Tag! You're it!!

[Aquarius]

Awesome! I'll add you when I get home.

[Linda]

Hi everyone playing tag! I am way behind on my challenge by Dinah and I appoligize for that. It is just that since I lost my job after almost 27 years at it, I have been unable to write at all, even though I now have lots of time allthough I do have to spend some time job hunting and doing paper work for getting my pension. I don't know why I can't write or even read, except that I am a bit depressed and disoriented. I tried working on my challenge story...I do have some good ideas but it is like trying to swim in thick mud at the momment. I know I will recover from this; it is just taking much longer than I expected. I see that Silverbullet has another chapter of his story up that is answering my challenge to him. I will try very hard to leave comments for his story in a timely manner. But otherwise, I have not been visiting and reading stories at Triaxian Silk in over a month. I do enjoy the stories here and will be back reading them as soon as I can gather up my wounded self esteme from six months of job hunting with absolutely no success. I know we are all effected by a resession and I should not take my lack of success personally, but I am failing misserably at not taking it personally! But I WILL beat this feeling eventually!

Linda

[Alelou]

We're happy to know you're still out there, Linda. It's understandable to be dealing with lots of sad feelings right now. It's not your fault you can't find anything when jobs are so hard to find, especially for people who are getting closer to retirement.

We hope you'll be back to reading and writing soon. If nothing else, fanfic can be a real nice escape from reality. Of course, if there's a lot of reality you really have to deal with, you might be better off staying clear for awhile -- I neglect way too much real life for this stuff when my addiction is flaring up.

I should be out in the garden right now (if not grading papers, of course). But oh man, it's hot out there. It feels like late June, not early April.

[Asso]

Seing you again here, Linda, is the most precious gift for all of us.
I - we - are sure that you will recover soon, and I am persuaded that everyone, here, is eager to be close to you.

[Silverbullet]

Linda, I chose to retire at 57, I could hvve retired at age 52 but wanted the extra five years towards my Retirement pension. I have never missed my work. I had to work alone in a windowless vault for years so Being retired is a blessingh for me. I stay active although age has cuaght up with me. I write now to keep my mind from slowing down. Look at retirment as an opportunity to open a new life. Grab it by the horns.

SB

[ginamr]

I know I'm far too young to be thinking about retirement (22, in case you're curious), but i see retirement as me working a part time job just for the love of it and traveling the world. I'll always be a writer at heart so I'll prolly start writing novels, if I haven't already. I'll write about my travels.

[Silverbullet]

Lindas Challenge story is complete.

I had agreed to write a Spy story for distracted as a challenge. I have five (5) chapters in draft now. They will need work but basically they are started. Not sure how many chapters it will be as I keep remembering things.

SB

[Distracted]

Just remember that an effective story has a plot with a beginning, middle, and end, Silverbullet. It's great if you're remembering details to put in, but get your story down first. Don't sweat the small stuff until you've decided how the story's going to end and at least generally how you're going to get there from where you started. If you don't plan at least a little, you run the risk of wandering around aimlessly writing about details without progressing with the story. It's easy to bore your readers that way. Picturesque details are all well and good, but they shouldn't be the main point of the story unless you're deliberately trying to write "literary" style fiction.

This is all my opinion, of course, and is by no means a hard and fast rule. Write what you want to write.

[Silverbullet]

Distracted, got the start and the Ending of the story alrady written. Have a general outline of how I wish to proceed. I hope to hide the Spy until the end of the story but have to drag in a few Red Herrings.

SB

[panyasan]

I am challenged by pdsldl (and I accepted) to write a funny piece about an episode of season three or four. I started to write a story - Bound from the one of the Orion's women point of view - who thinks that Trip is the most ugly guy she ever met ("The Monster and his Vulcan side-kick") and has a crush on some one unexpected. It's a bit over the top. I still had to write the final scene. Any way, a couple of day ago I am cleaning up my documents on my computer and I remember thinking "Is this story funny or should I try something new?" I was thinking today about the last scene, so a few minutes ago I wanted to finish the story. It's gone. In my mood of "this sucks, bad writing, not funny" I deleted the whole piece. I didn't even made a back-up.

[ginamr]

I would do this: hash it out first on paper so you have a hard copy.

This from years of losing things. I then go back to my hard copy and say "thank God I had the sense to write it by hand first".

I don't always have the whole thing...maybe scattered scenes. But it's a lot easier to rebuild from the bits and pieces than from scratch.

Then again, it helps that I can remember almost word for word the most recent story I was working on.

[panyasan]

Well, after calming down, I decided to rewrite the whole thing. I have to and it was problably the reason I delete it in the first place.

[pdsldl]

I sympathize Panyasan. I recently lost several chapters and rewriting has produced mixed results. Some came out better and others are lacking something they had the first time around. Glad to hear you were able to rewrite it and I am looking forward to reading it. Good to see this is still going as it has been quiet here for a while.

[Silverbullet]

Pannysannn tht is a wonderful title. You HAVE to write it again.

SB

[Asso]

Well, after calming down, I decided to rewrite the whole thing. I have to and it was problably the reason I delete it in the first place.

That's the right road!