[Chat], and the world [chats] with you; [Brainstorm], and you [brainstorm] alone.

Kamar

Anyone know a cheap laptop or netbook with a writing-friendly keyboard?

I have a netbook, but it's a complete nightmare to write on thanks to a stubby right shift and the '" key being down by the space bar. I don't want to carry around a separate keyboard.

From what I've heard and what I see looking online, Thinkpads have great keyboards, but they seem to run expensive relative to their power. Anything know something with a similar keyboard that someone on a budget can afford?

spcmnspff

Wank

Man I feel like every mag ever has rejected me at this point

Just totaled up: 59 form rejections

ouch

liquiddark

On how many pieces?

ruzkin

Posted the first chapter of the first serious project I've attempted in well over a year. Feels good, man.

Quoth

Wank, that you've submitted to so many places is just crazy to me. What kind of infernal machine are you?

Amalia

But how many ACCEPTANCES have you had, Wank? What's your acceptance to submission rate? It seems like you've been pretty successful, all things considered.

Wank

@liquiddark: including poetry, probably around 20

@Quoth: i am a robot designed for rejections, a rejectobot

@Amalia: four acceptances on sixty-three submissions...

@ruzkin: let's trade! I'll read your first chapter and you read either of my weird scifi blurbs chilling below

gredavin

Edcrab wrote: »

Goddamn readers, trying to project meaning into the crap we all type out

The best part of it is that it makes it sound like you had planned it all along AND that you're much deeper than you actually are.

Edcrab

"I see! So this faction exists to evoke concerns of privilege and duty, juggling imperialism and jingoism in the unexpected context of a historically marginalised minority suddenly gaining massive power and influence."

"Uh, yeah! Yeah. Of course." *Carefully proceeds to never tell anyone, ever, that said faction began life as a parody of the Jedi Council*


(Hi gred! How's it going?)

LaOs

I love when @gredavin actually posts in the forums, because it reminds me how he still can't figure out the signature rules. haha.

gredavin

LaOs wrote: »

I love when @gredavin actually posts in the forums, because it reminds me how he still can't figure out the signature rules. haha.

Oh, I've figured them out. I choose to ignore them, throwing caution to the wind. It's how I roll.

tapeslinger

You rebel!

and since I am logged in from my phone signatures are turned off so I can't even see it, ha. I could turn on Full Site view... or wait until tonight... Ha.

ruzkin

Dear god Wank, how much can one man write? I'll give crits on all your stuff.

Wank

I always get a lot of writing done when I have an exam I should be studying for.

LaOs

gredavin wrote: »

LaOs wrote: »

I love when @gredavin actually posts in the forums, because it reminds me how he still can't figure out the signature rules. haha.

Oh, I've figured them out. I choose to ignore them, throwing caution to the wind. It's how I roll.

Big successful comic writer cares not for the rules of petty forumers, eh?

Quoth

Woo, two poems accepted to scissors and spackle. Should be up around the end of April. Exciting!

Edcrab

Woohoo! How many poetry acceptances is that in total, Quoth?

Quoth

21 submissions, 3 acceptances, 6 rejections. I am not a machine like SOME PEOPLE.

Wank

Quoth wrote:

21 submissions, 3 acceptances, 6 rejections. I am not a machine like SOME PEOPLE.

See, that's a crazy good ratio. You're batting .500!

ps Congrats, let us know when it goes up !

Munkus Beaver

I'm like 200 pages into the Stand and it's still not post apocalypse yet.

Damn you King

Quoth

See, that's why I told you to read the other book first.

Munkus Beaver

I was like, halfway through with it when I saw your recommendation. And I can see why!

Cheeseliker

The Stand is pretty great, but it is also a huge commitment.

ElJeffe

Hey Munkus, you reading the original cut or the unabridged, oh-god-I-threw-out-my-back-lifting-it version?

Munkus Beaver

ElJeffe wrote: »

Hey Munkus, you reading the original cut or the unabridged, oh-god-I-threw-out-my-back-lifting-it version?

The 1500 page unabridged monstrosity.

ruzkin

I'm so sorry for your lots.

SkutSkut

Hey guys I actually wrote somethin tomerstarday. 985 words short about two brothers finding a box that contains something rather nasty in their recently deceased mothers basement.

Also going to undertake a project of one short a day, to get into writing again.

Day two, another short at 1041 words.

Wank

@SkutSkut: You should post it!

So, you guys remember how hilarious the ABNA feedback was last year? And I think the year before that? The trend continues. I swear they are trolling me.

The writer brings us into a weird world...challenges that face the populace, most specifically, Binks... The characters are clearly drawn with Binks showing extraordinary courage...

Character is named Jinks.

SkutSkut

I'll post the flash fiction I wrote today. Maybe the other ones later. I like the flash fiction and think something could be done with it with some critique, get it shipped around but the others feel a bit forced to me honestly.

ElJeffe

Wank wrote: »

@SkutSkut: You should post it!

So, you guys remember how hilarious the ABNA feedback was last year? And I think the year before that? The trend continues. I swear they are trolling me.

The writer brings us into a weird world...challenges that face the populace, most specifically, Binks... The characters are clearly drawn with Binks showing extraordinary courage...

Character is named Jinks.

Wait, that was the Star Wars fanfic you wrote, right?

ElJeffe

Who wants to be awesome and look at my query letter and give me some of that sweet, sweet feedback?

I swear, writing a goddamn novel was easy as shit compared to penning this thing.

Spoiler:

What would you do if everything you thought you knew about yourself was just a lie, all part of a carefully scripted and meticulously maintained narrative? And what if you were the author?

Parker Washburn: on the surface, a good man with a good family, well-spoken and well-liked. But all that is a façade beneath which lies a coiling macramé of imaginary friends, stray cartoon characters, and vividly violent fantasies. A façade cribbed from three decades of pop-culture detritus, from television and cinema, from the saccharin promise of fairy-tale princesses.

In the wake of a crumbling marriage and the reemergence of a father better left estranged, Parker’s charismatic persona begins to show its first hairline fractures. And when he stumbles across evidence that the man within may actually be a clinical psychopath, Parker must find a place for himself in a world in which he increasingly does not belong and, perhaps, cannot exist.

The Chinese Room is a work of literary fiction, complete at 85,500 words.

Edcrab

ABNA has been weird to lots of TWB contributors. My new theory is that one of us is secretly working the slush pile and is playing an elaborate prank on every TWBian who tries to participate

ruzkin

I can't be bothered with ABNA any more. Their reviewers are madmen kidnapped off the streets.

Munkus Beaver

The Chinese Room will leave you satisfied in 10,000 words, but you'll want to stick around for all 85,500.

liquiddark

@Munkus Beaver: Not to "manage from below" as my boss recently called it, but just wondering if there's any chance of ever getting a rules thread back?

ElJeffe

Munkus Beaver wrote: »

The Chinese Room will leave you satisfied in 10,000 words, but you'll want to stick around for all 85,500.

You get to write my cover blurbs from now on.

Amalia

ElJeffe wrote: »

Who wants to be awesome and look at my query letter and give me some of that sweet, sweet feedback?

I swear, writing a goddamn novel was easy as shit compared to penning this thing.

Spoiler:

What would you do if everything you thought you knew about yourself was just a lie, all part of a carefully scripted and meticulously maintained narrative? And what if you were the author?

Parker Washburn: on the surface, a good man with a good family, well-spoken and well-liked. But all that is a façade beneath which lies a coiling macramé of imaginary friends, stray cartoon characters, and vividly violent fantasies. A façade cribbed from three decades of pop-culture detritus, from television and cinema, from the saccharin promise of fairy-tale princesses.

In the wake of a crumbling marriage and the reemergence of a father better left estranged, Parker’s charismatic persona begins to show its first hairline fractures. And when he stumbles across evidence that the man within may actually be a clinical psychopath, Parker must find a place for himself in a world in which he increasingly does not belong and, perhaps, cannot exist.

The Chinese Room is a work of literary fiction, complete at 85,500 words.

The first thing that jumped out at me: hypothetical questions are DEATH for query letters. I have NEVER met an agent who did not hate them with the fire of a thousand suns. I might also find a way to ditch the repetition of "a facade" because you have so few words in a query letter -- make each one work for you and don't waste the time repeating yourself.

Your final two paragraphs look great to me though! And to be fair, your hypothetical questions at least do not allow a yes or no answer, which would sink you twice if the person reading responded in their head with the negative.

VanityPants

Yeah, I've heard lots of negative things about opening with a question in queries. I'd also say that "And when he stumbles across evidence that the man within may actually be a clinical psychopath" is maybe a little vague and if you give us an example instead it would be stronger.

Actually, you could move the third paragraph ("In the wake of...") up to be the start of the query. Start with what's important (crumbling marriage, possible psychosis, etc.) -- which is more interesting than the other stuff about how he's an average/good guy.

SkutSkut

Another flash fiction, this one under one hundred words. I can't think of any way to improve on it with any more words though, made a thread for it. What We Feel, silly title to but eh whatevs.

Another one, this one with a happy ending.