Brand New and Hopeful

[bondgirl51]

Hello everyone! I've been lurking for almost a year here, and have finally worked up the courage to say hello....

<waves Hello!>

I have enjoyed reading your works a lot, and very much appreciate the fact that you are willing to share them with me and the rest of your audience. I suppose I just wanted to say "thank you," and that your efforts have been appreciated!

Along these lines...
I think I may be ready to post my first story here.

Fictional writing is not one of my strong points, But I've been working on it and I feel I may not be a complete embaressment to myself at this point.

Although I am admittably really quite nervous about jumping in the water. Guess I am just looking to meet a few friendly faces.

Thanks for your time!

 

[Whispersecret]

Welcome, Bondgirl51. I well remember when I began here. A nerve-wracking experience just posting for the first time. Literotica is a great place to spread your writing wings. Some advice:

1. Try your hardest.
2. Separate yourself from your work so it won't hurt so badly if people don't like what you wrote.
3. PROOFREAD or have someone help you.
4. Voting is the Siren's song of Literotica. It sounds wonderful, but in reality is a warped picture of the truth that can never be accurately interpreted.
5. If you want feedback, give feedback to others. It's not only polite, but it's incredibly helpful to one's own writing to find errors in other people's work. Sounds strange, but it's true.

 

[Axeltheswede]

New and Hopeful

Welcome bondgirl51. I hope your experience is fun.

As usual, Whisper is the lady with the plan. The only thing I can add is a tip I received from a super teacher. Try reading your story out loud, even if you are by yourself. You will get a good idea about how it flows and where the awkward parts need revision.

 

[MaxSebastian]

Welcome to the site!

You'll have a lot of fun posting stories here, just as long as you write because you enjoy writing, you don't obssess about voting on your story (it's not worth the worry) and you give feedback as well as taking it. There's so much you can learn here, too, it's unbelievable!

 

[Whispersecret]

I wanted to clarify what I meant when I said, "separate yourself from your work." When someone criticizes your work and says, for example, that your characters are flat, try not to feel like they are saying you are flat. Of course, you're going to reflexively think of ways to defend yourself. YOu might also think of ways to discount the critic. (Oh, he hasn't even posted one story. What does HE know?)

But after that initial knee-jerk reaction, ideally, you should step back and think, "What could have made that person think my characters are flat?" Very often you'll find that that person had a point.

Try to be objective about your work. It's just something you wrote. It's not YOU.

 

[MysteryWriter]

gee whiz batman

Sounds like you got a lot of advice so let me just welcome and try to have some fun here.