November 14, 2023 will be the 10 year anniversary of the November 14, 2013 murder of my 8 month old infant son, at BugLight Lighthouse Art Studio of Southern Maine Community College in South Portland, Maine. If you have any information about who his killer is, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207-774-9322
My Son Was Murdered, The Killer Walks Free, Your Child Could Be Next!
FAQ: What are the most visited pages on this website and how many visits do they get?
Several years ago, I wrote an article on how to write different types of magic uses, or rather how I personally write various types of magic users within the context of my Quaraun books. Today that page is one of my top ten most visited articles. It gets 50 to 500 views/reads/hits/visits per day depending on the time of the years and has had over 200k visits total since it was published.
Amphibious Aliens: Debunking The Atwater Family's Alien Abduction Hoax with more then 30MILLION reads since 2007 and The GoldenEagle: Debunking Stephen King's World's Most Haunted Car Hoax with over tenMILLION reads since 2007 still rank as the two most visited articles on my website, but, neither of those are writing related.
Writing Medieval Servants is my most visited writing related article with over 7MILLION reads.
This website was started in 1996 and has 1 to 3 new articles (all written by me, I am the only writer on this site) published almost daily. In 2017 we crossed ten thousand articles published. As of 2023, EACH article gets MINIMUM 10 to 70 reads PER DAY, with the high traffic articles getting 500+ reads per day.
And since December 2019, my website now gets three hundred thousand to 7 million reads per month - well over ONE HUNDRED MILLION PAGE READS PER YEAR, making it not only the single most trafficked site in the State of Maine, but also one of the most visited websites in ALL OF NEW ENGLAND!
{{{HUGS}}} Thank you to all my readers for making this possible!
If you enjoyed this page, don't forget to share it on social media (share links in the hovering sidebar to the left) or place a link to it on your own blog or website. Here is a code you can use on your site, just change the all cap parts to match the page you are currently read:
<a href="https://www.eelkat.com/INSERT-PAGE-URL-SLUG-HERE>INSERT PAGE NAME HERE</a>
i can't write 'deep' or overly descriptive stuff from r/writing
i can't write 'deep' or overly descriptive stuff
>>also another fact: i am a teenager. yes, yes i am aware of the stigma that surrounds being a teen writer and i know many of you will look and talk down to me because of my age (im used to it). but just know that i am aware that as a writer, i have much to learn about life and about the craft before publishing...anyways, i decided to include this bit of information about myself because i think it could affect your responses. will i become a 'deeper' writer when i experience more hardships in life?
Ah... I'm now reading the comments and see the shitty comment you are replying to. Ignore them.
I published my first novel as a pre-teen, then several more while I was a teen; if any one talks down to you or says you can't write/publish because of your age, tell them to fuck off and then go right back to your writing. Never let someone else's perception about age, affect your goal to write.
>>i can't write 'deep' or overly descriptive stuff
>>my writing is simple and light. none of my stories or novels hold any deeper messages or meanings. my writing is also straight to the point... I'm not a fan of flowery descriptions and metaphors
>>i find myself comparing my simple written stories to the complex and deep ones that my writer friends create. i know this is bad, but i cant help it. i feel inadequate next to them.
If you are aiming to publish, you might find it difficult to attract a publisher. For some reason deep meanings, hidden messages, flowery descriptions, and metaphors do seem to be what they look for. I don't write those things myself, so, I end up self-pubbing a lot of my work.
My books are 75% to 90% dialogue, with descriptions mostly limited to one or two sentences at the beginning of each chapter.
I use very simple language (I ran it through one of those reading level graders, and they come back as 5th grade vocabulary reading level).
I never use a thesaurus to look for "better" words. I let my characters talk in bad grammar, double negatives, fragments, and run-ons.
I also let my characters say things like "ain't" and "thems there".
I don't use dialogue tags (he said, she replied, etc). The start of the conversation says who each character is, then it's 20 or 30 pages of dialogue before you see another "said" tag.
But then I write genre fiction, High Fantasy specifically. OMG! Try publishing High Fantasy that is anything less the 80% flowery prose, let alone is 90% dialogue with no said tags. Good god, the notes that get scrawled on the rejection slips!
Most publishers describe my work as "too literary" for their tastes. They've also used the terms "avant garde" and "artsy-fartsy". All LOT have said "not mainestream enough" and "too experimental" and "too much dialogue" and "not enough description" and "reads like a stage play not a novel".
sigh
The problem?
I like reading very stripped down, bare bones stories. I have a very hard time finding that style published, so I write what I want to read. Unfortunately, the reason there's not a lot of it out there is because it's not what publishers want to publish. Well, you know what? I don't care what publishers want to publish, I care about trying to find books I actually want to read, and if that means I have to write the books myself, well so be it.
The most common complaint I get is "this reads like something Ernest Hemingway wrote", which on one hand could seem like a compliment, him being a famous author and all, but it's always followed by a rant on how "he was a terrible writer, why anyone would want to emulate his style is beyond me".
Once it was followed by a rant that said "you men are all alike! all write anti-feminist crap idolizing Ernest Hemingway"
... uhm...
... okay, except I'm a woman, not a man, and I've never read Hemingway so I have no clue what his work or style is even like...and how is my work anti-feminist again? What? I think that was an editor having a bad day and lashing out at the next author they ran across. To this day, I've no clue how that editor translated my book as either anti-feminist or idolizing Hemingway or why she thought an author whose first name is "Wendy-Christine" was a man.
(TIP: if any acquiring editors are reading this: don't scrawl shitty, outbursts of rage over your own bad day in the margins of rejection slips; it's not constructive criticism, it leaves the author scratching they head going "What the hell are they talking about?", and it's also very unprofessional.)
Well, one things for sure: my work definitely rubs editors the wrong way! LOL!
But you want to know what the #1 reason I get for rejections of my books:
Yep. That's it.
The Quaraun series has gotten tons of glowing "I love it! But we can't accept books featuring transvestite characters" rejections.
Editors are constantly beaming with excitement over:
followed by:
No. No, my main character is a transvestite and I will not rewrite him to be otherwise.
But then there is that pesky problem of writing a series that crosses genres and is Slice of Life Literary in a Fantasy setting, with Fantasy races and Fantasy themes. And remember too that I've NEVER submitted these books to a publisher of Fantasy, and have only ever submitted these books to publishers of Literary Fiction.
Interestingly, one editor asked once: "Do you even read Fantasy?"
Uhm, yeah, about that...
...nope.
I've never once read a Fantasy novel in my entire life. Though I have read the Lythande short story series (about a transgender wandering vagabond wizard) and I fell in love with it and my work was heavily influenced by it (easy to notice if you know the Lythande series, then realize my Quaraun series is ALSO about a transgender wandering vagabond wizard).
The Quaraun series fanfics the hell out of Lythande, literally taking every Lythande story and totally re-writing it, then running rampant with "What if...?"
I never set out to write Fantasy. I set out to write a continuation of Lythande, so I write my own works in the same haphazard, disjointed, bad grammar, lots of dialogue, slice of life, mish mash style the Lythande stories were written in.
Because I loved Marion Zimmer Bradley's, writing style in Lythande stories, so much I actually make it a writing habit to once a year, manually hand write, copy, word for word, the Lythande stories just so I can teach myself to write in this psychobilly off the wall style the Lythande stories were written in. And I know the entire writing community laughs at Lythande calling it one of the worse written pieces of crap of all time, but that doesn't change the fact, it's still my favorite book and the Quaraun series is fanfiction of it.
If you don't know it, Lythande is an insanely overpowered wizard. The only female of a male sect of wizards, she has to hide her gender and live as a man, risk being executed if her sect finds out she's a female. The series is over the top mega sexualized Yuri (lesbian erotica), with the base story being that Lythande is the most beautiful person ever, and living as a man, women in taverns everywhere are throwing themselves in her lap begging for sex, not aware she's a woman disguised as a man.
The Lythande series is noted for it's weird, bizarro sex scenes, featuring Lythande creating illusionary male doppelganger versions of herself to fuck every women she meets, while she gets off on watching. It is by far one of the strangest works of bi-sexual/lesbian fiction to ever come out of the 1970s.
I started writing wizards BECAUSE of the Lythande series. I followed it rabidly, waaay back in the 1970s and 1980s when it was still being written. Sadly the author died before she finished writing it, so it remains in unfinished fragments. The scattered mish mash fragments of it have since been compiled into a "novelised edition" that has had other authors come in and write the "in between pieces" to try to link the disjointed short stories into one longer fluid novel.
But, yeah, no, Lythande is the limit of my having read Fantasy and it's not a novel, but rather was a series of short stories published in magazines in the 1970s. And while it's about a wizard, it's not your typical Fantasy story and is very much slice of life literary fiction that follows the strange sex life of a lesbian wizard who is pretending to be a man. It almost, but not quite crosses the line into being Erotica.
Like I said... I NEVER set out to write Fantasy. I set out to write more books in the shadow of Lythande, and while Lythande is Fantasy, it's it's own unique brand of Fantasy that turned the entire SFF community on it's head when it was released.
White male authors HATED Lythande for it's blatant pro-feminist, anti-male massage.
Straight readers were appalled by it's LGBTQ+ sexuality boldly on parade.
Lythande is one of the first stories ever written in ANY genre to feature a transgender main character.
Authors today, 50 years after Lythande was written, who live in a world where writing LGBTQ+ characters is common and accepted, have no idea the shock waves this EXTREMELY controversial book sent out when it was released. Lythande is the book that changed history, it's the REASON you can safely write LGBTQ+ characters today and not be sent to prison for doing so (except in Florida, the only state left that still in 2018, has laws against transgender characters and imprisons authors living in Florida who published trans characters)
Lythande shook Christian readers to their core by bringing lesbian themes into the Fantasy genre.
If Lythande had not been written when it was, and the author not stood her ground and demanded her right to publish LGBTQ+ characters, we wouldn't have the freedom to write LGBTQ+ characters today. I think a lot of people today overlook the significance this controversial piece of Lesbian Literature has had in changing our rights as authors to write.
Lythande is the book that CHANGED the publishing industry, and made it "okay" to feature LGBTQ+ characters in a GOOD light as none villains. It was the first book to ever do this.
No, I didn't set out to write Fantasy... I set out to follow in the footstep of Lythande.
So no, I don't read Fantasy novels. I just read Lythande and set off to write something like it. But even now in 2018, we still live in a world where you can publish a woman in pants and no one bats an eye, but try publishing a man in a dress and you'd think you just assassinated the President. No, no, no, no... it's still only equal rights for women who dress like men, while men who dress like women have no rights at all.
Such is the world we live in, and so as it now hails its 40th anniversary, the Quaraun series is STILL self published with no trade publisher willing to sully their hands by featuring a man in a dress as a main character.
It's been five decades since Lythande broke through these transphobic walls of the publishing industry and still we have not yet achieved full equality.
But I'm getting off topic, let's get back on track before my Lythande obsession side tracked me.
I tried reading Lord of the Rings... I made it to the Hobbits' 25 page long song recital and tossed the book.
I read all 7 Harry Potter books, largely because I thought they were about wizards... but then I read them, and yeah... please tell me WHERE are the wizards in Harry Potter? J.K.Rowlings doesn't seem to have a clear grasp on what a wizard is. Sorry. She doesn't seem to know what witches are either. She seems to think that it's enough to toss a wand in someone's hand and poof, now they are a wizard. That woman really needs access to a dictionary. And a few history books. And then there's the question, can a story about a modern day bitchy, angst, whiny, cry baby 10 year old, struggling through school really be called Fantasy? There's no Fantasy going on in Harry Potter. It's a bunch of kids struggling through school, with, here let's put robes on them and toss a wand in their hands, now we can call them wizards, oh look, a troll ran through the dungeon, now it MUST be Fantasy.
Sure, small children who have no clue a thing about real world magic arts can be easily duped into thinking Harry Potter is about wizards, but I am a Voodoo Priestess rank of Medsen Fey. I do readings, spell castings, curses, and exorcisms for clients. I'm also a Ceremonial High Magic Necromancer. I trained under the Hebrew Enochain Kabbalist Etiole de bleu de Azure Swanzen, famed for his ability to call up Devs, Ghuls, Daemons, and Djinn, the terror of Maine known mostly for his deadly 7 Year Retribution Curses and Mirror Box Wanga Death Spells. I was his apprentice for 37 years and have now taken over for him. I'm sorry, but real world ritual magic is an everyday part of my life and I don't know what you want to call the kids in Harry Potter, alien mutant from X-files maybe, but they certainly are not wizards, not by any real world definition of the word.
Harry Potter is angsty teen, high school drama, with elements from Fantasy in it. It's not something I would classify as Fantasy. Technically though, Harry potter isn't sold in bookstores as Fantasy, either, it's sold as Middle Grade Fiction, Young adult Urban Fantasy, and Coming of Age Story. It's generally only readers who don't know the definitions of genres who call it Fantasy. And Yes, Urban Fantasy is a vastly different genre then Fantasy, that's why it has a different name.
I did make it through Lord Valentine (Majipoor), The Pern books, and For The Love of Mother Not, but it's hard to call those Fantasy, when they swing so heavily into Space Opera Sci-Fi.
I also read all of The Chronicles of Narnia, but it's difficult to call that level of evangelical Bible bashing true Fantasy... it's more of a religious tract of repent or burn in hell, then it is outright Fantasy.
Now, all that said, you want to know something else? I know my books are Literary first and Fantasy elements after, and I don't submit them to publishers of Fantasy, because I do read publisher submission guidelines and am well aware that these books are not what they are looking for.
No, it's not Fantasy publishing houses, bitching and moaning that my books are:
No... these things came from Literary Press publishers and publishers of Experimental Fiction. I'm sorry... my books are "too literary" for Literary Press? How is that even possible?
And so while I do not read Fantasy, I do however read a TON of Literary Fiction, thousands of volumes of short stories, particularly small university press published works written in the Slice of Life style, which I've since learned is a style that was created by Ernest Hemingway and is also known as The Ernest Hemingway Style of Writing. When I learned that Hemingway was the inventor of the Slice of Life style of writing, suddenly it made sense to me why so many editors/publishers were telling me my novels were "too much like Hemmingway". I LOVE Slice of Life Literary Fiction, and yes, I do write that style, I just do it with magic and Elves and wizards instead of the current era angsty teenagers that typically grace the genre.
After 30 years of being told my books were crap because they read like Hemingway's books, I decided, maybe I should look up this Hemingway guy and find out who he is and what he wrote. Should probably know what I'm being compared to. So I was in my 40s first time I read Hemingway, and you know what I discovered? People are right. I DO write like him! OMG! Almost exactly! Now I have a new favorite author. I love his stripped down, bare bones, no nonsense, right to the point, 99.9% dialogue, no descritions, no dialogue tag, very stage-play-esque style. Okay. So, now I know I write like Hemingway, but, then my question becomes... why do so many editors and publishers think the Hemingway style of writing is utter crap-tastic shit that should never see the light of day?
>>my writing is simple and light. none of my stories or novels hold any deeper messages or meanings. my writing is also straight to the point... I'm not a fan of flowery descriptions and metaphors
Yep. I'm with you there. I do the same thing and I too do not like flowery prose.
>>i find myself comparing my simple written stories to the complex and deep ones that my writer friends create. i know this is bad, but i cant help it. i feel inadequate next to them.
I think, instead of feeling inadequate, you should instead bask in the glow of your uniqueness and be proud of the fact that you don't follow the crowd and do what everyone else is doing, just to fit in.
I know when people say "we need more diverse books" they generally mean, needing more non-white or non-straight characters, but there is more to diversity in books then just a character's race or sexuality... there is also diversity in style of writing too.
Don't feel bad about your work. Never let anyone make you not proud of what you write. Writing is hard work. You pour your heart and soul into it. Let your writing be what you want it to be, not what others think it should be.
"Well you could..."
"I think you should..."
"...separate it into phrases."
"...keep people's phrases together."
"I just said that!"
"So did I!"
"Or we can say it together!", they said at the same time.
^^^This fast moving, overlapping, interrupted, dialogue without tags format is called, The Ernest Hemingway Style of Writing (his novels went on for 100+ pages in this manner without ever including descriptions, narrations, character names, or "said" tags)
Yes, I know, the entire writing community hates Ernest Hemingway and every editor and publisher on the planet wishes he'd killed himself sooner so they didn't have to acknowledge his books exist, and the going advice is to run from his style of writing like it was the plague, but I love this style of endless non-stop dialogue, free of descriptions and tags, I do write the Quaraun series in this format, and I wish more authors would use this method as I love dialogue written like this.
After reading Hemingway, a habit I started doing fewer than 5 years ago, I'm left to wonder why it is that every author, editor, and publisher I've ever crossed paths with, hates him with such verhement fury.
About a year ago, somewhere on Reddit, this very sub, I think, there was a writer, who asked a very simple question: "How can I learn to write like Ernest Hemingway?"
They were met with well over a hundred replies from authors telling them Hemingway's style was shit and to not attempt to try it.
They called it old fashion, male power, out dated, anti-feminism, and a long list of other things. I've yet to find any of these things in his work.
They raved and ranted that it was a horrible style because of it's lack of descriptions or narration. They said it was difficult to read, confused readers, and left too much to the imagination. I must say, I have to wonder at the IQ level of someone who finds Hemingway difficult to read. A kindergartener could read his work and understand it. It's that bare bones and no nonsense.
The Hemingway style of writing is simple, clean, uncluttered, has no deep meanings, no hidden messages, contains no flowery descriptions, and has no metaphors. It's simple, bare bones, no nonsense, straightforward writing, that says things like they are. It's sometimes crude, and makes no attempt to whitewash the horrors of Human nature. Swearing, drinking, smoking, drugs, abortion, sex outside of marriage are all things found in his works. He makes no attempt to hide them. They are just there. In the 1920s, when writing such topics was very taboo.
You don't need a dictionary to figure out what he's saying because he didn't sit there with a thesaurus hand picking the most obscure words possible to use.
>>i can't write 'deep' or overly descriptive stuff
>>my writing is simple and light. none of my stories or novels hold any deeper messages or meanings. my writing is also straight to the point... I'm not a fan of flowery descriptions and metaphors
>>i find myself comparing my simple written stories to the complex and deep ones that my writer friends create. i know this is bad, but i cant help it. i feel inadequate next to them.
>>I write Young Adult novels, typically contemporary and urban fantasy.
It doesn't matter what genre you write in, any genre can be written in any style.
Ernest Hemingway Style, is exactly that, a STYLE of formatting your words on the page. It is not a genre and can be used in any genre out there.
You, unfortunately are writing in the Ernest Hemingway Style, the single most reviled and most hated style of writing out there. Every author on this subreddit will be coming after you in lynch mob fury at the horror of someone not writing purple prose. Every editor and publisher on the planet will scream raging infernos at you. And I don't know why, other then, they have snooty pretentious-sticks up their asses.
Readers love Ernest Hemingway. Authors, editors, and publishers hate him. Go figure.
If you are aiming to publish, you might find it difficult to attract a publisher, especially if you are aiming at the YA or Urban Fantasy markets. Both have die hard readers that expect flowery prose, hidden messages and deep meanings. YA these days seems to REQUIRE some Bible-thumping, bash that moral into your reader's brain message to be well woven into it.
YA readers just want to read an entertaining story, but YA publishers have to cater to the white power, gay hating, born again Christian American parents who buy the books, to hell with what the children WANT to read. For some reason deep meanings, hidden messages, flowery descriptions, and metaphors do seem to be what they look for, especially in your chosen genre, so writing bare bones, entertainment for entertainment's sake is going to make it very difficult for you to get your work published.
I don't write those things myself, so, I end up self-pubbing a lot of my work. I remember as a kid, being absolutely disgusted by the way The Lone Rangers would be in the middle of a fight with the bad guys, then would suddenly stand up, brush himself off, face the camera, point at the kids watching at home and say: "Now remember kids, don't try this at home!" then jump back into the fight with the bad guy. I was 6 years old first time I saw an episode of The Lone Ranger do that and it pissed me off. I hated it. I wanted to watch the damned show, I didn't want to be lectured by some know-it-all-adult. Adding those "public service announcements" into the show, totally ruined The Lone Ranger for me. I loved the show, I hated the lectures.
You want to write for teens, write for teens, not their damn, shit-head, holier-then-thou, know-it-all, bully parents. Americans think they know what's right for their kids? Then tell me this:
I'm sorry. Please explain to me, WHY is it that publishers think American parents know what's good for their children, when they can't get their white-power, gay-hating heads out of their Bibles long enough to raise anything other then terrorists?
YA readers just want to read an entertaining story, but YA publishers have to cater to the white power, gay hating, born again Christian American parents who buy the books, to hell with what the children WANT to read.
It's the parents not the kids who want us authors to weave hidden messages and deep meanings into out novels.
Deep descriptions exist in YA novels, because parents have an agenda they want to push, a message they want brainwashed into their children, they don't want their children to have the freedom to think on their own, so they make sure to buy only books that will instill "values" (how to hate everyone different as much as possible) into their children. Parents, not children, buy the books that are riddled with hidden messages, and publishers seek to publish what sells.
If you want to write books that are not riddled with hidden messages to the masses, then, don't write YA genre. Children don't get to decide what they read, they no freedom and no rights, and by American law are nothing but property.
Sad reality of the publishing industry, is the fact that the bulk of books sold, are bought by people who WANT a hidden agenda in their books. People WANT books that fit their world view. Publishers, publish what sell. Publishers don't care what it is as long as it makes money. It doesn't matter how much an editor loves it, they'll reject it if they think it won't sell. And it doesn't matter how much an editor hates a book, they are in this business for the money and will accept a book they abhor, just because they know it will sell.
The point is, you as an author need to look at your personal goals.
Are you willing to continue onward, writing stuff that you enjoy, but that will likely not be picked up by publishers? If money is not your goal and you are willing to self-publish, then, yes, you certainly can continue as you are now, writing the Hemingway style of writing that is simple, clean, uncluttered, has no deep meanings, no hidden messages, contains no flowery descriptions, and has no metaphors.
If, however, you are looking to trade house publish and become a money raking bestseller, well, you'll have to swallow your pride and learn how to write deep meanings, hidden messages, flowery descriptions, and metaphors, like it or not.
That's just the way the publishing industry is.
The Space Dock 13 WebRing
|
|
|
What do you want to become?
What did you do today to step closer to that goal?
Whatever you do, be your best at it!
And remember to have yourself a great and wonderfully glorious day!
~EK
EelKat.com
pinterest.com/eelkat/
Evil men go out of their way to try to drive a person to suicide.
Are you an evil man?
Are you sure you're not?
How many people have YOUR hate filled words killed?
Next time you go to do a mean thing to a fellow human, stop and really think about the consequences of your actions.
Did you ever notice how every one has a story to tell about me, yet not one of them ever speaks the truth?
What lies has YOUR gossiping tongue spread about me?
Did you know...
October 16, 2006, bomb blew up my house because of YOUR lies.
August 8, 2013, the house which replaced the one the bomb blew up, was driven over by a backhoe.
November 14, 2013, my 8 month old infant son was murdered because of your lies.
November 14, 2013, I was beaten up, paralized for 5 months, spent 18 weeks relearning to walk, I'm now crippled for the rest of my life, because of YOUR lies.
Are you proud of what you have done?
Enjoy your eternity in Hell. You earned it. You've certainly worked hard for it.
~EelKat
If you have any information about any of these events, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207-774-9322
|