Mirabile Muse

...what on earth is a stick swinger and a buttock scratcher? - Saffron Piskie

I feel sorry for oranges in a way I never did before. - Saffron Piskie

Don't know about you, but I son't tend to say a person's name when I'm talking to them. - Aragwinity

I can't make head nor tail of this. - Aragwinity

...i did get a bit discombobulated on the backwards part. - wordancer

Colour me confused! - ozkez

I feel so bloody depressed now... - Valamber

...the Naked Cowboy certainly provided additional interest - Valamber

Your tag needs to be of dialogue rather than action. It's just about impossible to yawn a sentence. - Dreamer of the Wild

You know, the whole "Future Tales of the PI" arc is starting to take on a sort of "Evil Dead meets Mad Max" quality. No complaints here, of course. - Mr Razorz

If dogs wrote poems, I'm sure this would be the kind of thing they'd come up with! - Niggle by Leaf

...it's just hit me that this thread was made for a specific purpose... - elfcat

Razorz, maybe if you wiggled your bum while doing your Woohoo Dance that would make it sufficiently novel to be all your own again???? - Niggle by Leaf

Razorz's Woo Hoo has to be seen to be believed! - Valamber

...not to say that Val is repeating Val's self...but the theme of some of your SSIW stuff seems to be snooty snotty relatives getting their come-uppance. - Grendelvs

SOrry about that, my spell checker isn't the best in the universe, and likes to miss words, and the one that EzBoard has just scares me. It's creepy. - Zurtok

Now, is that my tomorrow or your tomorrow? - Tinuviel80

If I ever win one of these things my topic will be masturbation hahahahahahaha - Zurtok

Imagine the tension... I'll be waiting nervously for results from SSIW and the UK Elections at the same time. - Niggle by Leaf

I felt my own stomach beginning to churn a little. I've always found it difficult to cope with vomit and nose chandeliers. - Valamber

Do consider spelling – when I first read “desert table” I had a mental image of this guy sitting outside somewhere like Death Valley... - Valamber

My neighbors probably thought I was either drunk or going insane as I read this late at night. - TTHE LADY SILVER

Cowboys, gamblers, murderers, planets, cheating lovers, and alien senators! - m thomas d

Excuse me while I bombard you with acronyms. - Niggle by Leaf

A couple of points I would make generally - in any story - if you're going to have a twist - try NOT to give it away before the end... - Valamber

Do they really make perfume by the name of "poison" or is this a sicker couple than I'm imagining? - El linna uren

...why SHOULDN'T there be were-goats! - Valamber

Actually, it doesn't break the rhyme scheme if you mispronounce it... - greg the dragon

I expected my piece might be a little confusing to some members on this board *cough*Niggle*cough* - greg the dragon

...as an artist, I must protest! - nukapai

...sign #1 that someone's irritated with you: they repeat your name over and over while talking to you. - Grendelvs

And that comment's probably got more thought put into it than the verse itself!! - Aragwinity

Relax. It’s a story! - k245

Arrgghhh!! After pruning and polishing and Taking Bits Out and Putting Other Bits Back, my prose is ONE WORD over!!! - DarkPool9

...has to be Zurtok. Who else would open their poem with "Goddamit"? - Tinuviel80

Is "perq's" some sort of slang that I dunno? - One Bad Ash

Trying to guess the author's is giving me a headache! - rekirts

You're actually trying to guess who wrote what?! Madness! You crazy fools, you! - Nenya

Owing to the fact that I'm spending a large portion of my time scraping up dog pooh (see journal) the results will be just a trifle delayed! - Valamber

I knew my own story of course even though it was so brilliantly disguised, I almost forgot I wrote it. - CyberCatty

Sorry Rekirts, but you know, your Muse is a babe. - Zurtok

heck, go ahead and say it's awful, cliched and poorly written, I know you wanna! - Aragwinity

Where does a ballad fit in prose/poetry/music. is it more one than the others? or is it all the above equally? I gots to know! - m thomas d

This is a prime example of the autocratic, tyrannical exhibition of power one may brandish when one is an ADMINISTRATOR on an Ezboard! - Valamber

If we don't get more votes, I warn you......... I'LL SING! - Valamber

I'm going to win this round anyway. - Zurtok

With a name like Maia Link, you really can't act surprised when people click on it. - Niggle by Leaf

Monkeys, cannibalism, and a ZZ Top reference. What’s not to love? - SourImplant

I see I've written in agnespeak once again, when I thought I was writing in English. - agnes455

I am the win! Not only did I write a poem, I managed to clean my room AND my car. - Zurtok

I had half a story written and time ran out. Now I'll never know if Vinny gets the bubblegum with the reflector stuck on it scraped off his shoe and becomes a star... - Dreamer of the Wild

It's not the actual voting that I'm avoiding.... its having to make the decisions about which pieces to vote for! - DarkPool9

This one makes me feel all warm and sticky inside. A good kind of sticky, not that gross "what did I just step in" kind of sticky. - SourImplant

I'll shut up now, in case the poem is actually about something else altogether ... - Niggle by Leaf

I kept looking at these topics thinking they looked awfully familiar. And then it hit me--I could be the title character in a story with these topics. Right now, especially alternative medicine and out to lunch! - Dreamer of the Wild

What?!! I could have procrastinated for a whole nuther week?!! - Dreamer of the Wild

Writing that story was like trying to dig out an impacted wisdom tooth. - rekirts

Lack of votes + Valambers blood pressure = Nervous breakdown - Valamber

...what parts made you think I was a meglomaniac? And...err, please define meglomaniac, it's been awhile since pysch. - Zurtok

Pushpins, stars and placesettings? Is that a threat or an invitation? - rekirts

Why the hell would you give Banks a holiday??? They already work great hours. - Zurtok

Hrrrm, there's an hour left...MUST TYPE FASTER!!! - Zurtok

...this is (to my knowledge) about the third horror challenge we've had, and for some reason it always comes with a "no gore" stipulation! Every bloody time, pun intended! Who decides that, eh? Those namby-pamby girly types in The Management, that's who! The same people who think pornography's perfectly acceptable as long as you dress it up with a period setting and a few euphemisms and call it "erotica"! Bah! Horror without gore's like soup without a spoon (all anticipation, no payoff). Save that shit for Oprah's Book Club, you metrosexual bastards! Give us blood and guts!!! - Mr Razorz

How did this thread become the Val Kilmer/Willow droolfest anyway? - Inner Prop

Personally, I prefer thingamabob. - Saffron Piskie

 

~ Dreamer of the Wild

09/07/06

There are times when we all experience the frustrations, fears, and passions that accompany the craft, and hearing what other writers have to say about it can help. Whether epiphanic or merely comforting, here are samples from the "Writers on Writing" topic in the Tools of the Trade forum.

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. ~ Oscar Wilde

Only a mediocre writer is always at his best. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted. ~ Jules Renard

It's an adrenaline surge rushing through your body. You have this spark of an idea that keeps threatening to burst into flames and you have to get the words out on paper to match this emotion or picture in your head. After this comes the work of cleaning up the mess that you made. ~ Janet West

I like deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go past. ~ Douglas Adams

 

But the creation of the physical world is as crucial to your story as action and dialogue. If your readers can be made to see the glove without fingers or the crumpled yellow tissue, the scene becomes vivid. Readers become present. Touch, sound, taste, and smell make reader feel as if their own fingers are pressing the sticky windowsill. . . . Whatever you're describing, readers need a clear visual image. However, too much visual information is confusing. The mind loses track easily. A brown Naugahyde chair with a long gash in its seat can establish an interior. Big nostrils can make a person. Give one vivid detail, and readers will build the rest. ~ Jerome Stern, Making Shapely Fiction

 

What I like in a good author isn't what he says, but what he whispers. ~ Logan Pearsall SmithWhen asked, "How do you write?" I invariably answer, "One word at a time," and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. That's all. One stone at a time. But I've read you can see that [thing] from space without a telescope. ~ Stephen King, second preface to The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition

 

It is remarkable that I long to write, yet do not know what to write, or to whom, and yet — what an unrelenting pleasure! — paper, pen, ink and sleepless nights give more satisfaction than sleep and repose. ~ Petrarch (1304 - 1374) 

 

I can fix a bad page. I can't fix a blank one. ~ Nora Roberts 

 

All I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world. ~ E.B. White 

 

Good prose is like a windowpane. ~ George Orwell