Quill and Ink Corner: A writing thread for the Cobbies.

Bound collections?

That's rather iffy when it comes to fanfiction, and the only stories I know of that have succeeded in such an endevour are orders of magnitude more popular than I.

Hmmm. Character cameos perhaps? A simple character who is more then background but not important enough to be one of the big characters. Or perhaps find someone who is willing to work with you for a fraction of the donations to make some custom artwork prints. Or you could enlist the services of 3d printer services and have someone help you drum up character maquettes.

Ok after spending time faffing about with fictional distractions namely reading the various books in the dune series and some gaming stuff I am back to writing.

Personally, I'd skip over trying to monetize fanfiction at all.

I sound like such a hardass when evaluating other people's writing. I should try being a critic.

Lol. You could be a lady Siskel or Ebert.

but how does one actually get paid to watch/read things to give opinions on, and where would i find the time in between writing my own stuff and being an actress?

edited 19th Aug '14 8:56:37 AM by Leradny

Whoo!

I love looking at my number stats on fanfic.net, usually to try and catch when I hit crazy coincidences, like palindromes or even numbers. I hit the jackpot on that tonight - my most popular story I managed to catch it sitting at exactly 400,000 views. I even took a screenshot for me to remember it.

Squee!

Damn, man, the best I ever got is 30,000. Damn.

I decided to set a goal.

I'm going to publish my novel before the end of this year (as in, my junior year of college). I wrote two novels. It's damn time I actually publish one.

Start mailing query letters to your list of agents. And good luck.

I wrote the first scene of a story and I feel great about it! This is the first time I've written anything in months. The project is intended to be a movie script, but I wrote this first scene in prose because habit. It's an affectionate sendup of Diana Wynne Jones, mostly, but with a few references to The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho and Madeleine L'Engle..

Go to Bed Hungry: Thursday has served an alchemist for three years and three months. Her good performance gives her no reason to doubt a successful release from her contract... until the alchemist says that she will die, and gives her a year to break the curse.

First paragraph, edited by me:

I had the idea of submitting 'Go to Bed Hungry' to the same site I submitted my Western story, Wild Red Bird, but then I realized I would probably have to continue writing Wild Red Bird. I've put it down for a year two years! I'll have to make a new outline and find my research sites and everything.

edited 1st Sep '14 9:48:26 PM by Leradny

Digging up writing from a bone yard is never fun. I got rid of my bone yards a while back after leafing through them and gong UG!

Pretty soon I'll be helping turn this into a true-crime novel.

For those of you who don't know...the victim being discussed is my uncle. My grandfather has asked me to help him turn his quest for justice into a book. I'm a little nervous about it, seeing as its a situation that's caused no end of grief in my father's side of the family.

Also, I'm feeling a little conflicted about this. On the one hand I like the idea of putting the story out there - I like the idea of getting the story out there. But on the other hand it is a touchy subject for my father and his brothers...there are reasons. In other words I'm stepping into a familial minefield with this one.

Its weird. As a writer I'm not used to being in the position where I'm asking myself "should I tell this story?" Not looking for advice or answers, just commenting on the strangeness of the situation.

Drunk: Do your best and may your bs cutting blade be sharp.

This is the latest info because I was curious about his efforts dunno if you have seen this yet How far has this gotten in more recent years?

I'm kind of sold on his view that it was murder.

edited 12th Sep '14 8:39:16 PM by TuefelHundenIV

I've seen it. the article ran in print a few years ago. And yes, most people who have looked at the evidence agree that my uncle was murdered. At this point the agencies involved in ruling his death a suicide are really just waiting for my grandfather to die.

Which is one of the reasons I want to be involved in writing this book; The people who maligned my uncle might change their tune if they knew this was a family issue rather than one man's obsession.

Slight problem...my grandfather's quest hasn't sat well with his other sons, one of whom is my dad. His quest took time away from other aspects of his life...like being a father to his still-living sons. Again, one of whom is my dad.

Now, my father has been the most forgiving of his father's obsession with proving that my uncle Michael didn't kill himself. But, there are four other uncles I've got who are not so forgiving.

So yeah. Complicated situation is complicated.

edited 12th Sep '14 9:02:58 PM by drunkscriblerian

If you do it best of luck to you. You know we are rooting for you here on tropes.

I just finished reading a rather large packet of information my grandfather sent me on the case. It gets very messed up in places.

Example: The Monroe County police investigated the scene of my uncle's death for about fifteen minutes and took two photographs before they cut his body down. Granted this was 1960, but that's still some shit-tastic police work. In later reports, Construction workers who were showing up for their shifts remarked it odd that things were being done so quickly. Who did they remark this to?

Air Force investigators. Remember, my uncle was in the military when he died and that means the military was at least mildly curious as to how he died. The Air Force's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) did their own poking-about into how my uncle met his end. They interviewed a bunch of people, looked at the evidence (such as it was) collected by police and came to the following conclusion...

"There is reasonable possibility that the death might not be suicidal, and if the death appears to be from foul play we have a reasonable suspect."

Now, my grandfather took his case to court a year after my uncle died...this would have been in 1961. The court denied his request to have the case re-examined, because the court could find no evidence-based reason to do so. Did my grandfather have access to the Air Force's findings? Not so much. Reason; the Air Force was under no obligation to give him that information, so they didn't.

He didn't even learn that there was an OSI investigation until 1968, two years after the Freedom of Information Act had been made law and he requested his son's file from the Air Force.

The real turd in this shit-sandwich; though the OSI concluded that my uncle's death was probably due to foul play, said organization was a fact-finding agency only...they had no authority to arrest or prosecute anybody. All they could do was pass their findings on to the civilian authorities (the Monroe County police and coroners) who apparently circular-filed them, because they didn't want to admit they might have made a mistake.

Can we say "bureaucracy sucks"? Yeah, I think we can...

Drunk: Wow that is a big soggy shit sandwich. I can see why it might drive someone to obsession. I am certain my own father would have done nothing less if such a suspicious fate befell one of his three sons. Then again there is also a good chance he wouldn't wait for the bureaucracy to act and a corn field in Iowa would gain a little extra fertilizer. Have I mentioned my father actually on rare occasion scares the shit out of me?

Anyways side thought aside do your best and it should work out. Mind the family land mines.

edited 13th Sep '14 12:42:50 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Oh, it gets better.

The police report stated that my uncle died of "a broken neck due to a self-inflicted hanging". But apparently the Air Force conducted an autopsy before my uncle was buried (note: don't ask me how this occurred without my grandfather's consent...again this was 1960).

Guess what: No broken neck. His vertebrae were intact. The Air Force's conclusion; my uncle died of strangulation.

Now, the cops found him hanging from a rope tied on a piece of scaffolding fifteen feet from the ground. The cops postulated that he tied the rope to the scaffolding, put the noose around his neck and jumped.

Yeah, I don't buy it either.

Furthermore, they found his body in a construction site. The ground in the immediate area was muddy and churned up from all the work. Both photos taken of his corpse show that his shoes were regulation-polished...as in, shiny and clean. So to hang himself my uncle would have had to walk through a couple hundred feet of construction site, climb a scaffold and secure a rope, all without scuffing his shoes. Again, I ain't buying it.

I don't buy that either. Once they took out the broken neck bit that was game over for what little feasibility the suicide statement had. As for the autopsy part he was a member of the US Military that gives them a lot of lee way to do things without asking in many cases. Not 100% on that but the military gets away with a lot because how the laws work regarding the military and it's personnel dead or alive.

Sounds like a case of workcanstuffoffitis... or "we've been paid/ encouraged to turn a blind eye".

edited 13th Sep '14 11:37:11 AM by Euodiachloris

Actually Euo, as far as I can see it was more a case of "oh noes, my respectability!"

As far as my grandfather has been able to uncover, the basic reason for my uncle's murder was this; he stumbled on his two roommates having homosexual relations. Now bear in mind this was 1960...homosexuality was viewed as "deviant behavior" and according to Air Force regulations anyone engaging in it would get a dishonorable discharge. Worse, anyone who knew about such behavior and failed to report it would also get a dishonorable discharge.

My grandfather's theory; my uncle found out about his roommate's activities and went to his language professor for guidance on the matter. (Note: it has been established that Michael and his professor did have a conversation before his death but what exactly was talked about between them remains a mystery.) The problem; in the years since my uncle's death it has been established that his language professor was also gay. So the professor panicked, said something to the students involved and somewhere along the way there was a conspiracy to murder my uncle.

Furthermore one of my uncle's roommates was described by people who knew him as "a sick-minded individual"; he liked to talk about famous murders in graphic detail and according to testimony had once said while drunk that "If I had to kill somebody, I know just how I'd do it".

As to why the case got covered up...my theory is none of the bureaucracies involved (the University of Indiana, the Bloomington police, the Air Force) wanted to admit any complicity in the "social deviancy" that led to my uncle's demise...kinda like how college campuses don't want to admit there's a serious problem with date-rape today.

Reputations matter. Both individuals and organizations will go to great lengths to protect them.

It certainly sounds like it would make a great story. Is it going to involve your same heroine or not?

@Blue: Oh no, this will be a true-crime book. In fact my grandfather fired the previous writer he was working with for trying to embellish the facts too much.

Ah well. It might still be good, but I don't normally read true crime books.

In other news, my most popular story has now cracked 1000 favorites.