I was talking with another author yesterday and she said that she doubted that she'd write any more, and after we talked for a while it seemed like she was saying "I had something to say and I said it". (I think I first heard that from Fleury)
That got me to thinking about the number of really good authors that I have seen come here, write really great stories, and then eventually go silent. Many of the now silent ones could easily do commercial work and make money selling it. I wonder what has happened to them; how they are; what they are doing? Did they realize how much they were appreciated?
Thankfully, there seems to be a steady stream of really talented girls to fill the gap they left.
I didn't make a big splash here, though my stories were from the heart; the first beginning just before I was outed. In retrospect, I think I was trying to work out my anguish; my dismay at knowing the life I was leading was crumbling and I could not hold it together much longer. So maybe my stories were more therapy based, helping me to understand and emote strongly about how dismayed and frightened I was.
In thinking about what will happen with my stories in the future; well writing is a lot of hard work. I have stories to work on but just do not seem to get to them. Maybe I just had something to say and I said it.
M'salama
Khadija
Comments
Running out of ideas?
Perhaps they just simply run out of ideas - I know I do.
Writing for a particular genre is not easy to maintain unless one repeats scenarios or premises.
There have been many good NEW ideas that have popped up from time to time, but lets be fair - and before hackles rise, I admit I am just as much to blame - the majority tend to stick pretty much to tried and tested formulas.
Let's see: there's magic, curiosity, accident, force, dares or bets, desire, accident - though I think this one is a bit thin since how do you accidentally dress as a woman? - and one or two others.
The only things that change are the locations and characters and the writer's ability to make something that's been done before seem fresh.
Authors must get bored and disillusioned. They have exhausted the fresh ideas they had and are now looking at other ideas and thinking - seen that one before... read that last week and so on.
For me, I would love to be published and make some money, even if it's not a lot, but there lacks within me the confidence that my work is of that calibre; that my work can hit the shelves and be bought by the public either in this genre or others.
Maybe one day that bestseller will up and show itself, but for the time being, I have to resign myself to being a practising amateur.
I AM trying to write something now. Two things in fact. I have a new story on the way and a way forward thanks to Kristina for Second Sight, but let's be honest, I don't think either will win contracts or prizes :)
Yours tapping feverishly etc,
NB
I don't just look it, I'm totally evil
"How"...
"...how do you accidentally dress as a woman?"
In the dark? Badly?
^^;
But points well taken.
Don't any of you complain that your writing isn't up to professional standards. I've >seen< what gets submitted and >accepted< (with the admitted condition that it be amended) to some of the big magazines. I won't say that every story on this site would make it, but I think that with a little work there aren't many that couldn't. This site is amazing, really, in that way, in that there are so many good, >different< writers here.
-Liz
-Liz
Successor to the LToC
Formerly known as "momonoimoto"
Accident?
Well, I managed it with "A Winter's tale", so it's at least possible. Although there, the accident, and the resulting complete destruction of Colin's clothes, were the reason for his dressing, rather than the way you put it, which implies he got the clothes out of the wrong drawer.
I've found some impressive writing on this site. I just hope my own thin tales can come near that standard sometimes. I'm also impressed by the huge volumes some authors turn out. How you you do it, ladies? In my day, there are only twenty-four hours, and I have a real life which takes up some of that.
Addressing the original post, I guess a lot of us have fantasies/scenarios which drive our own emotional and physical impulses, and for some of us, writing them down is a way of releasing the pressure on the bottle, as it were. Once that's done those people want to move on, and the urge to write diminishes. Others of us, myself included, just like to write, so the plots keep coming thick and fast. The only thing that's going to get in the way of my own writing is real life. I'll try not to let that happen too often.
To those who write here and then move on I'll say this: What you've left for us has given us all much enjoyment, I hope it gave you as much writing it. The greatest gift a woman can give the world is her own children, for those of us who can't quite manage that, we give the world our literary children instead.
Best wishes,
Penny
Oops - my bad
Firstly, I put accident in twice - brain-dead, obviously.
What I wrote went up without thinking - as observed by the above. I didn't think of accidental loss of clothing and having to make do with what was found or donated instead or indeed other premises that could be led to through accidental circumstances.
The term accidental can mean so much and I guess I put keyboard in gear, when brain clearly was not. I have used accidental in many of my stories, whether an accident made the transformation necessary as with The Sight and Second Sight or whether accidental circumstances led to the transformation as with Halloween.
Please accept my humblest apologies.
I don't just look it, I'm totally evil and occasionally repentant.
an accidental woman
Uh oh, I feel a MR. MAGOO fanfic coming on!
A lot of writers who have gone silent I really miss, especially when they commented frequently and were part of the friendly chatter around here. I like to think that they're now too busy LIVING their stories. The sweet stories that is, not the tragedies and the bizarre inside out science-fictiony ones.
~~~hugs, Laika
What borders on pure insanity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
I'm still here ...
... and still writing, although life has taken most of my writing time away. I steal time when I can, but it's never enough, so all of my incomplete stories crawl forward. It's only when I'm so driven that the story just pours out that I actually get to complete anything. Til Human Voices Wake Us just sort of happened, thankfully, allowing me to once again do the creative work I love doing just for me.
Every day I rent my talents out to the Evil Overlords (and THEIR clients) -- writing, designing, and producing brochures, ads, videos, and radio commercials, as well as designing and programing websites. But the work I do for BCTS is the work I love the most.
*hugs* As Governor Schwartzeneggar said (often) ... "I'll be back!"
Randalynn
The only reason to write
is when one has something to say.
Pausing to collect one's thoughts before speaking is a habit we all ought to cultivate, but can be difficult when trying to balance the pressures of daily life and (self-imposed?) story deadlines.
Every author here has had something important that they wanted to say, even if constrained by "traditional" formats. Give them a little breathing room and they may have more and different things to say, but too much pressure from readers can sometimes be discouraging. It's not as if anyone was being paid for this, and even the few who have published books for sale probably haven't given up their day jobs quite yet.
GLBT publishing has never been, and will likely never be, a mass market.
While there are many GLBT authors, and at least some of them make a living at it, that living probably isn't made through writing GLBT-themed books. If you want to make money, and stay vaguely in your realm of personal interest, write women's romance novels, some of which are quite daring.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Must be something in the air
I've withdrawn from two sites because I'm just a bit overwhelmed by my personal life. I have tried writing another story since Gestalt and am having difficulties. I was thinking of asking to be admitted to the behavioral Health Center for observation and re-evaluation.
I'm having a problem with my PTSD and have come close to really losing it twice this
past week.
I just don't feel like being part of anything. I remain because of my daughter to ensure she doens't have to have a sad life.
I quite working on my autobiography, reason. I'm not important and I am but a speck of dust in this vast universe.
I come here to read and to see if I can feel better.
If it weren't for Arcee's "Homecoming Princess" I'd probably just sit and do nothing.
Jill Micayla
May you have a wonderful today and a better tomorrow
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.
TG writing is getting old for me.
That's why "Hala's Snow Day", is barely TG and many readers actually missed the fact. I am pretty much done with the shock, dismay, and injustice of forced fem; which is what many of my stories are. My BDSM bent was simply a need for security and someone to care for me. It was awful getting used to making my own decisions and doing the check book. Some Master missed their chance; a sub with some money. LOL Where are the men who like Twomen who are not friggen demented perverts!!!! NO, I do not want sex 24/7! SHIT !
If I finish the "Hala Series" it will be written so that the TG part is pushed out into the open briefly. I plan to end it so that those who would make life hard for us will be vanquished with extreme malace. Grrrrrrrr. Yes, I do have anger issues with them.
Another issue that my therapist and I have been talking over is that, for me, reading certain types of stories may be re-traumatizing, and I need to stay away from them. We talked about how people need to talk about this stuff, but when they are done, they,and I, need to walk away and move on to as normal life as we can.
M'salama
Khadija
I write for two reasons
I enjoy the exercise and I often have something to say, possibly more than most. If I were writing the sort of stories which frequently appear on other sites, I would have long since exhausted my enjoyment and what I wanted to say.
However, there is much to be considered worthy of exploration when writing about people. In exploring gender identity, which most of my stories do, I hope I raise questions which others have thought about too, and perhaps for others who hadn't thought of them.
I'm fairly prolific, heading towards a thousand stories or parts of, so I've been able to explore more issues than many. I know I've entertained one or two readers along the way, even though the transgender content is low at times, but it appears I'm forgiven - most of the time. If anything, I get requests to write more.
Like many writers and readers, I lead a busy life, I work a 50 plus hour week most weeks, try and get in some cycling, and write here every day. I also look after an elderly relative and Bonzi. I still enjoy writing and as long as that is true and people want to read it, I'll continue. However, if you feel you've said it all Khadija, that's fine too.
Angharad
Angharad
I just don't want to cry anymore
I suppose much of my writing was an intellectual poultice on my own deeply wounded spirit. I am just thinking out loud here; maybe I've dwelled on my own shit long enough.
In the last few months there have been really amazing changes in my life and I want to move on to enjoy them; find a mate if posible; travel and do things.
I think Hala was the beginning.
Khadija
Just the beginning...
You go girl :)
I don't just look it, I'm totally evil
not sure I buy it
The whole limited genre thing I mean. Yes writing can be tough and then... it can just flow so easily that you doubt it's worth. Timing and mood and all sorts of RL stuff can mess with that. But limited? Well maybe, yet what isn't in some way? Some might say there has been nothing new written since some such time in the dim dark past because it's all been said or done. Yet a fractional turn changes the perspective, 180o and you're facing the other way, 360 and you're back at the start. And yet a word or a phrase makes it unique and new.
We scribble for all sorts of reasons, sometimes personal and deep, sometimes just fer fun. To scratch an itch or tickle a fancy. Yet no two of us will write exactly the same thing, even if describing the same event. There will be subtle nuances and differences because we's all different.
I could list a bunch of stories in this genre that strike me as great. Things that the late night insomnia, when writing or responding to a message is not possible, let me see what others think and feel. Funny I just finished a long one that has a stylistic link to Puddin's mention of Romance novels, struck me as kind of synchronous. That's what it is at heart, others thoughts and feelings. How they look at this and see what they see. It will never be exactly what you or I do and that's the worth of it. To go there with them and touch whatever it is and then feel what we feel.
Maybe I'll touch something or someone again sometime or they me. Just those words on a page or screen as the case may be. Simple, yet maybe not.
Anyone that feels it, do it.
Kristina
I can understand that
But I fear you were talking about a collective.
I has been months and months since I wrote anything TG and even now,I'm finding it difficult - why, because as I said, I'm short on ideas.
Something comes into my head that I have found myself dismissing because it's been done before and I lack the ability to make that idea sufficiently "new" or "fresh" as to make it mine.
It's just what I find myself wrangling with, and does not necessarily sum it up for everyone.
I don't just look it, I'm totally evil
A guttering candle
I don't know if you first heard it from me Khadija, but I have certainly bored people with near endless pontification on the subject on numerous occassions.
So once more won't hurt. Will it?
To my mind there is a basic constriction with TG/TV genre. A male starts off as a male and eventually becomes a woman. Note that it is very rare that the boy/man starts off as a boy/man and doesn't become a girl/woman. This is partially because of the writers own inclinations but also owes much to reader's expectations. So in 99% of cases the reader knows what the outcome will be and indeed desires that outcome. The writer has to work very hard indeed to escape that particular closet. One that is not at all big.
In my case at least I have no desire to repeat myself. Having written 'The Deception of Choice' I couldn't write another fem dom tale without going over old ground. 'The Old Alhambra' was a ghost/mystery story. 'Yellow the Leaves of the Rowan' a love story and 'An Eft in Her Bra' I would describe as humourous if such weren't the kiss of death. I have another on the stocks which is best described as SciFi although other writers in that genre would I am sure deny it vigourously. This latter currently rests on (in?) the stocks because I am not at all sure what to do with it. That and the fact that I am totally unsuited to write Scifi.
More worrying is that I am aware that the more I try different styles the more the tales drift away from TG/TV until such becomes, if not exactly peripheral, at least not the major element. And although I write solely for my own enjoyment with the conviction that I am certainly not here for the readers pleasure or convenience there must obviously be some connection with the main concept of this site.
And so the problem is doubtess partially my lack of imagination, my inability to say the same thing in countless different ways. But it is also because it is a long and very narrow corridor that we walk down, we who write in this genre. And not many turnings off it, and those that there are are mostly blind alleys.
But maybe one day ....
But, just to set the record straight Khadija, there never was anything even veguely any cathartic in my motivation for writing. Nothing nobler than just thinking of a story line that intrigued and the delight in the weaving of the tale.
So perhaps you have a much greater need and/or drive than I. So don't give up because of any foolish ideas I might once have aired because, when all is said and done, they apply to no one but myself.
Hugs,
Fleurie
I'd be deeply honored
Well, perhaps what I am feeling is similar to what you are.
The SRS, and estrogen has deeply affected the way I think. Perhaps more than some or perhaps I was always this way and the change just unleashed a monster. :)
"Hala's Snow Day" was one effort to put something different into a TG story; something where the young woman goes on to have a completely normal life; including all the romance and excitement one woman can handle. I'd be deeply honored if you would review it.
I have yet to determine what I will do now.
M'salama
Khadija
One of our stories is missing ....
Oh dear! I am not at all qualified to be a reviewer Khadija. I have no facility for constructive criticism. Not even for destructive criticism which would otherwise be my forte.
I just tell tales to the best of my ability, going solely by instinct. Whilst as a general rule I have always regarded ignorance as a blessing rather than a drawback and have rarely let it interfere with my expressing an opinion on any given subject, when it comes to the mechanics of literary composition I am the last person whose opinion should be sought. As to any adjudgement of merit .... words fail me.
This is not modesty, a vice that is anyhow quite foreign to my nature, but the plain unvarnished truth. Ask anyone here. I have frequently been castigated by my betters on account of my complete ignorance of any of the rules that govern these sorts of things.
However if anything I say can encourage to write then I am happy to read and comment on Hala's Snow Day. On condition that you do not take anything I say to be of any literary worth. Think of it merely as the untutored ravings of a friend.
The other condition is that you tell me were I can find it! I have looked for it by clicking on the author's name and on the search function. Where have you hidden it?
Hugs,
Fleurie
