I must ask myself this question once a week
I guess the fact I publish means I want to share my stuff?
but do I write for me and my muse? I recently had an email asking me to change one of my Eve stories, but I knew the ending was not what my muse would have done so I refused, the guy then told me he had given me a shit score because I didn't comply.
So, I guess I do write for me, or do I?
the guy then told me he had given me a shit score because I didn't comply.
F'em. You can't please everyone.
I admit I write for myself. I share what I write, and am grateful when others enjoy it. But ultimately, they are my stories and I tell them as I wish.
But hey, I told one guy who wanted me to do the same thing to donate me some money and I would write him a story however he wanted. Or better yet, he could write his own stories, and that way they would come out as he wished.
But don't worry about people like that. They are generally pretty pathetic, and not worth worrying about. I say continue to write how you wish, I am sure many more appreciate your work than the lamers who live to tear others down yet create nothing themselves.
I admit I write for myself. I share what I write, and am grateful when others enjoy it. But ultimately, they are my stories and I tell them as I wish.
You stated how i feel perfectly. Thank you!
Daisydesiree has it exactly right. Write to please yourself. You'll entertain the people who like the same things you do. Going out of your way to please other people at the expense of yourself is a recipe for misery.
I write the story I want to write, but I will often later review the story and make changes to word order and word choice to make it easier for the reader to read. The story stays the same story, I just change how it's delivered to be a better read.
Once I wrote a short story to a basic plot a reader requested, but ended up writing two stories as I had to ideas on how to work the plot they wanted.
I believe that if you don't worry about people disliking the stories you write and post, then you are writing for yourself. For someone who writes for themselves, a high score is your readers showing their appreciation ofyour efforts, but a score lower than you expected is not critical; you get your satisfaction and pleasure from the creation of the story, not what others think of it.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't use an editor(s), listen to suggestions for improvement of your stories, and not fix errors that are pointed out to you. You should always strive for perfection, while realizing you won't attain your goal.
I write for myself.
That doesn't mean that I don't want to become a better writer, it simply means that I'm writing the kind of story that I, personally, would like to read.
The minor detail that I now have someone who volunteered to edit and someone else who volunteered to proofread what I've written means that others happen to like what I've written.
What I find gratifying, and is a force pushing me to be better at HOW I write, not necessarily WHAT I write, is that over 600 people so far this year have also liked what I've written that they've purchased copies of my books.
When i got started doing this I was not finding the sort of stories I wanted to read, so I wrote 'em myself.
Since that time I have found some writers who I can depend on for enjoyable reading, but now I'm hooked on writing, and I get plenty of encouragement from a pretty decent number of readers.
When i got started doing this I was not finding the sort of stories I wanted to read, so I wrote 'em myself.
I think that is why a lot of us started.
I look back now and laugh, to be honest. Way back when I started, maybe 7k was the standard story size. So I wrote one just over 200k, wanting more of a story and development than what most were writing.
Now, I toss out "short stories" that are about half that in length, and think nothing of it. And a "moderate length" story of mine can run 3 times longer than that one.
But I agree, in that for most of us it is the desire to read a certain kind of story that compels us to start writing. It may be style, it may be length or type. It may even be specific fetishes, kinks, and settings.
Ultimately, I write for myself. But I share for others like me that like the same kinds of stories I like.
I write for myself.
I write for readers.
Huh?
I write what interests me, but as a published author I take into account my readers. If I don't believe there's a target audience for a novel, I won't write it. Why bother?
When I get feedback that the reader wants the story to go in another direction, I politely say, "Sorry, but that's not the story I wrote."
When I get feedback that the reader wants the story to go in another direction, I politely say, "Sorry, but that's not the story I wrote."
*laugh*
Me, my usual response is to paraphrase a quote from the movie "Kings Men".
"This ain't that kind of story, bru."
Mostly, that seems to come from those that have specific kink-fetish desires. They want every story to involve incest, or harems, things like that. And yea, I have dabbled into most areas over the years. I have a fanfic, a few with incest, one with a "harem", group sex and swapping. But most of mine are really rather "vanilla", and I like it that way.
There are 10,000 writers here that write a lot of stories with 50 year old guys banging a dozen High School girls, or the shy boy with a 9 inch cock who bangs his teacher, his mom, his sister's best friend, then his sister. All while becoming their Master. I don't need to be yet another one of those.
I write for myself, first. I'd toyed with writing something for a long, LONG time. Over a decade. I have barely-begun drafts for stories in two different genres, solid ideas for two fan-fiction stories (one a major property, one another SOL story), and I'd started a draft for a third story which I finally have taking shape in my mind, when a character got my attention and made me write 12,000 words or so in yet another genre. That one stuck.
I think once you're writing with publication in mind you have to write for your readers as well, at least to some extent. If I didn't want people to read and enjoy, I'd just plot it in my head and write notes. It'd be a lot faster! I know what I meant when I left words omitted and turned an awkward phrase or wrote a conversation in shorthand that would be gibberish. Writing is for me, maybe, but editing and rethinking and fixing issues is for the readers. For me, too - I want to produce something that's quality - but if I wasn't going to publish it I'd stop a few proofreading passes sooner, plus not waste the time of two editors.
On the other hand, if you're going with 'what people want' instead of the story you're telling, or you violate what your characters tell you should happen because readers might not like it, that's different. Not wrong, just different. Maybe you're writing potboilers. Perhaps I could sell 1,000 times the copies of something produced to fit audience demand - and perhaps I'd want to; it'd be nice to switch careers and be a professional author, if I could replace my income that way.
But, for SOL, for now? Writing the story I want to write, with awareness that I'd like other people to enjoy it too.
I write to please myself. OTOH, part of pleasing myself is writing things which please others. On a third hand, that only goes so far. There is a large share of the SOL readership to whom it's not sexy if it's not transgressive; my writing is not going to please them.
Part of pleasing myself is writing to challenges or challenging myself. In ASSD, another author wrote, "I can't start story with, 'I'm 5'4" and on the Pill.'" So, I started a story with, "Johanna Mill was five foot four and on the Pill." The Problems of Utilitarianism. Most of my stories are in the present or the past tense. So, what would a story look like in the future perfect tense?
what would a story look like in the future perfect tense?
Lets vote for Imperative tense. The motto of the University of Washington is "Lux Sit". In Latin sit is the imperative form of esse, Latin for "to be". So it means, Let there be light. Lux is of course light. Not sure how we got luxury out of lux. Different languages have different tenses.
Different languages have different tenses.
If you are all tense, see a massage therapist.
Not sure how we got luxury out of lux.
A well-illuminated room, hundreds of years ago, was expensive as hell. Consider: the difficulty in maintaining highly reflective surfaces when open flames indoors were common and mirrored glass was not; the scarcity in brightly-burning fuels; the relative weakness but significant expense of beeswax candles... to have artificial light that was truly effective for all (rather than just those of us with extreme light sensitivity) wasn't so much a challenge as a quick route to bankruptcy.
Lux is an SI unit of measure = 1 lumen per square meter.
Luxury and Lux have no common thread.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/luxury
luxury (n.)
c. 1300, "sexual intercourse;" mid-14c., "lasciviousness, sinful self-indulgence;" late 14c., "sensual pleasure," from Old French luxurie "debauchery, dissoluteness, lust" (12c., Modern French luxure), from Latin luxuria "excess, extravagant living, profusion; delicacy" (source also of Spanish lujuria, Italian lussuria), from luxus "excess, extravagance; magnificence," probably a figurative use of luxus (adj.) "dislocated," which is related to luctari "wrestle, strain" (see reluctance).
My wife has a membership in both IES, and IALD.
International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD).
Illuminating Engineering Society (IES)
https://www.ies.org/about/mission-vision-beliefs/
https://uat.iald.org/About/About-the-IALD
I think a lot of people would be very surprised just how involved those organizations are, particularly IES. Especially regarding NIST and other standards.
The history of lighting wasn't as detailed as you've made it out to be, though you are correct regarding the expense. Only nobility and rich merchants ever worried about it with three exceptions. Those being the Greeks, Romans, and some dynasties of China. Nobody else really cared.
There is a direct link to the literacy rate for light and typesetting. One could extend that link to religion as well.
Only nobility and rich merchants ever worried about it with three exceptions.
That was my point. It was something only the rich had.
However, I was merely hypothesizing as to how one could get from "light" to "luxury". And since decent lighting was basically reserved for the rich, that seemed a good jumping off point.
to have artificial light that was truly effective for all (rather than just those of us with extreme light sensitivity) wasn't so much a challenge as a quick route to bankruptcy.
I took the word "all" to mean everyone.
Actually, my meaning was that to have light at levels effective enough for someone like myself, it doesn't require nearly as much as for many others, so to prevent that lower standard from being used specifying that the level of light would be sufficient for all people to see by, were they to have it. Not that everyone would have that much light.
I must ask myself this question once a week
And someone asks the same question here almost monthly...
As a reader if I don't like a story I just don't read it, I don't tell the writer what a shitty writer they are or give it a low score. Hell many of stories by the writers on this forum I won't read but mostly because of the subject matter not because they are shitty writers.
About the only time I contact a writer is if the story seems good but has enough mistakes that makes it hard to read. One of the top 10 stories I like has so many mistakes (Like in almost every paragraph) it drives me nuts but otherwise is a great story that I am willing to slog through it.
Many years ago, I read an article in some 'top shelf' magazine (UK, Penthouse?). It suggested all written erotica is to some extent disappointing. It never quite ticks all your personal boxes.
The suggestion was to write half a dozen stories of your own. Then put them away for a couple of years. When you read them later, there should be enough detail that you forgot to make it exciting, and it would satisfy you.
That's what I did. And it works (for me)- my first one has just been published here. (John Natch).
A long-winded way of saying, you write for yourself. As another reply says: if you write for someone else, you should get paid.
JN.