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Old 08-13-2009, 06:01 PM   #12
Moejoe
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Posts: 5,100
Karma: 72193
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: South of the Border
Device: Coffin
Quote:
Originally Posted by ravenlife View Post
Okay it appears that the present tense more annoying to the reader than i thought it would be,

I'll drop it

No, no, no, please it's just a personal preference. If it feels right to you go with that, not what other people think. They say writing is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. Well I disagree, I believe it to be 96% perspiration 4% Inspiration and 6% being dreadful at maths

I'll give you the same advice I wish someone had given me 15 years ago. Read these two books: (For form) Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V Swain (For inspiration) Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.

The most important thing though isn't style or tense or even spelling (Melville and F. Scott Fitzgerald were notoriously bad), it's passion and emotion. Have fun or be sad, just approach your work with emotion and everything else slots into place

EDIT: And if you ever feel down about your writing and you're thinking of giving up, do yourself a favour and locate a paragraph of an author you despise. Print it off, laminate it and stick it to your monitor, put it in your wallet, have a t-shirt printed with that paragraph and who wrote it. Now, whenever you feel down and about to give up, just take a look at that paragraph and repeat this mantra

If that can get published then why am I worrying?


If that can get published then why am I worrying?


If that can get published then why am I worrying?


Here's the sentence I have pasted up on my monitor and I've made it into desktop wallpaper too:

Quote:
The famous man looked at the red cup.
-Dan Brown

Last edited by Moejoe; 08-13-2009 at 06:12 PM.
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