Well It Works For Tom

This was posted at BC today


My way of writing (as opposed to writing style) has changed completely since joining Boot Camp. I've discussed this here before: in the past I pondered over every bloody word, wrote and rewrote paragraphs; after a week I'd still be on the introduction and I'd forgotten what it was I wanted to say anyway. It was a negative, unfulfilling way of writing, but I didn't know anything else. I thought that's what you did.

So I came here and found flashes. Read about spontaneity, writing the feeling and so on. Since then I've written what? - 100 stories or shorts? Prior to that what? A dozen, probably.

I've written humour, horror, womag (sorry), literary, surreal, nonsense, poetry, character studies, action stories, even romance. I've covered cross-dressing, cannibalism, deaths of many varieties, suicides (several), murders (a few), fratricides (too few to mention). I've been down wells, up trees, in the mountains, stuck in bed. I've had way too much sex, or none at all, I've eaten too much and fainted from hunger.

Before BC, I only had two voices: humorous and dark. I mostly still do, to be honest, but at least I now know that, and I'm working on it, and I consciously try to write differently. I try to do different stories, in different ways, each time I sit down to write.



All of this is because of, not in spite of BootCamp. I've posted stories on here I would never dare post anywhere else, for two reasons: one, it's anonymous so it doesn't matter; two, because people will crit them as stories, not tell me how and why they offend them personally.

It's probably fair to say that without BC I would have stopped writing by now and found something easier to do. The environment keeps me going, keeps me inspired, makes me work. The learning I get keeps me improving.

D'you know what? I kinda like it here.


Tom C