Few things are more frustrating than...

desperately wanting to write and lacking the time for it.

What's even more frustrating is to realise how much I suck as a writer. Not that that is a *new* realisation... But how am I supposed to improve if I never find the time to write? Skill comes with practice, and I don't get enough practice.

Then there's the issue of how good could I actually get, as well. Do I have any talent at all, is there anything worth developing, or am I more or less a hopeless case? Most of my stuff isn't exactly crap, but even the stories I sort of like fall short of what I intended. It's kind of hard to lay a finger on the problem in those cases, though; even harder to try and 'do better next time'.

Frell, I need help. Writing help, that is. I think I'm actually aware of some/most of my problems (lack of flow; lack of plot; cliché; failure to capture characters' voices etc.), but it would still help to be able to discuss them with someone, I think. I need a really good beta. But how could I subject anybody to my odd writing rhythm, the month-long droughts or periods where I simply don't have the time, etc.?

Ah, frell.

Edited to add: This is not meant as a knock against my current betas, Verin and Caz. It's just that Verin is apparently very busy in RL, and anyway is not active in my most important writing fandom, Farscape, and Caz isn't my regular beta but simply offered to give my two latest unbeta'd HL stories a quick beta. What I need, though, is someone to discuss my stuff with in detail, and possibly while I'm still writing.

Then again, that may not help, either. I don't know.

Just testing

To test my LJ-cutting skills, here's a snippet from the fic I'm currently writing:

( Read more... )

And to test my linking skills, here are some interesting people:

ailanreanter is the person I'm sharing my webspace with.

ankae is evil. Hehe.

creatorschilde is a BABE, a christian, and a fanfic writer.

dunkle_feuer is a BABE, a HP slash writer, and has given me a place to stay on several occasions.

elbatsnud is a BABE (do I begin to see a pattern here?), a fic writer, and lives in Germany, too!

forestgreen is my granddaughter. Sort of. (Seen any FS lately???)

melee187 is a maleBABE.

selenak introduced me to Blake's 7. I reciprocated by introducing her to FS.

starryvelvetsky is, you guessed it, a BABE. And a fic writer. And a web design goddess.

veritykindle surprise-friended me, which I only discovered quite a while after the fact! ;-)