Ok so who's tried to create their own?

[Loredoctor]

I once wrote a short for an anthology, and it was accepted, but it was never published.

Ahhh yes. The same happened to me, funnily enough. I am thinking about reporting this to 60 Minutes.

[dANdeLION]

Good idea, but I doubt the episode will ever aire.

[Loredoctor]

Good idea, but I doubt the episode will ever aire.

Yes, but it may air. I was told it will follow the story of a clown who is spraypainting messages on every wall in the city.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I've written a short fiction, about an evil scientist, for one of my Honors college classes. It was a lot of fun to write. It's a humorous fiction. Maybe I'll post it here one day.-jay

It's been 3 years.
Did you ever post it?
If so do it again.
And no rewiting anything either!

[sgt.null]

Good idea, but I doubt the episode will ever aire.

Yes, but it may air. I was told it will follow the story of a clown who is spraypainting messages on every wall in the city.

- i'm glad someone is reading my work.

[Loredoctor]

Good idea, but I doubt the episode will ever aire.

Yes, but it may air. I was told it will follow the story of a clown who is spraypainting messages on every wall in the city.

- i'm glad someone is reading my work.

[Zarathustra]

As some here know, I'm trying to get my fantasy novel published. I just got my 2006 Guide to Literary Agents, and I'm starting the process all over again after the first agent who requested my manuscript died while reading it.

Anyway, I've been working on my pitch: Malik is an "anti-apprentice" trying desperately to avoid his latent potential for wizardry. His discovery of a celestial aberration puts a group of wizards on his trail who wish to hide the evidence and convince him to accept his legacy. As Malik comes to grip with his paradoxically dual nature--a product of his mixed lineage of Elven and Dwarven blood--he must face the awful realization that he has the power to undo the world by accepting the nihilistic implications of the sign in the heavens. In using these dangerous skills granted by his heritage, he strives to end the wizards' control of the Kingdom.

Okay, that's the "pitch" version of my idea, and it still needs work. There are some important, necessary concepts that are hard to fit into a four-sentence pitch. For instance, wizardry is something to avoid because it is inauthentic. Magic in my world is the power to produce illusion. That's it. No fire balls or demon conjuring here. It's a much more subtle danger because illusion erodes the integrity of reality. The power to distort perception is a more fundamental and insidious form of control than burning one to a crisp. The wizards are secretly extending their control of the Kingdom through the apparently harmless business of selling their spells in Pleasure Houses, leading the people of the land into lives of diversion and escapism (all for a Grand Scheme which I'm not ready to reveal). Thus, a Kingdomwide nihilism is taking hold in the minds of its citizens, a disengagement with their lives and each other that is coincidentally similar to our post-modern society .

But a sign in the heavens--Malik's celestial discrepancy--has the potential to blow the lid on the wizards' scheme and open peoples' eyes to the truth. However, most people are not paying attention and do not notice it. Only a few like Malik have the eyes to see it, people who are particularly sensitive to disruptions in the world's order. Malik's sensitivity is due to his mixed bloodline, a mixture that enhances the duality at the center of each human. Elves are creatures of mind and spirit, while Dwarves are my avatars of pure animal, physical existence--each race experiencing the world in fundamentally different ways. The introduction of Elven and Dwarven blood into the race of man has produced a line of humans who are more unstable than the rest of us, more susceptible to the existential crisis of coming to grips with both the mind/body paradox and the nihilistic implications this has for reality itself: that the world is an inexplicable, meaningless, contradictory place which is more a product of our desires/beliefs/perceptions than an objective, coherent Reality. This exaggerated tendency is what leads some of these "enhanced" humans into wizardry . . . and others into madness and suicide. These seem like the only two choices for Malik, both which he refuses to accept.

So Malik embarks on a quest for another answer. He joins a group of conspirators who are seeking a weapon to fight the wizards: an artifact that gives people the ability to see through illusion. However, once Malik finally achieves this goal at the end of book one, he recoils in horror at what he finds . . . the "Truth" is worse than he imagined. And thus the stage is set for book 2, which takes him in a different direction [book one explores his physical side, while book two explores his mental side, and book three will present a synthesis of these two which empowers him to transcend his own duality and use his power in an authentic way.]

[High Lord Tolkien]

I've had an epic fantasy storyline that has evolved in my head since I was a teenager, 20 years ago or more.
I've made my own geographically impossible map too.
It's awesome.
Sadly my one major problem is it falls to pieces when I try to write it down.
Sounds like total crap.
I have a powerful emotionally charged chapter in my head but it comes out hollow and weak.
Then by the time I work it out I'm too frustrated to continue.
Also one key element to my story involves the need for mind-melding.
Something so pivital that I can't figure out any other way to do it.
But obviously it's a total rip off of the Lords.
So that's a pretty big impasse!

But my failings have given birth to two offshoot stories.
Each one different enough from the other yet the same.
There is one constant in all three realities though.
Maybe someday before I die.....

I give writers a lot of credit.

[sgt.null]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger

[CovenantJr]

When you chuck in links like that, could you give us an idea of why it's relevant? Just being given a random, apparently unconnected, link is kind of irritating...

[Loredoctor]

Malik23, that sounds fascinating. I wish you the best of luck.

[sgt.null]

Cov: Darger was an unpublished author during his life. he made many beautiful books at home. as i'm sure many people here have.

[Loredoctor]

I have been developing a universe set around the year 4000 for the last 17 years. It's been through some severe changes (especially when I lost a 300+ page encylopedia I was working on). Anyway, I am working on two themes in the series: Utopia and the psychology of AI. I'm arguing that human nature precludes Utopia (which is obvious, I know), but that AI doesn't. I have a theory, called the Resource Singularity - where all resources are available for AI if sentient programs are not localised (in a machine) so that precludes - if AI evolves - selfishness. Organic creatures don't live in a resource singularity as they are localised and discrete, so selfishness is inherent (as selfishness is necessary for resource competition). One can see, then, that the answer to a utopia is AI. But the thing I do in my novels is remove AI so as to explore this.

I am also intensely interested in alien psychology and how their makeup and planet influence the way they think and behave. And how this affects their culture. I basically just love building aliens and their worlds. It is honestly the most beautiful thing I have experienced.

[Usivius]

Hm, interesting topic...
I've never published anything, but have created my own fantasy work (through RPG fun that I have done over the last 22 years (sheesh)), written 4 short stories, 1 novella, and one full-length novel. And I am currently working on a new novel and have mapped out a second (sequel to the first).

All for the benefit of myself and my creative impulses and any friends who have the patience to read them.

Jack of all trades; master of none.

[sgt.null]

has anyone done a count on how many writers we have in the watch?

[Loredoctor]

As far as I know, myself, you, Seareach, Murrin, Xar, Cov Jr, Variol Farseer, Revan, dAN, aTOMic, Furls Fire, Lucimay, Lord Foul, Jay, Usivious, Sindatur, dennisrwood , Hierachy/James/Avalest, danlo, Malik23, Variol Son. . . .

[CovenantJr]

Don't forget Khaliban the Condescending Amateur Writer of Doom

*roll of thunder, distant scream*

[Loredoctor]

Don't forget Khaliban the Condescending Amateur Writer of Doom

*roll of thunder, distant scream*

This is news to me. What happened here?

[sgt.null]

i meant a rough guess of how many active users we have. but you knew that?

[Variol Farseer]

As far as I know, myself, you, Seareach, Murrin, Xar, Cov Jr, Variol Farseer, Revan, dAN, aTOMic, Furls Fire, Lucimay, Lord Foul, Jay, Usivious, Sindatur, dennisrwood , Hierachy/James/Avalest, danlo, Malik23, Variol Son. . . .

I'm still around (though quiet lately), but I don't know if you'd count me.