a voyager in the aberrant surreal, which can be entertaining in its own right nonetheless.

I will never understand what it means to be alive. Full stop. For one thing, I was never alike to anyone else enough to feel normal, though I've had some friends, and I have Jane. I become confused when I'm with people, because something about me is incurably odd. Life taunts me with its well-adjusted ordinariness. I try to smirk, but only to disguise the feeling that I've been snubbed.

More to the point, the earth is a little planet in a vast universe, and I'm quite smaller than the earth. With a trillion massive stars overhead, I feel alone in my mind; with a trillion unimaginably enormous galaxies swirling about wildly in the distance of space, I feel squeezed into a tiny existence all to myself, shared with nobody, as if nobody could comprehend me, not who I really am anyway, not the thing in me that tears up and longs to be well-adjusted like everyone else.

I have socialized and loved as much as I was able, but I still feel as if my mark has been only to sprinkle a light dust on life that will be blown away by the wind like ashes. Eventually, the feeling overtakes me: Everything about living is unutterably strange, far too incomprehensible to fathom.

...

That's racist.

:, )

No, unless you include long descriptions of anime and sell it as post-modern. :^)

>topknots

eww that is homosex

I'd remove "various goods", but it's decent.

1/2

>The town of Leniford was a lovely one.
Delete – we know you're talking about a town, we know it's lovely from the description.

>It sat on the periphery of two forests, somewhat of a bridge between woodlands.
Delete the first clause – we know it's on the periphery of two forests if it's a bridge between woodlands. 'Somewhat' is a pointless hedge – delete.

>It was a rather odd place, for the village was quite lively in the midst of the still trees surrounding;
Delete first clause, doesn't make sense – how does a village being lively make it 'rather odd?' The rest of the paragraph also describes the town as idyllic, not strange.

Altogether, a possible first sentence: 'Leniford was a bridge between woodlands, lively in the midst of the still trees surrounding.'

I still don't like that, but it's a better template to work from. Why is it a bridge – just because it's between them? If that's the only reason, then the metaphor should be dropped: bridges connect things for crossing, and if the woods are quiet, and nobody is in them, then it's not doing that.

>some nights, as I gazed
Viewpoint shift odd – opening sentence gives impression of omniscient narrator. No one would describe his own town in that way. If first-person or local voice is the goal, revise opening to match.

>into the colossal skies
Weird adjective – the size of the sky is the same everywhere. Is its impression colossal because the town is small, or because the starscape is visible due to lack of pollution…? Or are we saying the sky is colossal because the narrator feels a sense of scope in looking up at it? But then this is odd given the closeness/quaintness of the rest.

>I could hear the joyous sounds of conversation just a hill or two away.
‘Joyous’ is twee, so should be scrapped unless that’s what you’re going for.

>I yearned to be part of such interactions
‘such’ is highly non-conversational, and to a lesser extent so is ‘yearn’ and ‘interaction.’ It depends on what voice you’re going for, but unless it’s ‘wistful, romantic socially awkward,’ the language should be changed to reflect it. Right now my impression is the narrator lacks social skills.

>but it was so much more comfortable to lie in the frosty grass outside.
Comfort at lying down stops the narrator’s ‘yearning’ to be part of the conversations? Again, this makes sense if the narrator is socially awkward, but not otherwise. Delete ‘outside’ – if they’re on the grass, they’re outside.

>In Leniford, brick roads stood out like embers in the night
Delete ‘in Leniford’ – we already know you’re describing Leniford. Unless you’re going for the repetition, in which case it should be more consistent (but I’m not fond of it anyway). How can a brick road stand out like an ember? Brick roads don’t burn or shine. Do you mean the lights lining it?

2/2

>children shrieked with laughter
I think ‘shrieked’ is a bit weird to describe laughter as a habitual. It makes me think there are banshees wailing everywhere – gives the impression of things being unsettling, not cozy.

>neighbors fixed each other breakfast
This contrasts with the rest of the list, which is sensory, in describing the social habits of the people. Same with ‘people were artisans…’

>constantly crafting various goods for the community
Again, this is really non-conversational – sounds like a foreign sociologist. Also, it would be better to commit to a concrete craft or two rather than reference ‘artisans’ vaguely. What do they make?

An attempt at a rewrite (I’ll keep colossal and bridge for BOTD):

>Leniford was a lively bridge between still woodlands – it shone like embers in the night, rang with laughter, and smelled of tea and spices.

…[later in talking about its social character]…

>Neighbors made each other [shoes and? :^)] breakfast, and no one wept without a shoulder to cry on.

…[when transitioning to the narrator]…

>As I lay on the frosty grass of its hills and gazed at the colossal sky, the sounds of conversation…etc. etc. [or just have hin leaning against the tree, to demonstrate people do this in their leisure time]

Reminds me of the shit I see by CCRU dick riders
rap lyrics/10 Pls don't kill yourself. I'll listen to your mixtape. Seriously though.

What do you mean by rap lyrics

The fairly short sentences, subject matter, word choice, repetition and especially the interjections scream spoken word to me. I'm even rapping it in my head a bit as I'm reading it. The flow is broken every now and again, but it then it picks up again.

too much pauses, it sounds like i'm singing spoken word jazz

...

I'm writing a sequel to a fantasy novel I wrote a year ago. I have five books planned out in total. Still trying to get an agent for them.

too many adjetives, unnecessary descriptions and useless stuff, very slow reading.

Yeah, this is really nice. The 2nd part isn't nearly as good as the first, but the first is really nice. Honestly, if you polished up the first part and changed it a bit, it could be a piece of flash fiction. Of course, you have a story you want to tell, but just from what I've been given, I'd want to read it. Maybe I'm just a sucker for this kind of writing

Yeah this was horrible, you could cut that in half and it would still be terrible.

Thank you that's boosted me quite a lot!!!

Good luck!

Thanks. The books have grown a lot as I've read and written more. I hope they'll be genuinely great by the time they're done. I take a lot of inspiration from Gene Wolfe, in particular, in my quest to make literature out of genre fiction.

[From a short story I'm working on...]

In response, Kyra merely rolled her eyes, sighed and laid back down on her towel, her hands over her head as Brandon grabbed his undersized light-blue inflatable tube and chucked it down into the water. “Don't worry, babe” he nervously chuckled, “I'll be okay... Haha, yes siree. Whoo! Man!”
Upon hearing the tube finish its lofty descent, Brandon started jumping up and down and cursing the insanity of his decision under his breath. Kyra removed her hands from her head and smirked at the thought at him pulling out now. He's such a little bitch sometimes, she thought to herself. Yet Brandon was clearly undeterred today. In a matter of seconds he calmed himself down and shuffled right to the edge of the cliff. Once he was there, he began an almost-superstitious ritual - he slowly pushed his arms out to the side, brought them in again, and took a deep breath. Then, after an eternity elapsed of him holding that pose, he did the unthinkable - he hopped off of the cliff, screaming all the way down. Kyra instantly got up and nervously looked over the ledge again upon hearing him splash into the lake seconds later. Much to her relief, Brandon had reemerged from the water, gasping for air. He darted over to his tiny floaty instinctively, and began to relax once he realized he had, in fact, survived the jump.
“Okay, Kyra,” he yelled from the water, “your turn!”

A fantasy story about an exiled knight and a minster whose his only friend. In the end the monster dues and the knight goes to the haunted wasteland in search of god and disinigrates into a spirit.

Atop my throne I sit
Itching to shit
But all I can manage is drip drip drip

Does any one want to help me with a couple of poems of mine? I've got a fair bit, would be more of an email sort of thing

Distant shade showers comfort on towers made to touch the sky. When the light blinds those too small to find the sparkle of the stars, too far from lands both scarred and shone, a happy wanderer sits alone on his throne below the fields and above the sea. He lives and dies and no one cares but someone cries. Some dare to live their lives and as he tried. Others reach high. One touches the sky.

Whoops these are the people I liked most, but I'm proud of ALL of you. Try and fail until everyone else has stopped trying!

>Haha, yes siree. Whoo! Man!”
I half read that while scrolling down and thought you were writing Negan.

Self-advertising is an act
I want my poetry to be seen
And that's a fact
So read my thoughts and
Judge me to death
Be it my advertising
Or my poetic meth-
Odds are against me
But I don't care
I bet there are no links allowed
But I still dare to annoy
In hopes of bringing someone joy
Or sadness really
Disguised with laughter
And with clever puns
But who am I to talk
You are the ones
To judge

poeticmurder.wordpress.com/

"Pain!?" He yells "pain is the reason for life, for pain has taught me to love and pain has taught me to distinguish my feelings. Sadness pain and happiness pain. Sad pain is when death is acquainted, a lover vanishes from the palm of your hand, or when your dog doesn't return home, or when... There's so many sad pains
But Happy pain is different, the type of pain you'd go through over and over again for the people who'd do the same for you"
"Pain!?" He screeches, "oh sweet pain, how it hurts to feel so good!"

skeletal riddim
white bones chalk night
kite high moon shine
light city river raft
tick tock above
streets empty handed
men blow & black drunk
chimes rattling smoke puffing
brelly full o' worms song
gutter drunk hat wearer forever
cabs cruisin' yo home to bel air

Who does not love the night? With her colours and columns and waves. Her mild ubiquity, the sister of day. Who does not love the night? Like Life's inner soul she breathes the titanic space of stars, swimming in their blue deluge. I want to dwindle down on beads of dew into ash - long life's short joys, drab gowns, verspertine nebulas. Must tomorrow come? blablabla

this feels really overwritten. 'Unremmitting rays of power that demanded primary attention from the eyes?' Why not just 'blinding/obscuring/distracting sunlight'?

Say I'm looking for inconsequential advice for writing (names) is it alright to make a thread on this board or does it belong on /adv/?

I need a name for the leader of a lawful-good globally-reaching military force - he has had no real combat/distress experience due to the efficiency of the organization so I'm looking for a passive or neutral sounding name
fantasy
vague/edgy latin welcome

Loremaster _____

It's honestly pretty bad, there's better on your website.

They have to pay for what they did
From out a bank account of pain
And crumpled in the icy rain,
Regret the time they crossed the kid
Through cities of forgotten name
He chases them by dark and light
They find a bar in which to hide,
At last to drink away the shame
It's safe, or so it seems, inside
There's banging on piano keys
But just beyond the wooden wall,
Dead leaves dance to a silent breeze
The door is sudden ripped apart
And they are faced with their mistake
Don't throw strange things into the lake,
Make sure to finish what you start.

The stench was the worst part, he had thought. That God awful smell of decay occasionally mingled with that which came from the loss of bowel control brought by death. He figured that was the part that bothered him the most, the part that unsettled and disgusted him the greatest, but he had been wrong. This was known of course; you don’t survive primarily on your own for so long without learning things about them as well as yourself. Even aspects that strike you personally; discoveries in learning what you are and aren’t good at, what makes you tick… and what you are and aren’t capable of.

Kneeling on a slight hill on the highway, cold brown eyes squinted, peering at a large town not far in the distance. Some houses, a few small stores, a modest police station, post office, one convenience store in sight with a gas station, there was probably a pleasant little grocery store in there somewhere where the previously-living locals would have gone regularly to restock their fridges and cupboards. A deep grunt of a quiet laugh hit the man as he shook his head, reminded of how he had once looked upon such buildings. ‘A smorgasbord! Firearms in the cop station! Food in the stores! Check the houses for loot! Get fuel from the gas station! Try to fortify yourself in one of the buildings and scavenge as the days go by; you’ll be good for weeks! Months even!’

Foolishness; even without the aid of binoculars or a scope, he could see the distant undead shambling about aimlessly. They were like baby spiders that had grown enough to leave the egg sack in which they’d hatched, spreading out, yet at first not straying too far from where their life (or death, in this case) had begun. Some, inevitably, would leave this town and he was certain that many already had, but some would undoubtedly remain. Stragglers; there were far too many to deal with in spite of his armaments, and even if he could take them all out, to claim this town as his own… and that was an impossible if… it would be useless.

How many months had it been since power went out? A book of lined paper in the survivor’s backpack had been used to keep track of the date, at least roughly. The idea came to him early on when the cities were in a panic, the biters cropping up in hospitals as unfortunate individuals died. Some gained infection-like sickness without a bite which was generally considered the primary way of getting infected, though anyone who passed on with their brain intact would inevitably return to join the legion of the endlessly hungry.

>inb4 'lel zombieshit'
>inb4 'lel genre fiction'

Can provide more on request.

I'm neither a native speaker nor a writer so take whatever i say with a salt shaker, but i feel "and disgusted him the greatest" sounds a bit awkward, wouldn't disgusted him most work better?

I tend to think of something dumb/funny, write a bit and cringe about it next day. Feel free to cringe with me. This started as a dumb pun and then I wrote whatever came off the top of my head.

>and an

Very good, user. Is there more or is this the whole piece? Because it works by itself.

>unsettled and disgusted him the greatest.
The dead do unsettle and disgust him, but in this excerpt he's basically thinking about what unsettles and disgusts him the greatest, meaning the most. 'Greatest' doesn't necessarily mean good, for example it could probably be said that WWII was the greatest loss of human life brought by any war in human history. That's not saying it's 'good' or 'great', but in such vast numbers that it's more than any other war. 'Greatest' means 'most', basically. Just like Wayne Gretzky is called 'The Great One' because he's seen as the greatest hockey player to have ever lived, he is the best, or at least he was. He's retired now and getting up there in age.

They also called WWI 'The Great War', not because it was hugely fun and everyone had a good time. It seen some of the biggest advancements in warfare in human history at the time, things like tanks, huge clouds of gas that made people seemingly drown on dry land, thousands of people dying in single days, even 10,000+ people being killed in a single day. So when I say something 'unsettled and disgusted him the greatest', it means it unsettled and disgusted him the most, more than anything else. Or in this case he THOUGHT it did, but he was mistaken. Still, thanks for the critique, and it was indeed given a pinch of salt to help improve the flavour.

Fuck. and as*

>I shall never be as beautiful as that man in the picture

These are the best in the thread.

>complementary

i not e, yo, but this is funny in a cute way. Pretty well written, too, just don't get too self-pitying. Sometimes the best things you write are in the middle of what you think isn't very good.

I love you all for writing.

Thanks man, I wrote the distant shade one. Does anyone else think it should be longer? I like it by itself but I could extend it, too. I might end up writing a series of these, inspired by lyricism/poetry in a prose style.

comfy

>le bookie lad look
How contrived. sad!

Though some men wish for love and wealth
Or women, fast and free;
And others life, eternal health -
That wouldn't do for me.

There's really not so much on Earth
I crave, in truth, at all:
For nothing beats (for what it's worth)
A crayon and a wall.
this is my first time here. i usually posted poems on deep web forums as they were sane there. So i guess cc if you want.

He was wearing a black suit, thin, black, and always with a cigarette in hand. "Where do you thinking you're going pa?l" someone had bumped him" Any where I damn want" what the heck? What is this guy doing he knows that the guy in front of him is seven hundred pounds. Biotransplants to be half gorilla and a half Mugs/ Slap! Slapped across the face he went flying "a boy like you ought to have some respect round here" he got up "Hhh- you think thank that'll stop me old chap?" He moved under his undercoat and came out with a dozen pounds of steel straight into the lugs head. The fleschette mist tore him apart. "that outta cool you down, hothead"

He went inside. The bar was looking at him "Anybody seen Richie?" he shot into the air and silence punctuated the deafness. Richie was in the back his hand on the knife on the hotdog. "Be right out friend" he said wiping his blade with his tongue. He walked out drying it on his apron "What's the matta?" he dropped his gun and fell to his knees crying "He's gone Richie HE"S GONE"

This is fun. Definitely better than most attempting poetry can do.

>and judge others

Obviously the website itself was the main deal

And since I actually got a response, I will also commend this one. Great job with that flowing and easy-going rhythm, you know what you're doing.

Could certainly read more of your stuff.

Good fun, it's nice to see some humor in this thread for once.
Anyone else read it in Cave Johnson's voice?

Infinite Jest is a big heavy book.
I read half of it,
Got side tracked,
Used the rest to prop up a very wobbly chair

Read it while high.
Yes, I know I'm cool,
Thank you.
It still didn't make that much sense...

Maybe I'll read it thus summer.
Drop everything --
Except that book,
You could break a toe that way

why is his cup so small

does he not like what he's drinking?

also why is he wearing the autism weeb meme jacket

Because he's drinking espresso,
And no he does not like it because it must be black to fill some pre conceived notion of an artist.
Same could be said of the jacket.
Or he just likes suede, can't blame him there, only leather I wear.

jesus how out of touch with reality are you?

sorry user im at uni, no time to critique, and a half hearted critique is just shitposting in disguise.

ta m8, i used to write but shit happened and now i don't, that was my last one and threw away all my other ones, if i find any, i'll post.

ta m8

unrelated question but does anyone know any active onion chans?

Against my better nature, I liked this.

vocaroo.com/i/s16IKQjvM8Af

Except for the pears dont have sense organs.part, this has lots of potential. Very portals.

You could try enjoying life a little? Why not

forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=31287783#p31287783

forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=31440572#p31440572

Thoughts on these would be appreciated.

nice :)

>My mental illness is most fortunately a manageable case, nevertheless, one that hinders me socially but as long as I remain fairly alone, excepting for the company of my wife, Jane, I do well enough, always on the outskirts, however, always a voyager in the aberrant surreal, which can be entertaining in its own right nonetheless.

Worst sentence I've read this week, congratulations.

An orange cardboard light kept Maria’s bedroom lit enough (to make loving out of sex). Her face was very close to mine and I could see her twice; it made me aware of my eyes and of the dusty abysses between their crystal and me; and of the incongruities of matter between my eyes and her, and her eyes and me; I wonder did she know it.
When I wondered “was she there” I, too, wondered: she may be wondering whether I am there or not, and she may be wondering whether she’s there or not; and actually she may be wondering whether I may be wondering whether me or her are there or not… I wonder is this how we talk.
(There?)
I do not claim a thing, I blame the otherness in me, but I admit that I may or may not have believed that our ghosts knew the same and felt the same while rotting, growing and shining in mirrors of different ghost-towns.
I kept wondering, and I wondered whether she knew what I do not know I know, but a soft hand fell on me, sun-bathed by a lone dysfunctional eyeball-nerve (it served as a remainder —not real—), and I did not flinch. Proud of myself, I teleported from zero to there and she smiled. I wondered whether she knew and whether I could ever know and I blamed my wonders.
The weather was nice; the lake gleamed happily. We had coffee and a nice breakfast that left its smell of niceness around the flat; no more whethers appeared until the next night, which was an omen of a future second breakfast and a future second coffee (which were an omen of daily-niceness and wondering-nights).

>Worst sentence I've read this week, congratulations.

Best sentence I've read this week, SAD!