Why I hate ABCtales

HeY!!!!!! This thread is mine mine mine!!! Nick Hornby et al have enough said about them, already. (Plus he is loaded and his most recent book is shite, take it from me) Abductors. Or are those muscles one is supposed to excersise?

I think the muscles required for these threads are Stormy Pectorals, though I'm not adamant about that, evie.

Arrrrrrrrrr.

soft lad didn't write that last post. He got his teacher to write it after promising to give his hubcaps back to him. Don't know what we'll use for ashtrays now.

I liked it, I liked it. the arrrrr was one of those rolled 'r', Brazilain type exclaimations.

reminds me haven't rolled a Brazilian for ages.

Hi, Evie I'm just as new as you and probably twice as scared. As far as I can work out nobody (definitely not me, anyway) thinks they're any good at this writing thing. For example, Virginia Woolf nearly packed in writing becuase she thought that Marcel Proust was so good she was totally useless by comparison. So my advice, for what it's worth is: Find your own voice, keep trying to improve, don't panic but most of all just write, write and write. When you've finished writing, pick up that pen or switch on that word procesor and start writing all over again. And, without wishing to sound controversial, if Nick Hornby can have international bestsellers and make a total bloody fortune, there's hope for all of us. Don't get me wrong - he's good but he's not that good. And, on a similar tack to Eddie - I'm no Warren Beatty believe me, but that doesn't stop me trying to 'pull' on a Saturday night.

Never mind Nick Hornby (whoever he is), wot abaht J. Archer?

must admit an enormous fondness for nick hornby's novel About A Boy...though the rest of his stuff is a little lacking, i think

I'm with you...I just joined the site, I've seen some awful stuff but also some quite beautiful. It'll take time but I'm aiming for the beautiful and one day it will come, it will for you too.

Hi John and Martin. It's great to see some new people and I can appreciate your tentative feelings. It's a scary old thing laying yourself bare on paper. However, with John's sensitivity and Martin's gentle optimism, you sound like writers in the making to me.

Hi, everyone Andrea, In case you really dont know Nick Hornby, he wrote 'Fever Pitch', 'High Fidelity' (both of which I've read) and 'About a Boy' (which I haven't, so I can't really comment on this one, Robert). I think he's got a new one out round about now but I can't for the life of me think what it's called - something like 'How to be Good.' At least one of these (Fever Pitch) has been made into a movie and if you look at his ratings on the amazon site he always gets 4+ so I guess he must be doing something right. If you knew who Nick was all along, Andrea and were just winding me up, please forgive me for being a patronising old sod. As for dodgy Jeffery A., Lord Mayor of London, not even worth commenting on, is he. On the theme of 'good' and 'bad' writing - who really knows? For example, so far I've posted one poem to ABC and it got cherry picked and to date has been rated by 3 people 5 star. The truth is I did it in five minutes and personally I think it's OK at the best and more than a little over-sentimental. I should say here that most of my writing consists of sending politically incorrect e-mails to my work colleagues and while they all semm too apprecite it I never, but never, think any of it is any good at all. But, to quote Rhett Butler, 'Frankly, I don't give a damn.' As Shakespeare said, via Hamlet I believe, 'Nothing's good or bad but thinking makes it so.' Whatever the Hell that means. And finally, Wolfgirl, thanks for the welcome. I've been called many things in my lifetime, believe me, but I can't ever remember 'sensitive' before. By the way if this is too long for a 'threadline' let me know, will ya, since not only am I new to writing I'm new to all this chatline stuff too. See you all soon and keep chatting. John

Hi John, No probs with the 'long thread' at all (at least not for me. Can't speak, of course, for the rest of the ' disturbed inmates'). And I certainly wasn't 'winding you up' - wouldn't waste my energy. Thanks for the info, therefore. Off to check out your poem...

Dear Evie Not at all - I thought your letter made great reading in itself! Although I'd check things like this: "their a jolly sight better at it than me." they're! ;-) Write from the heart, as you obviously have done here, and persevere, persevere, persevere... Good luck and welcome! Eric PS Have I told you to persevere?

Oh, Evie, I really enjoyed your posting - it made me laugh. It seems you have a fine sense of humour, anyway, something that's often sadly lacking in writing. As Eric says, keep an eye out for the 'their' and 'they're', the 'whose' and 'who's' (did I get that right?) and you'll do just fine... Thrice welcome... ps Your (another one!) 'literary gushings' seem fine to me...

Hi Evie. The good thing about ABCtales is that we all are a little like Bambi when we get here, all shaky legs and timid. Then, slowly you gain a great deal more confidence and before you know it, the words are there. You learn to hold your work up to the world and sometimes take a little bashing but mostly gain a great deal of support and friendly 'faces'. Enjoy.

Hey John, if you admit to feeling scared, that rates as sensitive in man terms. Trust me. Maybe Nick Hornby has rubbed off on you more than you realise (retreats to nuclear fall out bunker to avoid John's anti-Hornby tirade).

There will always be better writers than we will ever be. That is a fact we all have to live with. So what? I will never be Michael Owen but it doesn't stop me kicking a ball. I draw encouragement from an article I read in a previous century. It was an interview with Tennessee Williams in February 1983, only weeks before his death. The interviewer was astounded to find the great man editing 'The Glass Menagerie' decades after it was a smash hit. This is truly uplifting. Even the best are insecure, tentative and doubtful. Only the truly talentless are happy with everything they produce. Keep doubting. Keep writing.

We all once wrote long, descriptive and elegant replies to threads. Then, as life and our beards grew longer, so did we grow weary and shorter. In fact, it is sheer laziness on my part so do not worry one jot. Stream of consciousness is fine. Short, sweet and succinct is just as acceptable. Different strokes chappy, different strokes. I am a bit worried about the beard thing though; do you know where I can purchase some very strong tweezers?