November 4, 2009 • 12:36 pm 0
I haven’t really got much, I’ve been busy on a Top Secret project that’s not yet ready for public consumption! But in the meantime, I do have an unrelated, unfinished morsel to share. Will it get finished? Who knows! But there’s been little activity among the Penfolk of late, so I thought it’d be an excuse to get something up here!
Enjoy!
-Anthony
Filed under: general
October 8, 2009 • 7:13 pm 3
Further McReynolds writings. I should maybe just put these all in one large chunk, but y’know, that would be sensible… and probably long.
Also, is it a good sign or a bad sign that sometimes I can spot clearly shitty writing on my part, but occasionally can’t think of anything to do about it, so I just leave it there?
-Daniel
Filed under: general, McReynolds
October 2, 2009 • 12:18 am 4
So I started writing this thing at work while I was bored. It’s set in Anthony’s Witchbreed setting, though so far there’s absolutely nothing that would indicate as much besides minor little details that only make sense in my little head.
It’s not finished… at all. In fact I haven’t really gotten the story started. I’ll keep writing it… probably mostly at work still on the back of whatever scraps of paper I find, or now in a little tiny notebook I rediscovered in my room while unpacking from when I moved a couple months ago.
I’m hoping McReynolds will hang around as a character, because (even though you can’t tell yet) he’s interesting to me, and ALSO pretty fun to write.
He could die though. We’ll see.
Anyway… here’s what I’ve written so far:
-Daniel
Filed under: general, McReynolds
September 24, 2009 • 10:55 am 0
Welp, here it is!
Not so much of a rewrite than a light edit. I cut out some bits that needed cutting (how’d I know they needed cutting? ’cause I thought they were clever), reworded a whole bunch of things and made sure to set the scene a little better.
I tried a few times to start the story from scratch, but I think I’ve been involved in this piece well too much to do a complete rewrite without some guidance and motivation from a third party. Those few times I did try, I ended up recreating what was already there, almost word for word. Perhaps I like it too much to try rewriting it without someone’s help. Or maybe, like I always feared, I just can’t rewrite!
Anyhow, the new version is below. Let me know what you think of the edits, or the piece as a whole!
-Anthony
September 9, 2009 • 12:43 pm 6
I hate immediately rewriting. Well, perhaps not hate, but just… can’t do it. When I write something, especially something that I like, it’s a huge release of energy when it’s finished. I know there’ll be things wrong with it, but I just won’t be able to go back and change them straight away. Sometimes I can’t even read what I’ve written for a few days because it’s still so fresh in my mind, and my brain takes over and dictates over the top of what my eyes are reading.
When I come back after a while though, well, I almost seem to enjoy it. Tweaking and tightening up loose ends and sloppy sentences. Making it even better than I remembered. It feels good to have that distance from the piece and look at it with a view of “This is what will make it good”. Objectiveness, I guess.
The following is one of the first short stories I wrote after deciding I’d like to try creative writing as more than an outlet for games. It was after a dangerous drive home, it was just before midnight and I was extremely tired, and I didn’t finish until 2am and promptly fell unconscious in my chair. It’s flagrantly different to my usual style of writing, but it’s the grand-daddy of a setting that to this day I am still excited to think about writing when I get the narrative chops to do so. I actually only had hard copies of this piece left, and spent a few nights last week transcribing it to my laptop. I’m sure we still have the computer I originally wrote this on, but I’ve no idea where it is at this current moment.
There’s a lot that needs adjusting and rewriting in this piece, and I’m not quite sure where to start. But in a few weeks, I’m going to have it shipper and shaper than it’s ever been.
-Anthony
Filed under: challenge
August 28, 2009 • 4:57 pm 4
This is an idea I’ve had sort of bubbling around in my head for a while, and I figured that Anthony’s Challenge on Inspiring the New was as good a reason to get it out there as any (though I completely failed on the deadline front, which was… not unexpected). I’m not sure really what I’d want to do with it, but at this stage I’m happy to just begin the vague, broad strokes of world-building. I’ve always found the interplay between science and magic fascinating, and I think there’s a whole universe of possibilities that this opens up, if you just twist your thinking a little.
Anyway – enjoy, and please leave a comment if you can.
-Tim
Filed under: challenge, the great work, tim
August 26, 2009 • 12:54 pm 0
I have to admit, though I have been pretty busy lately, some of my reluctance to do a new Penfolk piece does come from the catastrophic failure of the last challenge! Although it was nice having a deadline to work to, and deadlines are usually what I’m good at working with, I don’t know if it’s helpful with the writing. My writing.
See, I was catching up with a friend the other week about this, and we got to talking about why we do the things we like in our spare time. I started talking about how I feel when I’m writing something I like, or go back and read something I really like. It feels good, y’know! And while the logic of my last posts make sense (the more you practice, the higher the chance you create something you like), that steady grind defeats any momentum I get from enjoying the creation.
I think there’s a happy medium somewhere, but I haven’t figured it out yet. In the meantime, I’m going to leave the teaser that the next project I want to work on involves rewriting some scenes from one of my favouritest project ever. I’m a little excited about this!
-Anthony
Filed under: general
August 9, 2009 • 4:50 pm 1
Turns out that first challenge? Harder than I anticipated!
After a number of false starts, I discovered something pretty important for myself – if what I’m writing doesn’t have some sort of supernatural element to it, no matter how small, I fail. Pretty hard. I have a theory this has something to do with ‘things happening to people’ scenarios as opposed to ‘people happening to things’, but I haven’t fully figured that out yet.
With that in mind, I offer the (somewhat lacklustre) results of my first self-imposed challenge – turned out much, much shorter than I intended, but I liked leaving the piece right… there. The usual ‘needs tightening up, rewriting, etc’ clauses apply. I’ll come back to this in a few days with fresh eyes and comment on what I like and dislike; in the meantime, I’d appreciate if you did the same!
-Anthony
July 26, 2009 • 2:40 pm 4
Part of this whole shebang is making sure we’re held accountable for what we promise: if we say we’re going to do something here at Penfolk, then by golly, by witness of the public, we have to do it! If it’s in writing, it’s accountable.
I don’t know to what extent Tim or others might take this concept, but I’d like to give myself reasonable deadlines and challenges that other people might also find useful or interesting. So if you see a set challenge you like the look of, feel free to do it yourself and let me know how it goes!
Challenge: Inspiring the New
Having started writing from making games instead of stories, I tend to get pretty wound up creating settings. I love making worlds and populating them. Flavour texts and short stories only follow once I’ve brainstormed and written entire pages of concepts, feelings, sciences and faiths.
What’s good about this is that I generally have a great base to work from (and there’s very good reasons why setting can be more important than plot for the short story medium, but that’s for another time).
What’s bad about this is that when I get the urge to start something new, which can happen pretty often, I find myself straight away going to a previously established place and just expanding on one of my pre-loved settings. This isn’t necessarily bad if I want to just get some words out, but it can be bad news creatively if I don’t push myself to create outside of my comfort zone, and I’m usually very comfortable by the time I’ve got a workable setting.
Therefore, the theme of my first challenge: New.
Duration is two weeks, and the set piece has to be completely brand-spanking-new on the freshness factor – no repeated characters, ideas or dialogue tidbits.
S’gonna be tough. Wish me luck.
-Anthony
Filed under: challenge
July 22, 2009 • 1:59 pm 0
Writing is a very personal thing for many people, not just the writer. Sharing the experience of a great story has inspired many readers to chase amazing pursuits; as simple (and complex) as making you feel good, to creating further forms of art based on the writer’s words, to changing an entire generation’s values and outlook.
Words can have exceptional meaning, so it’s important to realise that these words don’t just happen. They’re nurtured and tended to almost constantly. In this respect, though we may all take something from a piece of prose, the person most influenced and humbled by the words should be the writer themselves. And unless you have an indomitable centre of being, you cannot grow these words and meanings without good criticism.
Strangely we believe that good critiquing can only come from a select educated few, yet we want our words to have meaning to the greater mass. I find this idea, well, really weird. I want my writing to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, and that means finding out what is accessible, palatable or interesting to as many people as possible. For every person that reads my work, they will have something to say about it.
And every word, as long as it is considered and well intentioned, will be of benefit.
If you are reading this, then you should know that we want you to hang around. You may like what gets posted on this blog, you may not, and as long as you intend to inform without harming, we want to know everything you think about what we do. It could purely be narcissism, but what does it matter if we intend to learn from it?
Without knowing what is readable, we won’t learn how to write.
-Anthony
Filed under: critiques
