I keep the pieces I want to hand onto in a small jumpdrive I have (only 256 mgs, but it works well enough for word files).

I find now that I'm not often inclined to write except for when there's a reason behind it. Although, my brother's dog had another skunk misadventure last night and I've has a commentary of sorts running through my head that I've decided I'm going to write down, and maybe I'll find a pet magazine that is interested in anecdotes.

I'm trying to publish material, and now and then I find there's inspiration to be found when sifting through potential markets. I don't think I've ever actually completed much by looking through magazines, but it does get me writing.

Ah, heh, um... well, it was uh... fantasy, yeah, and, uh... generic, and cliche, and predictable, and full of Dei ex Machinae, with a one-dimensional villain, and two-dimensional characters at best, and um... *sweats* was pretty much written to show off how much I loved epic-level Dungeons and Dragons, and... yeah, you get the idea.

What amazes me is what I somehow managed to turn it into. The story I have outlined now is so far from... any of that it's staggering, especially since the plot isn't even that different. The only snag is that I can't seem to write it. :|

Wow... Yeah... My first draft went from being a high school story, which was lame and cliched to becomeing a sort of Fantasy War of the Worlds.

One thing I worry about is now I'm so rebellious against traditional storytelling that I think I'm making my stories less accessible and too abstract to really draw a reader in.

That same story is now this sort of subdued, subtle, intricate character piece with a fantasy background. The plot is largely secondary to the interaction between the three main characters... like, there's a bigger epic fantasy sort of plot going on, but it takes a backseat to the relationship between these three guys as they come into personal conflict with each other. It comes across as kind of dense in the reading, I think.

I believe my first was a largely plagiarized horse story when I was 9 or so, and then a suspiciously purple looking fantasy story that was essentially a re-coloured telling of the Iliad, minus Helen and most of the gods. It was also an excuse to play around with my brother's ADnD Monstrous Manual.

Hmm, my first major attempt at a story was a rather typical fantasy affair about a female martial artist. It was also my first attempt at roleplaying, and I have to admit my story went all over the place and had a bunch of elements that probably shouldn't have been in it :P

The worst thing about mine is that it's 136,000 words long. I haven't been able to write anything over 20k since, and it's always there, glaring, gloating, taunting me with its bloated mass.

Have you gone back to that first piece and slaughtered it with a good editing tool? I find a good way to make sure that a story can't gloat, especially a long bad one is to go back to it, and take it apart, then put it back together with the skill and abilities that I have learned now.

Oh, I'm not touching that thing. It's a piece of history. :p

Seriously, though, I have no use for it. I cannibalized anything remotely worth keeping and worked it into my new story, so it's only really good for looking at occasionally to remind myself that I'm getting better.

I cringe to think about my first finished fantasy short story. It was a short piece with and NPC I made that I had more fun playing with outside of a game than in one. I went back and editted it about five or six times, makingn constant small alterations. I can remember much of it now and I don't really want to look at it anymore; same the with piece that I did the 500 words a day thing. They still stay in my binder, but I will likely never read them again unless I plan a re-write in the future. No plans yet.

*sneaks into the thread*

Oww... That sounds horrid. And for anyone who is trying to really learn how to write more words faster, come check out a site called Writeordie.com

That doesn't sound like a very pleasant place to visit.

*sneaks into thread stalking luna*

Aww, I missed seeing Luna again :(

-stalks quest thread sleepily-