You as a writer, then and now.

StrangeLife said:

Sometimes I need to talk to somebody who truly loves, respecs and understands me

The dog is always willing to listen of course, but I suspect he's mainly in it for the food...

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I suspect that you're right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGeKSiCQkPw

I think my biggest improvement as a writer so far is the grammatical stuff, rather than the ideas. I always had good ideas for stories. But when I read some of my earlier work and see how bad my grammar really was, and how clumsily I structured sentences at times; it does confound me.

Not that I'm perfect at it now but I think I have gotten better. Which fills me with hope that it will get even better still. At least I hope so.

Has anyone else gone through this?

then and now

The first ever story i wrote and put on here was "view from a ladder.
Looking back on it i still think its pretty good, although others may disagree, but it is different to my later writing. With me i never seem to have a style it all depends on how i feel at the time of writing. sometimes i write in first person and at others third. whichever one i choose normally dictates the way the story comes out. the one im always most surprised with is "Food for thought." it took 3 hours to write maximum and yet it was the easiest. whether its the best i will let the readers decide.
At the moment i'm writing my first novel and i'm finding it very frustrating. i posted the first 2 chapters on here and reading them back i actually cringe at how bad they are. when i say i'm writing it i have completed it and sent it off but the manuscript got rejected. My pc now as 3 different versions of the same story and i have very frayed nerves. it will get finished and it will be better than my first attempt.

Nothing new for artists looking back and cringing.

I like my progress as a writer. even it it is not as popular here as it goes on. I've said this before, many of my stories are style experiments and others are category experiments. Is fun.

horrorotica said:

I think my biggest improvement as a writer so far is the grammatical stuff, rather than the ideas. I always had good ideas for stories. But when I read some of my earlier work and see how bad my grammar really was, and how clumsily I structured sentences at times; it does confound me.

Not that I'm perfect at it now but I think I have gotten better. Which fills me with hope that it will get even better still. At least I hope so.

Has anyone else gone through this?

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I'm the opposite. Grammar and spelling are what I do. It's the storytelling that needs work. I'm getting there, I guess.

jomar said:

Nothing new for artists looking back and cringing.

I like my progress as a writer. even it it is not as popular here as it goes on. I've said this before, many of my stories are style experiments and others are category experiments. Is fun.

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I love that iceberg avatar. Beautiful.

patientlee said:

I suspect that you're right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGeKSiCQkPw

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LOL

That was spot on

My first story here was 'My Tree Hugger' in the Lesbian Sex category. http://www.literotica.com/s/my-tree-hugger

Alex the Cat (a top notch author) helped me reconstruct it after it was rejected twice because, frankly, it was Christawful in terms of punctuation, paragraph breaks and sentence construction. Much to my surprise, when it finally was posted, it bagged an immediate H which pleased me no end.

I've learned a helluva lot about writing since then from practice, experience and, most importantly, from some terrific authors around here; many of whom are since gone.

To quote Jerry Garcia "What a long and strange trip it's been."

patientlee said:

I love that iceberg avatar. Beautiful.

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Thanks!

I'm editing part of my previous post.


Three Lit authors took time from their lives to teach me dialogue, plot, editing, and more. Two no longer post on the AH. Slyc is the third. I am forever thankful to him for all he taught me about writing. Without his support, I wouldn't be here today.

I think my greatest improvement since I started, is in story construct and flow. I remember the first stories I did and I was, if lucky, getting a 3.0 > 4.0 on a good day. I'm averaging scores around 4.70 > 4.9 now and getting a couple of 5 votes, so I feel I made the improvements needed to bring up the quality of construct and flow that people enjoy reading.

It was finding my own style of writing that was hardest to discover and not a mish-mash of other authors. Once I did that, that was my defining moment in improving.

StrangeLife said:

LOL

That was spot on

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On the other hand, I have cats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkQwJOLfr1k

I generally didn't write a lot of stories at first, but my attempts basically made me look exactly like what I was: a naive, sex starved, practically virginal 18 year old.

Some of my poetry was pretty decent, but the rest of it was like abstract blabbering I thought made me seem deep and mysterious.

I like me better now. I'm working on a post-apocalyptic novel and a few other projects.

My first story in this style was "End of the Road, Nebraska," about a guy who runs away from his crumbling life and finds peace with a late-shift diner waitress halfway across the country. I wrote it back in 2009 and posted it in the Romance category. It got a nice response (some very kind comments and email feedback) and I was really happy with it at the time, but looking back on it I find the writing a bit embarrassing. My worst infraction, I feel, was trying to give the female character an "accent," which I later learned is something you should avoid unless you're really good at what you do. The story itself I still like. It's simple, sexy, sweet. I would probably change the ending and maybe expand on it or make it stronger in some way.

I've written a few stories in the interim, though I only successfully posted one, a short novella called "Faith Falls," just a few weeks ago. It's not my newest (I wrote it mainly around 2011 and 2012) but I feel like it's my strongest and I can detect more confidence and less inhibition in my writing, though I still edited it quite a bit before submitting it and there are many other things I would change if I were to ever really publish it. In the past few years I've been reading more and trying to write in a more straightforward manner. However, I sometimes feel like I don't have the spirit for it anymore, and that maybe I hit my peak a few years ago.

The first story I posted here was Ashley's Angelic. It's not terrible (at least I don't think so) but it does feel strained and forced. Plus that story and a second one I wrote a few months later with a pregnancy theme were part of a storyline I've since abandoned and may never pick up again. So there are dangling unfinished threads all over the place, and on the few times I re-read those two stories I'm painfully reminded of that problem.

I definitely think I'm a better writer now, and that's mostly due to more practice and repetition. I'm not a professional writer, and I have no delusions that I'm good enough to be one. This is a fun hobby and release for me. While I believe I'm good with the grammar and spelling, and getting better with generating interesting and sexy storylines and ideas, I'm not very disciplined as a writer. Sometimes I wonder how I'd do if I was more disciplined and applied myself better.

If there's one person I need to thank it's probably an author on this site who goes under the name Mostera1. I know he doesn't post to the AH, I'm not sure if he posts to any of the other forums because this is the only one on Lit that I frequent. But he's been very supportive and encouraging of my writing and comes up with interesting ideas that sometimes find their way in my stories. It feels good to know I've made that connection with someone.