Writer Confessions and Writer's Trashed, Embarrassing WIPs :D

Melanii

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I thought this might be fun, or maybe not. I don't know!

Before we became writers most of us probably had silly ideas of what it was like to be one. Some of us probably had no idea you could do this or that in a novel, and now realize how silly you were.

MOST of us most likely has a novel we tried to write, then trashed/archived it and think it's totally embarrassing!

All of this applies to me. :p

Confessions:

1) I thought the fantasy genre HAD TO consist of a big adventure, family-friendly plot, and a big bad to defeat at the end.

In fact I thought this way right up until I started hearing about the Game of Thrones TV show, then read the first book... Oh, my perception changed.

2) I don't read as much as I probably should, and my book collection kind of stinks.

Okay, here's a picture of the books I own...
Hzqew8k.jpg


I started reading two of them this year, and one of them last year. Here's how slow I am...
v5OTGa2.png


SISTERS RED was borrowed from the library two weeks ago, and will be brought back soon.

Embarrassing, OLD WIPs:

The first novel I tried to write SERIOUSLY was about a young woman taken from her apartment to a hellish dimension to be sexually assaulted by demons so they could taint her into becoming some strong creature to win their war. One of the demons started to realize he didn't like the idea after awhile. He WAS humanoid in appearance, but he wasn't very handsome...

To be fair, I wrote this while living with the ex who gave me PTSD.

STILL, TOTALLY DUMB STORY!

Now, what about the rest of you? :D
 

Fullon_v4.0

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This is a funny thread! I like it! XD

Okay, here are a couple of mine...

CONFESSION 1 - When I first heard of a Query Letter, and that it had to include a brief overview of your book, I was a little too focused on...well...being brief.

First Query Letter -

Dear Agent

My name is Blah Blah Blah and attached is my fantasy novel about a group of pirates. Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely, Blah Blah Blah


I sent this letter everywhere, and partly due to this I now use a pen name >_<

CONFESSION 2 - When you write a book, all you gotta do is drop it off at the happy magical book place and they'll get someone to make a nice cover for it and put it on a shelf :D Easy as that!

......Yep......it's as easy as....that. What? >_> Letters? Agents? Editors? Logistics? You speak madness!
 

C. Eldon Gammon

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CONFESSION 1 - When I first heard of a Query Letter, and that it had to include a brief overview of your book, I was a little too focused on...well...being brief.

First Query Letter -

Dear Agent

My name is Blah Blah Blah and attached is my fantasy novel about a group of pirates. Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely, Blah Blah Blah


I sent this letter everywhere, and partly due to this I now use a pen name >_<

This actually made me laugh out loud. That is so unfortunate but so hilarious. XD
 

C. Eldon Gammon

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Confession one...

I wrote a story when I was eleven about a princess who didn't want to be princess (of course) and had a name so ridiculously long and strange that I really can't bear to say it. She ended up meeting fairies in the woods who promised her, in their own entirely made-up language, that they'd take her away to a more exciting place. My cousin ended up discovering it on my computer and emailed it to herself and all her friends despite my protests, telling me it was "so good" and she wanted to read the whole thing. She ended up making fun of me for it for years -_-

Confession two...

For a few years in elementary school I pretended that I had read all the Harry Potter books to make myself look cool and smart, when I actually hadn't even touched them. It's funny though because I eventually ended up reading the first one out of sheer quilt and subsequently fell in love with them.
 

chompers

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Dear Agent

My name is Blah Blah Blah and attached is my fantasy novel about a group of pirates. Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely, Blah Blah Blah

I sent this letter everywhere, and partly due to this I now use a pen name >_<
Sorry, I also laughed at this. But especially because of that pen name part. :D
 

Locke

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For a few years in elementary school I pretended that I had read all the Harry Potter books to make myself look cool and smart, when I actually hadn't even touched them. It's funny though because I eventually ended up reading the first one out of sheer quilt and subsequently fell in love with them.

For a few years in elementary school I pretended that I had read all the Harry Potter books to make myself look cool and smart, when I actually hadn't even touched them. It's funny though because I eventually ended up reading the first one out of sheer quilt and subsequently fell in love with them.

sheer quilt

And for that, now I must pay.

Dastardly writers, forgive me for I have sinned. In the pursuit of buying things because things totally make people good writers, I currently own a corkboard (for storyboarding, which is currently holding a calendar, an Alien action figure, and a pair of Halloween demon horns, but not a single thing about story), numerous packs of notecards (which remain without story notes), several different writing aids, numerous pens and notebooks, a laptop purchased with the justification that I'm totally going to write the next big thing with it and totally haven't, and a shelf full of books about writing, several of which I have not completed reading. Somewhere in my psyche there is a little devil who believes that good writing happens by throwing money at it.
 

chompers

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First a little background: When I write, I leave my inner editor on.

Confession: The first year I discovered Nano, I turned off my inner editor, because everyone was telling me to do so. That story turned out to be a big, huge mess.

Unfortunately, out of everything I've written, that story has the potential to go the furthest, so I refuse to give up on it. But I've rewritten it once and still am confused, because the first go-around was that bad.

Well, it was so bad I couldn't see how to fix it. So I sent it to people, trying to get help. That's the embarrassing part, sending something of Nano quality and making people think this is how bad you normally write.
 

J.S.F.

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Okay, CONFESSION TIME FOR THE SELF-CONFESSED ATTENTION WHORE THAT IS MOI...

I started writing rather late in life, at the age of forty-eight. I had no idea of what I was doing, no idea of how to format properly or the Chicago Manual of Writing (or whatever it's called as I have never read it) and basically, I knew nothing.

(Cue the boobirds who are thinking "You STILL don't know anything and maybe they're right, but I digress...)

After finished my first novel, I sent it off to agents thinking naively that they'd accept it. My so-called query letter consisted of telling them (basically) this is my story, what do you think?

Most of the agents never replied, but one who did wrote back, "Perhaps you should try another line of work."

My novel, mistakes and all, got published a year later. Even to this day, I cringe at all the mistakes I made and the only reason it's still selling is that it's a decent story. Had I known then what I sort of know now...

But Fullon's query letter did crack me up. Mine at the beginning weren't much better, but time doth teach us all...
 

Fullon_v4.0

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Well I'm glad I could make everyone's day!

That's what I get for bypassing all of those "examples of successful query letters" links...

And Locke, I am guilty of the same exact thing -_- When I get hyped over some project, writing or otherwise, I tend to go nuts with everything but the project itself, so I wind up with empty notebooks and more pens than anyone really needs.

Fortunately this year I've been able to end the madness!!
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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Are sheer quilts an oxymoron?
 

Lhowling

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CONFESSION #1: I released self-published books without properly editing them. That dark part of my life is still on Amazon and I don't know if I want to get rid of them or what.

CONFESSION #2: When designing my book covers, I used images I probably shouldn't have!

CONFESSION #3: I wrote a story about the day and life in the succubus who fights crime and somehow has a family...? It was my attempt at "a woman who has it all... including demonic powers." When my computer died, taking that awful story with it, I mourned its loss when I should have celebrated from being freed of that burden.
 

unionrdr

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I basically had a decent story idea in the form of Time Lords 2034:The Alternate Prometheus. But I also had the "brilliant" idea of writing like I actually live on earth & think & talk like normal people really do. What an absolutely BRILLIANT idea! Sheeze...I even left it posted on Kindle, even though I re-wrote the story. Why you may ask? I realized I was using a lot of copyrighted material. Like, `They always used to tell me that today's science fiction will be tomorrow's science fact. I thought Star Trek, they thought FEMA & The New World Order.---Then calling the main character's usual diner "the 2000 Man Cafe", the Ace Frehley song. I had to change it to The "Millenium Man cafe". And on & on, I started thinking too many cliches. But people do think & talk that way. But writing it being another matter, I started thinking they were maybe just a crutch. HEY STOOPID, watcha tryin' ta do? hey, hey, hey, hey...HEY STOOPID! Hey bro, take it slow, you ain't livin in a video!...oh wait...dang it...:(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcAl93uEYUA
 
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Locke

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Are sheer quilts an oxymoron?

You know, I'd have thought so, but I actually looked for some so I could link an image but decided that might cross the edge of snarkiness (as it wasn't my intention to offend), but they're apparently a thing.
 

ArachnePhobia

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Somewhere between revisions of The Albatross *thunderpeal,* I found time to write a story about a woman who became a gothic superhero by donning a cursed prom dress just in time to fight the supervillains who were incarnations of the various ways societies could destroy themselves. Said villains helpfully enrolled in her high school so she'd know where they were to fight them most of the time.

I was totally serious.
 

Calliea

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Funny how I was actually thinking of making a thread like that few days ago :D It has got to be a sign that I should confess my writerly sins in the end xD

Three major come to mind :D

1. The Mermaid Story. I wrote a tale (beginning of a book, I always tried to write a book) about a teenage girl who went to the seaside with her family, then met some mermaids in trouble, got turned into a mermaid herself and went off on a big adventure after an enchanted ring. I still have the beginning of that thing somewhere. Some things are too bad to delete :D

2. I got one thing I wrote that I cannot read myself without feeling shame :D I keep it for whenever I'm up to the challenge haha. It's a story about a drow, set in FR world, but the drow is actually... gods, no, I can't :D The shame is holding my fingers captive. If I ever become a real writer (make a living through writing), I shall fight through and drag this confession into the light!

3. This one is major in that I was actually serious about writing at that point and trying to write a publishable book (while not being a complete child. I started this one at 11). In that story the main character (who was evil-ish and learning to be good) aquired two companions on her way. One was a super smart wolf pup and the other one was n intelligent talking tiny dragon.

Wait... that kinda reminds of me of something I've read... and seen trailers of... and stuff... :D

photo.jpg


On a side note, that book for a long time was titled "Blood and Shadow". Seriously.
 
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ULTRAGOTHA

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You know, I'd have thought so, but I actually looked for some so I could link an image but decided that might cross the edge of snarkiness (as it wasn't my intention to offend), but they're apparently a thing.

Two layers of sheer I could see. But batting? Weird.
 

jamesfinegan

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Hoo boy, do I have some 'fessin' to do :)

1 - My first (uncompleted) novel I wrote aged 11-ish, was called B.L.O.B.G.O (Battling Lots Of Bad Guys Oddly). It starred me and my six friends from school, becoming secret agents, battling aliens from a video game I was playing at the time. Said game was / still is semi-obscure, so I thought it was totally fine to steal the aliens and not even change the name! Oh god... this was going to be a multi-book series. I can still remember each individual plot!

2 - The first draft of my current novel, had some pretty laughable parts. To be fair I started it when I was 15, but a few highlights come to mind:
- The first thing we see is my MC awoken by a religion-spouting beaver, who my MC literally dropped out of his second story window. He then goes downstairs and lies to his parents about taking money from their small business. I was trying to make him multi-layered, but he just came across as an asshole.​
- Later, when he meets the Grim Reaper, gets chased around by a lizard monster, gets his house blown up, and then gets kidnapped - he falls asleep. Yep, the sentence was literally along the lines of: 'the day's struggles finally took their toll and Sam fell asleep.'​
- Perhaps worst of all... there was shopping montage. My MC went around magical clothing stores picking out the outfit he would wear for the REST OF THE SERIES. Fear not, he is no longer restricted to a single garment!​
 

Channy

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Perhaps worst of all... there was shopping montage. My MC went around magical clothing stores picking out the outfit he would wear for the REST OF THE SERIES. Fear not, he is no longer restricted to a single garment!

This is the best.

I've also fallen guilty to the tell-tale awful writing back in the early years... the timestamp on the document says 2005 so I was probably 15 or so, shameless self-insertion story with stolen bits and pieces from several Miyazaki films that I was into in those days. Of course, that whole fad lasted all of 6 chapters before I lost interest... but I found them not too long ago and sat there with a big ol' shit-eating grin, completely aghast that I thought this could ever be good.... much less that even if it was done, I could get away with it?