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MarklarMarklarr
Fiji226 Posts
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obesechicken13
United States10467 Posts
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BisuEver
United States247 Posts
On August 04 2013 00:14 obesechicken13 wrote: I don't read the entire forum anymore. Just click through the pages. Look for videos and stuff. I post those. | ||
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micronesia
United States24554 Posts
On August 03 2013 07:42 jrkirby wrote: 3) How do you have time to read? I haven't had time to read since Highschool. There are many ways to make time to read... although the best way will vary from person to person. If there is something you want to read you will find it easier to make the time. I often read directly before going to bed. Some people read whenever they have downtime while they are out. Without knowing your detailed schedule we can't really comment on how you could have the time available to read. | ||
babylon
8765 Posts
On August 03 2013 15:04 MarklarMarklarr wrote: Learn to throw shit away if it doesn't entertain you, learn to skim read, so many writers, even great ones often overdo their ideas. You have to learn that even great writers are often writing poor filler stuff that bore the hell out of you, the really great ones however will use that boring thing to enhance a later more climactic sequence. I remember reading the count of monte cristo at 16, first 250 pages were gripping I read that in a day or two, then there were another 1000 pages of which were filled with ostentatious parisian garbage making me cringe. that took like a month and a half to finish... Still pretty good book, but really, that book taught me to skim read. Dumas got paid by the word, lol. It astonishes me he even managed a readable tale given he was intentionally trying to inflate his word count. >_> | ||
docvoc
United States5491 Posts
On August 04 2013 02:09 babylon wrote: Dumas got paid by the word, lol. It astonishes me he even managed a readable tale given he was intentionally trying to inflate his word count. >_> The first book I truly loved was The Three Musketeers, I loved that book. The Count of Monte-Christo is also a great book, though I only ever read the abridged version for kids when I wa about 10 because I never got around to reading the real one now that I'm older, I should do that ![]() | ||
babylon
8765 Posts
What genre are you writing in? | ||
docvoc
United States5491 Posts
On August 04 2013 02:41 babylon wrote: There's an author named Steven Brust who's written really good parodies of the d'Artagnon Romances: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Viscount_of_Adrilankha. They're fast reads and very entertaining; you should add them to your book list, and read them when you need a break from all that High Lit. What genre are you writing in? Looking this over makes me think that Dumas would have either rolled over in his grave with each publishing, or would have laughed about inspiring this. I'm gonna read this lol. I'm in Modernism and Post-modernism. I read two Cubist works and a couple books that I can't tell what they count as (books like The Little Prince are like modernism in a child's book lol). I'll be in those two genre's for a while considering the Le Monde list is almost exclusively French Modernism, Magical Realism, or Post-modernism; good thing for me, I enjoy all of those styles haha. | ||
Jerubaal
United States7684 Posts
On August 03 2013 11:05 docvoc wrote: Depends on where I'm at haha. Seriously though, I'd like to write a novel before I'm 30 and have it published. I don't necessarily want to be a career writer by any means, but I'd like to write well so I can write a novel. More future minded though, I'd like to have a portfolio of professional looking writing to show to a prospective employer also; though it's mostly the novel thing. Also, it's not really forcing myself after I begin to appreciate the book, though I'll admit that some books are definitely forced because of how poorly translated they are, or how much I end up disliking them/how boring they are, but I refuse to not finish them (the only exception being Proust). I had a life-changing moment reading Man's Fate by Andre Malraux, the book made me love reading. I didn't think of really being serious about being a novel writer until I read Infinite Jest, until then it was this thing that I kinda wanted to do, but had no idea how to go about. After Infinite Jest, I felt like I had to do this, I wanted to do this, I wanted to write, and after reading Infinite Jest and Man's Fate, I kinda realized that I wanted to be able to express myself effectively as a writer. I don't want to be a career writer, but using words to express novel thoughts just sounds too awesome to not learn how to do. I'm a little puzzled by your reading choices. Kafka and Camus are not exactly who I'd pick for a newer writer to try to emulate. Though they certainly have arresting stories, they are in the realm of classics because of their ideas. Which brings me to my next point: Expressing novel thoughts through writing requires that you first have novel thoughts. On August 03 2013 15:04 MarklarMarklarr wrote: Learn to throw shit away if it doesn't entertain you, learn to skim read, so many writers, even great ones often overdo their ideas. You have to learn that even great writers are often writing poor filler stuff that bore the hell out of you, the really great ones however will use that boring thing to enhance a later more climactic sequence. I remember reading the count of monte cristo at 16, first 250 pages were gripping I read that in a day or two, then there were another 1000 pages of which were filled with ostentatious parisian garbage making me cringe. that took like a month and a half to finish... Still pretty good book, but really, that book taught me to skim read. I think you need to reassess your standards for greatness. Dumas is an entertaining writer, but he is not great. If you are reading something sufficiently complex, there should be no 'skimming'. One does not simply skim Camus. And even if you're not, why are you reading the book if you're just going to skim. | ||
AiurZ
United States429 Posts
then if a thought occurs to me i can easily find where it is, like the specific passages etc., and think about it or whatever. you can get a pretty good idea of something just by skimming it, ive almost never felt something like "i completely missed that" after having read something, even skimming it once, the only time i can remember was reading as i lay dying for the first time, but i think that was more the circumstances of when i read it rather than a flaw in the methodology of the reading. | ||
babylon
8765 Posts
On August 04 2013 02:59 docvoc wrote: Looking this over makes me think that Dumas would have either rolled over in his grave with each publishing, or would have laughed about inspiring this. I'm gonna read this lol. I'm in Modernism and Post-modernism. I read two Cubist works and a couple books that I can't tell what they count as (books like The Little Prince are like modernism in a child's book lol). I'll be in those two genre's for a while considering the Le Monde list is almost exclusively French Modernism, Magical Realism, or Post-modernism; good thing for me, I enjoy all of those styles haha. I forgot, but there are two books before the Viscount series, titled The Phoenix Guards (corresponding to The Three Musketeers) and Five Hundred Years After (corr. to Twenty Years After). The Viscount series (three books) corr. to The Vicomte de Bragelonne. They all count as part of the Khaavren Romances cycle. .... that sounds confusing. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaavren_Romances. I think you can read them without being familiar with the setting. They're great fun. The style's a tongue-in-cheek pastiche of Dumas. Here's an excerpt from Phoenix Guards discussing the etymology of a city name (Bengloarafurd); it'll give you a good feel for the style and humor. + Show Spoiler + What followed was ten years of almost constant war between the Dragonlords of the Empire and the Easterners, during which the Easterners occupied the area and fought from the surrounding mountains. The Serioli, who departed the area to avoid any of the unfortunate incidents that war can produce, left only their name for the place, which was "Ben," meaning "ford" in their language. The Easterners called the place "Ben Ford," or, in the Eastern tongue, "Ben gazlo." After ten years of fierce battle, the Imperial Army won a great victory on the spot, driving the Easterners well back into the mountains. The Dragonlords who had found the place, then, began calling it "Bengazlo Ford." The Dragons, wishing to waste as little time on speech as possible, shortened this to Benglo Ford, or in the tongue of the Dragon, which was still in use at the time, "Benglo ara." Eventually, over the course of the millenia, the tongue of the Dragon fell out of use, and the Northwestern language gained preeminence, which rendered the location Bengloara Ford, which was eventually shortened to Bengloarafurd. The river crossing became the Bengloarafurd Ford, which name it held until after the Interregnum when the river was dredged and the Bengloarafurd Bridge was built. Should anyone be interested in finding this delightful city, it still stands, but the city was renamed Troe after the engineer who built the bridge, either because the citizens were proud of their new landmark, or because the engineer's name was short. I've never had someone come out and tell me they wanted to write French modernism, magical realism, or post-modernism ever in my life, and I am certain that if you ask published authors these days "what do you like to write?" they probably wouldn't answer in those words. I think those are more literary movements (minus magical realism) whose traits may crop up in any genre vs. what genre you want to write, if that makes sense. Ultimately, when you want to write a novel (or any sort of story), you have to consider two things: (a.) yourself, and (b.) your audience. The first part is relatively easy; you mass enough stories, and you'll realize soon enough that there are certain plot arcs, certain characters, certain themes and conflicts and frameworks that you keep coming back to and actually enjoy writing(!!!!!)*. The second is much harder to navigate, and I think takes a lot of work, delicacy, and perspective. You will also need to know what audience you are targeting, and you'll realize soon enough that you will undoubtedly have to compromise on certain aspects of your writing to appeal to your audience. Finally, I will urge you not to get too attached to such things as novel "ideas" if you are concerned about writing an enjoyable novel. They are not the vehicles of a good story. In the end, you are presumably trying to tell a good yarn, otherwise why are you writing a story in the first place and not simply a treatise on French modernism? *This is very, very important. You can enjoy reading a type of story that you would absolutely hate to write. You can't just say, "Oh, I like to read literary fiction, it must mean that I would like to write literary fiction!" | ||
docvoc
United States5491 Posts
On August 04 2013 04:40 babylon wrote: I forgot, but there are two books before the Viscount series, titled The Phoenix Guards (corresponding to The Three Musketeers) and Five Hundred Years After (corr. to Twenty Years After). The Viscount series (three books) corr. to The Vicomte de Bragelonne. They all count as part of the Khaavren Romances cycle. .... that sounds confusing. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaavren_Romances. I think you can read them without being familiar with the setting. They're great fun. The style's a tongue-in-cheek pastiche of Dumas. Here's an excerpt from Phoenix Guards discussing the etymology of a city name (Bengloarafurd); it'll give you a good feel for the style and humor. + Show Spoiler + What followed was ten years of almost constant war between the Dragonlords of the Empire and the Easterners, during which the Easterners occupied the area and fought from the surrounding mountains. The Serioli, who departed the area to avoid any of the unfortunate incidents that war can produce, left only their name for the place, which was "Ben," meaning "ford" in their language. The Easterners called the place "Ben Ford," or, in the Eastern tongue, "Ben gazlo." After ten years of fierce battle, the Imperial Army won a great victory on the spot, driving the Easterners well back into the mountains. The Dragonlords who had found the place, then, began calling it "Bengazlo Ford." The Dragons, wishing to waste as little time on speech as possible, shortened this to Benglo Ford, or in the tongue of the Dragon, which was still in use at the time, "Benglo ara." Eventually, over the course of the millenia, the tongue of the Dragon fell out of use, and the Northwestern language gained preeminence, which rendered the location Bengloara Ford, which was eventually shortened to Bengloarafurd. The river crossing became the Bengloarafurd Ford, which name it held until after the Interregnum when the river was dredged and the Bengloarafurd Bridge was built. Should anyone be interested in finding this delightful city, it still stands, but the city was renamed Troe after the engineer who built the bridge, either because the citizens were proud of their new landmark, or because the engineer's name was short. I've never had someone come out and tell me they wanted to write French modernism, magical realism, or post-modernism ever in my life, and I am certain that if you ask published authors these days "what do you like to write?" they probably wouldn't answer in those words. I think those are more literary movements (minus magical realism) whose traits may crop up in any genre vs. what genre you want to write, if that makes sense. Ultimately, when you want to write a novel (or any sort of story), you have to consider two things: (a.) yourself, and (b.) your audience. The first part is relatively easy; you mass enough stories, and you'll realize soon enough that there are certain plot arcs, certain characters, certain themes and conflicts and frameworks that you keep coming back to and actually enjoy writing(!!!!!)*. The second is much harder to navigate, and I think takes a lot of work, delicacy, and perspective. You will also need to know what audience you are targeting, and you'll realize soon enough that you will undoubtedly have to compromise on certain aspects of your writing to appeal to your audience. Finally, I will urge you not to get too attached to such things as novel "ideas" if you are concerned about writing an enjoyable novel. They are not the vehicles of a good story. In the end, you are presumably trying to tell a good yarn, otherwise why are you writing a story in the first place and not simply a treatise on French modernism? *This is very, very important. You can enjoy reading a type of story that you would absolutely hate to write. You can't just say, "Oh, I like to read literary fiction, it must mean that I would like to write literary fiction!" I'll take all this advice to heart. I don't get attached to characters or scenes, I get attached to how amazing it was to read them, though I will say that I would totally steal Ch'en from Man's Fate and put him in a book if that wasn't completely void of creativity ![]() | ||
MarklarMarklarr
Fiji226 Posts
On August 04 2013 03:07 Jerubaal wrote: I'm a little puzzled by your reading choices. Kafka and Camus are not exactly who I'd pick for a newer writer to try to emulate. Though they certainly have arresting stories, they are in the realm of classics because of their ideas. Which brings me to my next point: Expressing novel thoughts through writing requires that you first have novel thoughts. I think you need to reassess your standards for greatness. Dumas is an entertaining writer, but he is not great. If you are reading something sufficiently complex, there should be no 'skimming'. One does not simply skim Camus. And even if you're not, why are you reading the book if you're just going to skim. I never said dumas was great, I wasn't clear enough on that, only that dumas as a writer taught me how to fast read back in the day(because he's not great...) I was cringing while reading that ostentatious parisian society garbage it was dripping in a lot of the time. | ||
Ushio
Canada868 Posts
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Mutaller
United States1045 Posts
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docvoc
United States5491 Posts
On August 04 2013 12:06 reps)squishy wrote: hmm play with irl friends and share information verbally is the best way to improve. I'm doing the TL inhouses and playing with friends, and it's definitely improving my decision making ![]() | ||
Mutaller
United States1045 Posts
On August 04 2013 12:16 docvoc wrote: I'm doing the TL inhouses and playing with friends, and it's definitely improving my decision making ![]() Decision making is #1 really then strategies and builds come next gl :D | ||
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