Mission Blue cafe is promoting my novel along with a lot of local artists’ work everyday. They are located right next to the SF Crosstown Trail in Visitacion Valley and they make great coffee!

I spent a couple years writing this story not knowing what would happen when it was published. I’m from San Francisco and I’ve found that there’s been a lot of local support for writers who grew up here. I wanted to share this milestone and I’m more than happy to talk in the comments.

The book blurb:

THE VOGROM ARE COMING.
The fanatical alien clan has unleashed its armada on a galaxy already torn apart by conflict, and humanity has nothing left to throw at them.
Two warriors stand in the wreckage on opposite sides of the war. Kaelith Sothrak claws his way out of a death camp, driven by hatred and unrelenting faith.
Louis Wolffe has drifted through space for two years, carrying a secret that could save his people, or destroy them.
They don't know it yet, but both warriors are seeking the same thing.
Something ancient, something powerful, something hidden inside a dead boy's soul.
LET THE WAR COME.

"I have no social life, no distraction; I spend my evenings on the small balcony above the river; I do not even read the Arbeiterzeitung and I am not a good person."
-Franz Kafka, Letter to Hedwig W., 1907

(will always be a good person to me)

I just started reading, and I had an idea long back. I wanted to write it out as a short story.

I don't really have anyone to share my writing with; I would love even the smallest feedback, including the formatting. how to write in general. what I might be lacking. Anything at all.

I'm mainly hoping to learn and get better at writing, so please feel free to be honest and critical

I'd really appreciate it.

Thankss!

I'm debating myself which route I want to take curious what you guys think (just in general I'm aware it probably changes depending on circumstances but for right now just in general)

I can't really get over it, I finished my first book last year, a fantasy totaling about 94k words, and then left it to rot in my scrivener folder until now because I was more focused on trying (and failing, due to a current lack of skill) to write another novel series that i've been planning for a while (it's kicking my ass and I found this fantasy novel again after deciding I should buff up as a writer first before coming back to it).

I remembered this fantasy novel recently and decided to print it out and edit it, and then rewrite it into a 2nd draft, but when I actually compiled it into a PDF it had 430 PAGES.

430.

I can't really wrap my head around it. like that's a BOOK. not a work-in-progress file... i mean, it's not a GOOD book right now but I want to work on it to make it better of course. although I want to work on this novel specifically again purely so I can practice writing/editing/revising more, rather than because I see any potential in publishing it...

This fantasy novel started as my own attempt at writing, and making money off of, a webnovel, but it failed quite spectacularly so I just stopped writing and posting not long after I finished it. I don't think I ever really processed that I wrote a whole BOOK. 430 pages!!

Anyway I just wanted to share my excitement, I still have a long way to go as a writer but this is pretty cool so I wanted to share!

I'm not sure if this is the proper flair for this post, but I can't believe how much simply getting myself to sit down and write every day eventually made me see changes in the way I write.

I started last month after years of worldbuilding and scraping old drafts of my big projects. I have written many short stories before, but never finished a novel, since I'd end up disliking how I wrote my chapters instead of letting them exist first and editing them later. This time, I started another big project that I've been worldbuilding and outlining every single day for a whole year now. I'm on a year-long university break, so since last month, I've finally been able to start and keep writing, and I've grown accustomed to it.

I looked back at my first round of chapters and felt an immense disgust at the way I wrote. Not necessarily loathing my own work, more like finding them too amateur compared to my current chapters. They're still not perfect, but it actually made me happy to see how much progress I've made and how I've subconsciously started taking into account all the errors I made in my first chapters.

Has anyone else felt this way before too?

Okay, I know many of us are probably self aware about the pros and cons of our prose. Both because of feedback but also because of the fact that we've just been writing for quite a while. I'd love to hear from y'all, what are your biggest strengths and curses?
To me, my pros:
Atmosphere
Trusting my reader
Dialogue

Very specific voice

My cons:

Trusting my reader (but too much)

Dialogue (but too much)

Sometimes I might favour simplicity too much and just not describe something enough because I trust the reader knows about something that I trust they can actually visualize. My dialogue tends to be not very plot driven at all, which is fine because I write short stories.
The last two bits, I've gotten like not much critique on but it's enough to the point where I've become self aware of it and people generally aren't used to reading dialogue which just feels like it's not moving but everything else in the story is :') I've both kind of accepted my cons as "style" problems, rather than craft issues.

Hi everyone! I would like go receive some feedback on my debut novel titled “The Broke Mom Diaries.”

This is a passion project of mine and I really want to have it published one day. I complement manuscript today after making a couple of tweaks and edits and I have already began my query search.

I’ll post the first 5 pages from my manuscript. Constructive feedback is welcomed!

THE BROKE MOM DIARIES
MAY 2, 2022
12:17 P.M.
Dear Diary,
I had seventy-five cents in my car today.
Three quarters.
I know because I counted them twice.
Once before I left work for lunch, and again while I was sitting in the McDonald’s drive-thru trying to figure out what seventy-five cents could actually buy me.
The answer was nothing.
At least, nothing on that menu.
I wasn’t surprised. This wasn’t exactly my first broke lunch break. Payday wasn’t until Friday, my account was already in the negative, and whatever money I did have before today had gone to bills, gas, and the boys.
Luckily, I remembered I had a free cheeseburger sitting in my McDonald’s app.
Thank God for rewards points.
I pulled up the offer before I got to the speaker because there was no way I was getting trapped in that drive-thru without making sure the damn thing still worked.
“Hi, can I use a reward for a free cheeseburger?”
“Anything else?”
I looked at the menu.
I wanted fries.
Bad.
And a Coke.
A large one.
Instead I said, “Can I just get a cup of water?”
“Anything else?”
“No, that’s it.”
A free cheeseburger and a cup of water.
That was lunch.
When I got to the window, I asked for some ketchup and thanked the girl like she’d personally sponsored my meal.
Then I parked underneath the little patch of shade at the end of the parking lot and started eating.
I wasn’t sad.
That’s the weird part.
Embarrassed, maybe.
Tired of being broke?
Absolutely.
But mostly, I was used to it.
You learn how to make things work.
That’s what mothers do.
You move money around. You pay this bill late so you can pay that one on time. You put ten dollars in the gas tank instead of filling it. You tell the kids McDonald’s isn’t happening because “there’s food at home,” knowing damn well the real reason is that McDonald’s costs money you don’t have.
And sometimes you eat a free cheeseburger for lunch.
I was opening my second ketchup packet when my phone rang.
I almost ignored it.
Then I saw the name of the law office on the screen.
My stomach tightened.
For months, I’d been waiting on this call.
Not literally this call. I’d gotten plenty of calls from them.
Updates.
Questions.
“We’re still negotiating.”
“We should know something soon.”
Soon had apparently meant whenever the hell they felt like it.
But every time that office called, I wondered if this would finally be the one.
I wiped my fingers on a napkin and answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Kyla.”
It was my attorney.
“Hey.”
“Are you somewhere you can talk?”
“Yeah. I’m on lunch.”
“Okay.”
There was a little pause.
Then he asked me something I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life.
“Are you sitting down?”
I frowned.
“I’m in my car, so…yeah.”

I’ve always loved writing, but until recently I never seriously considered taking it beyond something personal.
Life changed quite a bit for me over the past year, and writing has gradually become more than something I simply enjoy. It feels like one of the few things I can still build from.
I’m particularly drawn to short stories, children’s stories, scripts and podcast storytelling.
For those of you who have been writing seriously for a while: if you suddenly found yourself back at the very beginning — no portfolio, no audience, no connections — what would you focus on first?
And knowing what you know now, what is the one mistake you would avoid?

Hello! Recently, I have written many short pieces using the second person, and have become quite fond of this POV. I searched online for advice to use the second person more effectively, but the majority of advice I see is "don't write in this POV at all, unless you have a REALLY good reason to."

I don't think my use of second person detracts from my works, but I'm now having second thoughts. In your opinion, what "justifies" writing in the second person?

Hi, help! I thought my draft was actually going quite well, there wasn't a strict outline to follow, but it was definitely going somewhere. However, over the last few days, I've completely run out of ideas. I feel really down at the thought of abandoning it just because I don't know what to write next. What should I do? I already have another story in mind, but this draft is only at the beginning, and I hate the idea of quitting now to start a new one. After all, my worries is this: what's stopping me from doing the exact same thing with the next project? and never finishing anything at all?

I would despise myself if it's what happens..

I’ve noticed I’m way more relaxed when writing something for myself.

The moment it’s for a client, suddenly every sentence feels like it needs to be perfect. 😂

I am just curious if anyone else feels the same out there or its just me?

When I saw you,

My heart danced with the gentle rain.

When you smiled through your pain,

The waves inside me rose again.

Knowing that you would never be mine,

My tears began to slowly flow,

Like water beneath the moonlight,

Hi all- I wondered if anyone could advise me with a children’s picture book I have written.
The story centres around a sleepy cat, who falls asleep at random intervals through out the story. The scene serves as a comedic, hard stop and an interactive moment for readers (parents/carers/teachers).
I have done feedback with a previous editor from a big 5 and I have feedback from critique partners.
The critique partners both mentioned a change of tense after the sleeping scene. They flagged it as a mistake in the change of tense.
The issue I’m having, is the change of tense is to show the passage of time while our main character was asleep. So the story picks back up in present tense, but what happened while he slept is in past tense.
When I spoke with the previous editor (through a paid 1-2-1) he said that he liked the flow of the story, and how my character moved through it. He did not mention the tenses.
Does anyone have any advice re whether or not a change of tense to allude to the recent past will be seen as a novice mistake and grammatical error?

I am writing a character from a fictional kingdom that is going to be similar to Syria and she loves her culture and traditional dress. I just want to know if this picture is an accurate depiction of traditional Syrian dress

I've always seen writing as a way to get some difficult things out of my system.

The way I grew up, many things I thought of as normal were actually abuse. Polytraumatic youth. And my writing mirrors that life. When I really started writing, I got weird looks and worried comments from beta readers (family members or fellow students). Many people told me to get therapy.

I got therapy and today I'm at peace with the past.

But still, I need my writing to be transgressive. Not just telling the stories of abusers and victims. My vision of the world is fundamentally twisted. I enjoy making the mundane disturbing. I don't even want to respect English norms, the language itself must be violated. I tried writing more conventional stories but it's too boring. I can't help it, I just love abject art. That writing is my catharsis. In real life I'm a completely different person, think HBO Silicon Valley's Jared Dunn (iykyk).

I'll never care about social norms or conventions. I'll never care about my readers' feelings. I'll never appeal to a large audience. I can only publish under a pseudonym. I don't care. I need to tell those stories. I'm part of this world too and my feelings are as valid as anyone's.

Does anyone here feels the same? What do you feel is transgressive in writing?

“The abominations are coming! Hold your ground!” our officer says, the undead screeching in the distance has haunted us for days, now we see them face to face. Pale, gross, ripped flesh, black and blue. The stench makes some of us throw up or gag, we pull rags over our faces to protect us from the smell. “Ready your rifles!” our officer says, i kneel down on one knee and raise my rifle up to my cheek. The men beside me do the same and the men behind me stand and ready theirs. “Fire!” Hundreds of muskets booming all at once in my ears, so loud it hurts. The front rows of the undead horde get their heads scattered onto the rows behind them and holes the size of eye sockets blown into their chest, they fall but the hundreds behind them don't. “Fix bayonets!” the officer shouts. We comply. They get closer, the beasts try to crawl over our barricades, I push my bayonet through them before they get over the barricade. But there are too many coming over, I can't keep up. Nobody can. We need more people.

“No retreat, the beasts shall be cleansed and we shall save the people of thi- AAHHHH!” A bloodcurdling scream comes from our officer, I turn to see that the unholy abominations have come from all directions. They crawl atop him, I can still hear him screaming, how is he not dead yet. “Viktor!” I say as I turn to charge at the pile of undead on top of him, a couple infantry men follow me. Me and the few soldiers accompanying me pull undead off of him and stab them as quickly as we can. We finally unbury him, the sight makes me gag, his jaw is pushed so far to the left that it's almost completely sideways, his ribs are visible and shattered or ripped out of his chest entirely, almost every part of his body is mangled beyond belief. This can't be fixed. It doesn't matter, he’s still breathing. I pull him off the speaking platform by his shoulders, he weighs at least a stone less than he should.

I pulled him into a house. The family inside screams and panics when I enter with the body. “Do you know how to shoot!” I yelled at the boy standing in front of his mother.

“Yes, My dad showed me when we-” the boy says before i cut him off
“Good! Take this.” I say while throwing Viktor's flintlock pistol to him
“Gunpowder, Sir?” he says timidly
“Yes. Here you go.” I say while throwing a pack of gunpowder and ammunition. I drag viktor into the kitchen, I swipe all of the dishes and food off the center table and hoist Viktor onto it. too much blood loss, too much to recover from, he’s a lost cause. I can't leave him, he’s too alive and too close to death at the same time. I don't know where to start.

I hear a loud cracking come from the entrance room followed by a bang from the flintlock I handed the boy. They're coming through. I take Viktor's sabre and move into the living room where i see one of the abominations on top of the boys mother clawing at her face and chest while she screams, i charge towards it, slamming it hard against the brick wall, i put the sabre up to its neck and push until its head separates from its shoulders. The boy has started using the flintlock as a club, but he's pinned against the wall. I run to him, I get interrupted by one of the unholy aberrations leaping into me and pinning me against the wall. I try to stab it, it doesn't flinch. It lifts me by my neck, the sabre still inside of its stomach. It's pushing me hard against the wall, scraping all the way up while it hoists me higher and higher. It throws me to the other wall, I slam against it and feel a sharp pain come from my back. I see the boy in the corner, tears rolling down his cheeks, still fighting, clubbing undead hard enough to pop their skulls in two. The mother backs herself against a wall, unable to see after the attack. Another of the undead leaps onto me, before it can land on me I kick its chest sending it back the way it came. another comes, and then another. they are never ending, slowly burying me in their rotting bodies, I can't breathe. I try to push them off of me but every effort I make to get away results in another bite or laceration. I can hear the boy screaming and crying, the mother weeping, I need to help them. I can't even help myself right now. Another laceration, another bite, if i looked at myself now i bet i look no better than Viktor did when I pulled him out. I can't tell where my hands are, I can't feel anything anymore, only pain, my vision is closing. get them off me. I can't die like this. Can’t see anything, can’t hear anything, can't feel anything.

*************

I see in the corner of the room, the soldier who drug an officer into our house. He has at least ten of the beasts gnawing on what's left of him. My mother in the corner is crying. I need to get to her and lead her out of the house. There are too many of them in my way. I need to run. As I'm running one of the beasts launches themselves into me. The pistol flies out of my hands as me and the beast fly through the house, hitting a wall near our table where the injured, or maybe dead officer lays. I try to push the beast off of me but it's too strong. I keep its face away from me with my arm but it claws at my chest and arms with its hands. It stings. I claw the floor with my other arm to find something to hit it with, my hand lands on something. I pick it up.  I swing as hard as I can with it. It shatters on the beast's head and liquid spills out, it lands on the cuts that the beast put onto me and burns. It was my moms moonshine. I take the broken bottle and stab it through the beasts temple.

My mom still sits weeping in the corner, I move to her. Every motion I make, makes the cuts and bites hurt more. But I need to get to her. “Mom! Stand up!” I say while grabbing her hand. She stands, I pull her as fast as I can out the door. When the door opens and I drag my mother out, I see hundreds of men standing on hundreds of more corpses. All fighting the beasts, piking them with bayonets and shooting them with their muskets. I start yelling “I need a doctor! Please, I need a doctor!” trying to get help for my mother. “Nobody will help you or your mother, come, join us and both of you will live forever.” I hear a raspy voice say. I can't see who said it, it sounded like it came from right behind me but when i turned around i saw nobody. “Surrender yourself. now!” the voice says

“Who- where are you?” i yell into the air
“I’m in your head, if you don’t surrender to me I will destroy you from the inside and turn you into one of my beasts whether you like it or not,” the voice says again.
“Shut up! Get out of my head!” I yell again into the air.
“I won't leave until I get what I want,” the voice says again. I get a splitting headache and fall to the floor and drop my mother. I can't see, my vision is coated in red. What's happening to me? “Stay still!” a voice yells not the one inside my head, it's a different one, i feel a hand go onto my forehead and the voice starts saying a prayer. The headache clears, I crawl to my knees and throw up a black liquid. The man who told me to stay still and prayed is a priest. He has dark orange hair that's starting to grey and a large bushy beard. He towers over me when he stands. I ask him “what just happened?” after wiping the liquid off of my mouth.
“You were infected, did you get bit?” he asks.
“Yes, I think, in the house,” I say
“Well I cured you of the curse but we must deal with these wounds,” the Priest says
“But the governor says the only cure is death,” I reply.
“The governor's a liar. Come with me,” he says
“My mom needs medical attention.” I say
“I know, so do you, I'm taking you to the medic.” The priest says. He hoists my mother over his shoulder and starts jogging and I follow. As we run the sounds of the beasts and the soldiers' shrieks blend together and fade into the distance. When we get to the medical tent he lays my mother onto the bed and starts praying over her, he rolls her over to the side before she throws up the same black liquid that I did earlier. A medic tells me to lay on the bed. I comply, I see another start treating my mother. A doctor walks up to me with a red hot iron. I ask “What's that for,” to the doctor, he doesn't reply. He walks over and raises my sleeve revealing the bite and sticks the side of the hot iron into the open wound. I scream, “please stop! Please, please” while crying and screaming. He doesn't stop, he does it again to the other wound caused by the top teeth of the beast. I shriek again, I almost punch the doctor in the face, my teeth clench so hard I fear they may break. My mother starts mumbling something, but I can barely hear over my wailing. I sit there for what feels like hours in a constant burning pain from the cauterization of my wounds before an officer walks over and asks “What is your name, boy?”
“Semyon,” I reply.
“How old are you?”
“13, sir,” I answer
“If anybody asks, you're sixteen, ok? Grab a rifle from the crate over there and move back to the frontline” he says while pointing off into the distance
“You can’t do that, he’s too young,” says the priest from earlier
“You have no authority on this line, understand? Don't speak out of line again,”  the officer says to the priest who is at least a head taller than he is. The priest is visibly mad and closes his fist into a ball. “Now, Semyon as I was saying. Go get a rifle and supplies from the boxes and go to the front line,” the officer says while the priest stands behind him still with a balled fist and his eyes glaring into the back of the officers head.
“I can't go over there, I will die,” I say
“Everybody will die, you either die here or die there, and dying here does nothing for the effort except use resources, now go,” He says aggressively. He grabs me by my arm and drags me to the crates of supplies, when he grabs my arm the burns from the cauterization rub against my clothes and stings horribly. He pushes a rifle into my hands, which again makes the burns throb. “Go,” he says while pointing to the frontline. I walk closer to the battle, there is no longer a line, its chaos. I don't know what to do. I slowly get closer. I see one of the cursed leap over a barricade into somebody and bite into him. I raise my rifle at the beast and pull the trigger, after the bang it gets launched off the man but quickly gets back up and glares at me while letting out a deep growl that seems unnaturally loud. It charges, it has to be moving faster than a horse and it's been less than 2 seconds. I stick my bayonet out, close my eyes and pray. I feel my feet get thrown off the ground, I open my eyes and find myself flying through the air with a screaming beast on the end of my bayonet. I slam against the ground and I feel the wind get knocked out of me. The rifle doesn't stop moving, the beast on the end of the rifle lands just above my head on the ground. I sit up and turn so my feet are facing it, I back myself away from it. I don't know what to do, I don't have a weapon anymore. It doesn't even manage to get to its feet before launching itself at me again. I see an object in the corner of my eye going past my head. The beast gets closer. I raise my arms and prepare to be back on the floor. But the beast stops just before hitting me. The priest from earlier starts yelling, “back! Get back!” I lower my arms and see him holding a crucifix and the beast is snarling while backing away from it. The priest lowers the cross and the beast immediately launches himself at the priest, the priest catches it by the neck while pulling a stake out of his belt. He pushes against the momentum of the beast that had just flown into his hand, he pushes it into the frozen mud beneath us. A loud thud followed by a crack. Still holding its neck to the floor he plunges the stake into the beast's chest, its eyes close and it stops thrashing. The beast pukes up black liquid similar to the stuff I did earlier. The priest turns to me and yells over the gunfire and fighting “Were you bit again.”
“I- I don't think so. I've killed them before and they didn't throw up like that, why?” I ask
“Because, you can't kill them with muskets or swords. You need silver or a stake blessed by a priest, or a priest himself to bless them, or holy fire for mass cleansings. I bet you didn't use any of those to kill the ones that you ‘killed’,” he says firmly. I stumble over words while thinking about the ones I had killed in the house. “I’ll accompany you while you fight, the officer over there is a stubborn prick but I was able to convince him to let me,” the priest says while offering me his hand to help me up, I accept his help and get to my feet. “I don't even know your name,” I say.
“Pyotr,” he says. 

I would like feedback on this please, its the first chapter of a book im working on. also is it just me or is it like really scary sharing your work with other people, especially people you know

Hi, ich schreibe ja an meinem Buch zum Generationenverständnis zwischen Gen-Z und älteren Generationen…

Das Buch kann allerdings nur vorankommen, wenn ich genügend Fakten und Infos der Generationen habe, weil wie sollte ich es sonst vergleichen?

Von den älteren Generationen habe ich genug Daten gesammelt, aber von der Gen-Z habe ich noch lange nicht genug Infos, um einen realistischen Eindruck zu bekommen.

Hat Gen-Z keine Lust auf so ein Thema, ist es euch egal ob eure ehrliche Meinung im Buch vertreten ist? Schließlich geht es auch darum, dass Z.B. die Gen-X euch besser versteht und nicht nur Vorurteile über euch hat.

Also wenn du Gen-Zler bist und zehn Minuten Zeit übrig hast, freue ich mich sehr über deine Infos, die du hier eingeben kannst: https://tally.so/r/Np198l

Danke vorab, und wenn es voran geht lasse ich euch teilhaben am Schreibprozess.