Any fellow writers out there?

My other passion besides horses is writing. I am never without at least a notebook and pen/pencil and I always have a story running through my head. I do a lot of fan fiction, but I also have a novel that I'm working on, along with a few other original works. I tried to do NaNoWriMo last year, but failed epically (started working full-time at the beginning of it and was teaching a 6am class four days a week).

My novel is actually an on-going work since I was 13 (yes, I'm now 28 lol). It has had at least three distinct forms over the years before settling into what it is today. It's a fantasy novel centered mainly on three brothers: two half-Elven full brothers and their older, full human half brother. There are dragons, exotic locations, wars, hate, love, magic...everything that makes a good fantasy novel tick. Lol It's going to be a trilogy once it's finished, with each volume in the trilogy being divided into subsequent books which follow (mainly) a specific character.

I have a blog set up where I was uploading parts of my novel for my friends to see, but I can't find the link to it (changed computers and lost everything). Once I find it, I'll post it. It doesn't have nearly my complete work on there, but it'll give you an idea.

My other original works include a novel about a girl who gets turned into a werewolf and her having to work through her issues regarding that, a novel about mer-people and other magical beings and their interaction with our world (more about an exiled mermaid princess who saves mankind from a terrible war with the magical folk), and a graphic novel collaboration with a friend of mine about twin sisters who hold the power to save or destroy the world.

I do a lot of fan fic off Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, the TV show Bones, and Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt (or Kurt Austin) novels. I have tons of fan fiction going right now...too many to list, really.

Two of my favorite quotes regarding writing aren't by famous authors or anything. The first was said by one of my best friend's cousins as we were camping out in her backyard last summer. We were talking about our writing (we all like to write) and I was complaining about having severe writer's block with my main novel. Said Laura: "Writer's block is when your characters get tired of all the crap you put them through and go on strike!"

The second quote is from my mom. She once told me (after finding a notebook I'd been scribbling away in and reading what I'd written): "You know, you could be a great writer...if you would just finish what you start!"

So, anyone else like to write (strictly fiction, here...technical writing doesn't count )?

Also (just for fun), what's your favorite word processing program and why? Mine is OpenOffice.org. I love how easy it is to use, I can convert my files so just about anyone can read them and do the conversion straight from the main program, and it has this nifty word anticipation feature that I LOVE!

I love writing, I have been writing since I was in fifth grade (now a jr in college), not well but I was trying. Anyway, I love that quote your mom said to you because my dad said basically the same thing to me! Like you said I always have a story running through my head. I don't do much fan fiction because I have a sort of dislike for changing the authors story, unless they made something happen that I really really don't like. (Like when JK Rowling killed Fred Weasley). RIght now I'm taking three creative writing classes. I want to be an author and write young adult novels. I'm in the middle of one right now about a group of kids on the run trying to solve a mystery and keep each other alive. I hope that I finish this one, its like my fifth attempt at writing a novel.

When I write fan fiction, I usually insert a character of my making into the already running story. Lol Of course, this character is just about always exactly what I would love to be in real life, so it ends up being kind of my escape.

I took four semesters of independent creative writing when I was in college the first time (right after high school) and then took another semester of it once I went back to school (a couple of years ago). I love writing classes. In fact, the last semester of creative writing I took was where the basis idea for the graphic novel collaboration came from. It was a starter that I wrote for that class and my friend liked it so much that she said she'd illustrate it if I wrote the story.

Your novel that you're working on sounds really interesting!

My novel has lain neglected for a while because my female lead character sucked and I didn't know how to fix her...but I finally did. Now I just need to find the time to write! Between work and Aires and that stupid thing called sleep, I have no time for anything else. Lol

Ha yeah I know how you feel, I have actual writing assignments and other homework, plus gambit and school that leaves barley and time for anything else, including sleep .

Bah! Turns out my blog was deleted somehow. I guess because of inactivity, but I'm not sure since I didn't touch it for almost a year and it was still there, but it's only been a few months since I was on it the last time (it was right before my computer died back in April).

What is fan fiction? We have a horse stories and poems section that is full of short stories and books members are writing. I go in there quite often and read what people have done. Some of it is really good.

Fan fiction is when you take a book or TV show or movie that is already written by someone else and either create an off-shoot story from it using the same characters, or add a character (or characters) of your own making and insert them into the story. Here is Wikipedia's definition of it (which is quite accurate): Fan fiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (I love the first quote!)

While horses do usually play a role (and sometimes a key role) in my stories, I have never written a story solely about horses. I'm also not much of a poet...at all. Lol

Here's a site for people to post their fan fiction. It covers all different genres. http://www.fanfiction.net/ I've actually read some of the stuff on there and some of it is quite good. Others, not so much. Lol

Your mom's quote is so true. I have an awful habit of not finishing anything.

If/when you get published, I would totally buy your books. I'm addicted to paranormal fantasies. =D

I'm currently working on three or four novels, but one in particular that's been evolving since my early high school years. I've got this whole complex plot and characters in my head, but I have issues when it comes to typing it out. It's deeply depressing.

One of my dreams is to write a best-selling paranormal thriller that'll bring back oldschool vampires and spawn a movie franchise as big as Harry Potter. But I have to finish the darn thing first.

I'm tired of all the Twilight garbage. Cuddly, sparkly vampires make me die a little inside. It just ruins the nostalgia. SOMEONE needs to bring back the carnal, sadistic aristocrats of Anne Rice and Bram Stoker. That's how vampires are meant to be.

Sorry for the tirade. I'm a bit zealous about the topic.

I'm in complete agreement over your vampire tirade! I seriously don't understand the Twilight phenomenon. Her books are poorly-written at best, her female lead is incredibly self-destructive...I could go on.

I have written some more on my novel, but not much. Sooo busy with work and Aires. It feels like I have no time to myself, and what time I do have, I'm easily distracted from what I should be doing. Lol

I absolutely love to write.

Most of my work is poems (I enjoy haiku, limericks, blank verse, burlesque, couplets, name, and pastoral poetry. Short and sweet xD) but I also enjoy short stories. I have written fifteen different 2-3 page stories. I appreciate well written-to the point stories, and so I try to keep all of mine that way.

I began a novel called Jailbird a year or two ago...I restarted it twice and only got fourty pages into it. Here is the summary, though.

Cole Blunt has lived in group home for five years. The ring leader of eight misfit boys, he's the least likely to find a home- and he knows it. So when he's suddenly adopted by what he considers to be an 'old fart' with a deft husband and a bunch of unadoptable, unruley horses- his whole world is turned upside down. And it's through many strange, often dangerous events that he learns that the past is a part of your future, things aren't always as they seem, and that the saying always rings true. It takes one to know one.

It was meant to be the story of a seventeen year old boy who had gone through many traumatic events in his life... rejection, physical and mental abuse, a drug-junkie father, and blame for things he'd never done- who believed that life was worthless, and that relationships only brought pain. And when an elderly lady from an unknown backround thrusts him into the world of hard work and horses, he learns that although relationships often do bring pain, they also bring a much greater thing. Acceptance. I didn't want this to be another 'city kid meets wild,untamable stallion, they have some mystical bond from the beginning, he saddles horse by himself and wins a kentucky derby'... this is a raggy looking mare and screwed up kid, stupid-decisions-bring-bad-outcomes, grunt work, dangerous book about a kid who learned that you have to work for what you want.

Maybe somedays I'll finish it. But somehow...after a while, I lost my taste for it.

I never did like fan fiction of any kind (no offense to you who partake in it, ofcourse. It's just not my type of writing) because two writers can never have the same style of writing...and when you change a story or continue it to make up for the well placed suspense, it really takes away from the original.