Writing

Posted by David on Jun 13 2006

EDIT: Just adding a note to say the following page is now very old. This needs an overhaul.

Although it’s a very modest listing for the moment, here are some examples of my poetry and short fiction. As a rule I’ve always considered myself more of a fiction writer than a poet and I’ve found it easier to write longer fiction than shorter fiction. My mind seems to be tuned to producing ideas for novels, since that’s what I’ve spent most of my time reading.

I invite you to pull these poems and stories to pieces. That’s right, trash them! Do your worst. Well, perhaps not quite your worst. You can say it in a nice way, but be sure not to leave anything out. I don’t believe my writing is good enough yet, certainly not to have a good chance of getting a novel published, which is my ultimate aim. I have to improve, and I can’t improve without knowing what’s good and most especially what’s bad! It can be hard for a writer to see the problems when you’ve read your work so many times, not without putting it away for a good month. This makes a reader who is willing to criticise extremely useful. Most of the following have been written very recently; I haven’t given them a chance to go fully out of my mind. So there almost certainly will be problems, and there will definitely be things which could be better, since that’s always the case.

So any comments, criticisms and suggestions may be placed on a forum where I’ve put up a post, or emailed to dwood2001@gmail.com. Thanks!

Poetry

The Abyss: This one is actually inspired by a dream scene I wrote in my long-suffering novel, so there is a story behind the imagery.

A Quest Past Love: My first attempt at a narrative poem. I love to read them, but writing them is harder than I thought it would be.

Short Fiction

Sand-Witches: I must admit I consciously stole someone else’s writing style for this one. Inexperienced writers usually steal the styles of recent books they’ve read, but this one I did on purpose because I love it. Ten points to anyone who can tell me whose style that is.

Right of the Heart: This is the most recent, and the least polished of the lot. It’s no doubt filled with errors and problems. One thing I’ve noticed is that I think I’m “telling” too much near the start, rather than “showing”, but then if I changed that by putting another scene at the start it might make it flabby. *shrugs*
Update (05/03/07): I’ve finally had a read-through and I think I’ve made the appalling opening much more readable. I’ve not done a proper editing job on it by any means (mostly because I’d rather just move on to another story), and the plot still isn’t really appropriate for a short story and should be fleshed out more, but hopefully the opening is better now. Is it really better? You tell me :p

Articles

When a Hilton Becomes Hogwarts: An article written for the BI Newsletter at work to explain my gallivanting off to America.

The Millennium Seed Bank: Again for the BI Newsletter, about an experience I had as part of the HSBC Climate Partnership.

How to Play Multi-Table Tournaments: An article I submitted to a poker magazine. It was rejected but I still thought it was pretty good.

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