Any authors here?

Just to figure out if there are any authors in these forums and are writing their own novels.

Let's start with me. I'm not only a music producer and a graphic designer, but also a Kendo athlete and an author. Literally, a multitalented one.

I'm writing 2 novels. One of the survival horror with psychological elements, and one with action RPG elements.

The survival horror novel tells about a boy, Ralph Hammerson, who has the Red Dream Syndrome, which is famous as The Lovecraftian Effect, who has a lot of nightmares. When he faints, his soul goes to the otherworld called Hell, and his body is in a coma. Gradually, he finds out that the nightmares are becoming real in the reality's world as he can't control the Red Dream Syndrome making every nightmare a real one, while those nightmares spread a havoc to every citizen. The only way for the nightmares to stop is that the boy must find the key hole and close it before it spread even worse nightmares. It also includes demons.

The other novel is a dark lore. It tells about an Archangel, Kyriel, who has been betrayed by his own co-Archangels thanks to their greed. He now has been felt down to Hellia via the Gate of Hell. He now finds himself a temporary amnesiac thanks to this Gate of Hell, and starts to remember every Fallen Ones as the former Angels and their own crimes. His mission is to find a way to return back to Paradisia(The Paradise itself) as he fights his way around Hellia. In this novel are included the Aramaic language and the parallel legends of the 12 students of Jesus Christ. It also will have epic boss fights, just like the one of the famous game "Shadows of the Colossus".

The survival horror novel might be a small one, but the other is a long dark novel. I hope to complete them one day and publish them somewhere. I can't hide the fact that parts of the novels are based from my fantasy dreams and hellish nightmares, just like Lovecraft's novels. Literally, I'm following his steps.

What about you guys?

I wish I knew how to focus my creative energies enough to actually write more than a few pages. I just don't know how to really get going and not stop. Some people even tell me that I would be a great writer - which I doubt - but it's something that bothers me, because I'd like to know if it's true.

But I admire anyone who is capable of actually finishing such a large creative process.

So, great going!

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I wish I knew how to focus my creative energies enough to actually write more than a few pages. I just don't know how to really get going and not stop. Some people even tell me that I would be a great writer - which I doubt - but it's something that bothers me, because I'd like to know if it's true.

But I admire anyone who is capable of actually finishing such a large creative process.

So, great going!

My wife is writing a novel. She is just about to finish (the first draft of) it too. Its more kids/youth fantasy, a bit along the lines of Cornelia Funke's work.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
My wife is writing a novel. She is just about to finish (the first draft of) it too. Its more kids/youth fantasy, a bit along the lines of Cornelia Funke's work.

The next Harry Potter?

Cool!

I just love writing. I'm quick to invent interesting ideas from scratch.

My greatest drawback is, however, the lack of "writing discipline". That's one of the main reasons why I still stick to short stories.

I've developed and outlined my own fantasy world, which is very much standard, but has a few elements that are not so common.

Apart from that, I love writing stories that are "within the boundary of reality and fantasy", as I call it.

In short: I'm great at creativity, but lack the discipline.

Originally Posted by Tanno
"Shadows of the Colossus".

Just to show how I work : I once read the title "Riding The Colossus" among the titles of ex-Genesis member Mr. Steve Hackett.
This inspired me and I wrote lyrics about such a thing. My lyrics were to about 90 % meant to be real songs, so they often follow the "pop song format" - like this one.
Some, though, are more like free verse, and much more complex.

I don't write real lyrics since almost 5 or 6 years anymore.

@Alrik, you should try reading Neil Gaiman's "The Dream Hunters". It will help you out with this discipline of yours. The trick to have a good writing discipline is to read each paragraph 2 or 3 times from the moment you completed each paragraph. I also do this trick, so that I can write my novel with rich lexicon, and try to make it as shorter as I can. There's also a idiom about it "The many words are a poverty".

@GhanBuriGhan, I'd love to try reading your wife's book, even a fragment of it.

As for me, I hope that someday these novels will become great games or even great movies. Only if they don't cut many fragments of the books I write. I have seen a lot of books being moved as games or movies, but with some fragments of them as deleted and I didn't like it.

Any delusional people here?

You guys should work on your self-criticism.

Originally Posted by Tilean
You guys should work on your self-criticism.

Easy to say, but to work on the self-criticism is a bit hard, so to make better progress, I often let anybody to criticize me, so that I can get better.

Wow, Tanno, you're a true Renaissance man . Drawing from your own experience (dreams do count, of course) usually is a good thing. Have you found a publisher for your novels yet?

I'm an author, too, among other things, but unlike most of the authors in my vicinity I'm not doing it for a living.
My writing discipline depends on the circumstances. If there's a deadline, I set the alarm clock to 5 in the morning and write for two hours before I go to work, five days a week - I write on weekends/holidays only if the deadline approaches. If I don't have a deadline/contract but have an urge to write, I write. If I don't have a deadline to meet and don't feel the urge, I don't write.

As far as movies/games are concerned: Don't get your hopes up too high there unless you're planning on producing your stuff yourself. An author friend of mine has been approached by movie makers several times, and each time something else happend - the project ran out of money or time, samples were so bad that the author stopped the project (luckily his agent had thought of bargaining for his veto rights), and so on. Now he's planning to have it done as an animation flick.

Uhhhh, Jaz…That eye really creeps me out

Back on topic. I'm not a writer, but I write stories for my students. They seem to get a kick out of them. They're an easy audience though.

Originally Posted by Tanno
@@GhanBuriGhan, I'd love to try reading your wife's book, even a fragment of it.

Do you read german?
I'm considering translating at least part of it to english, but for that to even start my wife needs to have a final version. (Before you call me out on it, that would only be to maybe get someone interested in professionally translating it.)

Jaz, would you be able to share some experience, or give some pointers to useful resources on how to deal with the whole "getting published" side of things? Should one always have an agent, or just send stuff to publishers? We haven't really researched that stuff at all, so any pointers would be helpful.

Originally Posted by Tanno
The trick to have a good writing discipline is to read each paragraph 2 or 3 times from the moment you completed each paragraph.

Hm, didn't use Tolkien a similar method ?


Besides, a friend of mine usually gets his short stories published an fantasy anthologies. I don't know how he does it, but he seems to do quite a good job, because he not seldom ends up doing a lecture (from/of his own stories) on a fantasy convention or on a book festival.

@Ghan:
Well, I'd say it depends on if you like to take care of the business side of writing, or not.
Personally, I can do very well without all the bargaining, and I don't mind sharing what I earn, so for me 'agent' was the natural way to go. Generally it seems to be easier to convince an agent of your plans and projects than a publisher. Besides, agencies usually know all the big and smaller publishers, and they know the exact folks to talk to - they have all the connections, it's their business to be in the know. Agencies also know which editor at which publishing company has a certain weakness for a certain theme/topic/literary genre.

@skaven: It's not 'that' eye. This is MY eye! Fear me! Muahahahaha.

Originally Posted by Tanno
I'm not only a music producer and a graphic designer, but also a Kendo athlete and an author.

I have a dog.

Originally Posted by Tilean
Any delusional people here?

DArtagnan often fits that bill.

I'm a (currently unpublished) writer. Earlier this year I threw together a supervillain novel and am working through the joys of editing before sending it off to some agents. Time will tell if I can add that to my personal bibliography.

At the moment I'm also playing around with a world-building exercise to keep my creative spark going. The wife keeps bugging me to do NaNoWriMo, so that might eat up some of my spare, between-drafts time soon, too. I'm thinking something post-apocalyptic might be fun.

If technical manuals count, I'm an author I'm also an author with a very captive audience…muwahahaha

I paint.

You and Modder Prosper could become pals…

You mustn't speak about "You-Know-Who" or he'll hear you and start sharing with us those………whatever the hell they were.

I used to have fun writing fantasy, in English (not my first language). However, my skills compared to "actual" authors are so poor, it's almost shameful. It was for fun, anyway, and I wrote it in a role-playing kind of way. I think they call it free-style writing. I'd just imagine my characters in my imagined environments and situations, and role-played them as I wrote. Great fun, there are even games played this way through e-mail. I should dig up some of the old stuff and see if it's really bad.

Writing requires a lot of exercise, I've learned. And some theory. You can't really just put down words and expect it to be good. Like with everything, you have to develop your skills. Unfortunately, I can only imagine myself writing in English (and I've always read all my books in English), and my grasp of the English language will never be as good as a native English author. Well, unless I move to an English-speaking country, I guess. And even then.

Writing (and finishing) a fantasy and/or non-fiction book is actually of my huge list of things to do before I die.