I'm ruined! You've all ruined me!!!

[SimonDoom]

One of the attorney's I work with likes to say the two biggest groups of people in the world are the ones who almost went to law school, and the ones who are going to write a book someday.
Everyone thinks they can do it until they try.

Plus, every lawyer I know thinks they're going to write a book someday.

Some, of course, settle for writing online smut stories.

 

[alohadave]

Plus, every lawyer I know thinks they're going to write a book someday.

Some, of course, settle for writing online smut stories.

I've read some really good books by lawyers. Mostly non-fiction, but still.

"Killer Show" about the Station Nightclub fire was written by one of the lawyers involved, and that affects me still.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I've read some really good books by lawyers. Mostly non-fiction, but still.

"Killer Show" about the Station Nightclub fire was written by one of the lawyers involved, and that affects me still.

I'm tempted to read that, but just watching a couple of short documentaries on it made me not want to go to a concert for awhile.

We've got an attorney who really should write a biography. Some of the partners call him the Forest Gump of Law. He's just ended up adjacent to a bunch of interesting cases by pure chance. He's quiet, unassuming, and super smart.

 

[alohadave]

I'm tempted to read that, but just watching a couple of short documentaries on it made me not want to go to a concert for awhile.

It's fucking heavy.

 

[Curious_2]

Well thank you. Glad to be of service tivya

 

[redgarters]

I hear you. Luckily, the lesbian category has some very, very good writers publishing there, so I haven't been turned off reading here yet, though I have gotten more discerning.

I have similar problems to many here after starting writing for real. I mostly read in the lesbian category now, and second this. I seek out the slow burns there, they have plausible plots and many of them are downright great writing.

 

[SpermBankHoliday]

Writing, I've found, has helped me see more clearly what I like or dislike in a story.
I like a certain level of "stakes", and taking those stakes out of play too quickly makes me roll my eyes and head for the exit. I have a low tolerance for straight-up wish fulfillment.
I generally try to make my stories fun, and if a story strikes me as fun, I'll go along with it, even if it's not a kink that I would write.

This is true in real life too, where I once gave a panhandler a buck because he followed me, in the rain, trying to convince me that he knew me, but couldn't remember where we met, what we were doing there, or my name! And I don't give money to anyone.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I had this driven home to me a few weeks ago. I was perusing my Sci-Fi library looking for something to read and found a book I had read back in the early 80s. I didn't remember much about the plot and since it's a small book, only a couple of hundred pages, I figured it would do to fill the sitting around time that was required of me.

Unfortunately I couldn't make it more than 20 pages into the book. I won't go into a full-blown description but it reminded me of things written by a 6th grader......

Yep. I've got a big collection of sci-fi and fantasy and I'm like that with some of them. I loved Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels when I was in high sschool - I think I have all of them - bit now it's a struggle to get further than the first few pages with any of them.

On the other hand, my husband has a lot of sci-fi, mostly Baen Books and he got me hooked on novels by Tom Kratman and Micheal Z Williamson....strange how it works.

Still, I will always enjoy Robert Heinlein.

 

[iwatchus]

Still, I will always enjoy Robert Heinlein.

I loved Heinlein when I was in HS. Probably my second favorite SF writer at the time (after Sturgeon) But his issues with women comes through too much to me now to enjoy them. I tried reading Doorway into Summer (I think it was at least) maybe a decade ago and never finished it

 

[LegendInMyOwnMind]

I'm a terrible writer and I know it, though some might say I've improved since 2018. That still places me ahead of the 99.9+ percent of the human race who never write anything creative at all. Erotic fiction is an easy genre to write badly, but difficult to write well. I take inspiration as it comes, and never mind being over-the-top or unrealistic, though I don't normally actively seek that.

The emotional catharsis would repay the work of writing, even if I never got a single like. But I have got enough likes to earn some Hs, so maybe I'm not hopeless.

Not bad for a sixty-eight-year-old diabetic stroke survivor with end-stage renal disease who lives in a nursing home. A young female CNA saw me writing my upcoming story, but could not actually see the text; she was too far away. She asked, "What are you writing?" I answered, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

That incident may end up as a story idea, heavily fictionalized.