Paige Hawthorne: Blog

Several e-mailers have mentioned to me that they don't begin reading a story until it is completed. Makes sense. Although it will be some time before "Winter's Wonderland" turns the last page.

Others advise me to ignore the scoring system which, they tell me, is weighted. For me though, I guess it's my competitive spirit, it's not easy to overlook the higher scores some writers have. Well, I'll just have to learn to steal better material.

A few readers encourage me to continue my writing even though some characters and parts of the plots are an 'homage' to real writers whom I enjoy. And admire. In any case, 'Walker' is reality-based on my own son. Well, some of the sex stuff is imaginary. My real-life father is the inspiration for Captain Dave Jennings. Finally, my lover, my love, my life, my everything - - Vanessa in here - - is not exaggerated. Honestly.

Hi,

This is my first foray into writing fiction and what surprises me is how informative some of the emails are. Good feedback. For example, a number of people mentioned they enjoy the geographical descriptions of Kansas City.

Another pointed out how derivative some of my writing is. And he's right. I'm an avid mystery reader and I'm shamelessly cribbing from some of my favorite writers. But a lot of "Winter's Wonderland" is my very own.

I don't know what the scores mean, except there are writers in here with much higher grades. And some are lower than mine, so I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. Probably about where I belong.

Paige