How many members are writers?

[Amanita]

I'm a sometimes-writer who deals in fiction- Urban Fantasy, to be exact. I do mainly shorter stories, but want to build up to something longer.

[Bijou]

I love to write, but only seem to do it when I am taking a creative writing class.  Then I am all consumed by it.  The instructors, classmates and others who have read my work seem to like it, and sometimes I feel I have hit the nail on the head.  I have no plans at the present to submit anything for publication, but I will leave my kids a lot of stuff to read.

[Amara]

I ran a literary website (book reviews, essays, interviews, op-ed pieces, literary humor, etc.) for eight years with a managing editor and up to ten writers. But it took so much time and energy I shut it down at the beginning of 2013.

Right now, I don't want to write. I need a break. But there might be two specialized writing opportunities coming out of it--we are in talks now for the future. I also have two books--a historical thriller and a cat humor book--in embryo; we'll see if I do anything with them. Plus, I am considering joining up with a friend to develop humorous greeting cards that focus on two separate subjects: cats and women.

[White Dragon]

I've been writing off and on since I was a teen and did newsletters for various organizations that I was involved with.

I took an online program called "Writing for Publication" which was a series of courses done over time. Finished last fall (with honors!).

The program covered pitching your work and I ended up with an article published in a magazine as the result.
I currently do technical writing for my job and find I quite enjoy it.

I've got a youth novel idea that I've been working on for a while, but I'm afraid the genre may be overloaded so I'm not sure I'll finish it.

[RebeccainGA]

I'm working on a non-fiction how-to sort of book for families of long term hospital patients - based on the hard won knowledge from my DP's five month stay in 2011.

I've also got a fictionalized book about my first two roommates, or why they were my LAST two roommates, knocking around in my head. It may make it to paper some day.

I used to write horrible short stories, and worse poetry. Luckily, none of it has seen the light of day since I graduated high school.

[stitchygreyanonymouse]

I have a few different blogs of varying types (and various update schedules or lack thereof). I also get paid to write web content on occasion for businesses, have edited quite a few college publications in the past, and may eventually attempt a book.

While I may only get paid for a small portion of what I do write and doubt I’d ever make a living at writing, I can’t imagine not writing things. Thank goodness for blogs! (And eHell

[prairie_dances]

I published a non-fiction history book last year. I had to do a proposal with the publisher and then a draft once that was approved. I'm slowly trying to write a YA fiction book but to be honest I'd much rather read fiction books that write them. I'm terrible with stretching the story out past a few dozen pages. I also write film reviews.

Good to see so many writers here

[readingchick]

I also write; I'm a member of a writers' group at my local library and we do short pieces (next month the assignment is to imagine we own a candy store and we are to do a freewrite that includes an idiom). Great to see I'm in good company!

[Lynn2000]

I've been writing since I was a little kid. I do fanfic and original stories--lots of short stories in each universe, that go in chronological order and include character development over time, but which are each self-contained plots. I do not comprehend how people can write an actual novel with hundreds of pages! I've written two or three things that were eventually pretty long, but even so they were (in my mind) more like a series of short stories that happened to take place in quick succession.

I've never put any of them "out there" for people to read. I'm very sensitive to criticism; and I very much enjoy reading my own writing, so really I'm doing it just for me to have stuff to read later. The only other person who reads my stuff is my mom, because she understands she's not supposed to say anything bad about it. It's just not fair to ask that of other people.

I also write non-fiction in terms of book reviews/reactions, reviews of my own stories, long essays/plans for fictional worlds I want to create, etc.. I used to write in my journal a lot (filled up several of them), but I haven't done that as much for the last few years. Technically I'm a published author for some academic stuff at work, but I don't even count that because in no way is it creative or artful (IMO). I do a lot of proofreading and editing of other people's stuff at work.

Since I'm writing just for myself I don't have deadlines, which I think makes writing enjoyable rather than a chore. If I get stuck on one story I can just put it aside and work on another. I think I have about nine going at the moment; I usually write some every day. It can take discipline to sit down and start writing, and to stay there long enough to accomplish something--I'm easily distracted and I always end up putting my writing off to get other stuff done. If there's anything frustrating about it for me, it's that I wish I had more time to do it.

Also, I wish I had some elves who would magically type up everything that I write by hand--I have a huge backlog of stuff I want to get digitized. Not to threadjack, but does anyone have any suggestions for OCR software that's good with handwriting? It all seems to be geared towards typeset things like newspapers and books.

[Morrigan]

I self-published a paranormal fantasy, and I (obviously) write a blog - that's linked in my sig.

[Slartibartfast]

Um, FYI, I was under the impression that erotica was not to be mentioned in the EH forums because those who admit they write it are not welcome here?

http://www.etiquettehell.com/smf/index.php?topic=107408.90

There's a HUGE difference between porn, erotica, and erotic romance - but it sounds to me like Miss Jeanne mostly objects to people bringing drama here, not that they write about adult content.

My only published work so far has been grammar workbooks (which aren't even available in the US) and one short piece of erotica, but I'm working on a steampunk-set romance.  I suppose some would say "erotic romance" since there are a few explicit scenes, but since I'm not done yet I guess it's moot 

[CrochetFanatic]

Another writer here, though I don't do much writing anymore.  I wrote a fantasy novel in High School (started it at 15, finished it at 17), but it was bad.  It was good practice, but it can't be salvaged at all.  I still have the filled notebooks, though.  You never know when an idea might come in handy!

I mainly write (wrote?) fanfiction, but real life and an interest in RP intervened, and I haven't done much actual writing lately.  When I received no reviews for the last two chapters/stories, I wasn't exactly encouraged to continue.  It's hard to get reviews in a topic that isn't very popular! 

It seems that the writing quality of Fanfiction.net has gone down dramatically, though.  Either that, or I just notice it more because I'm older now.

Most of my stories are unfinished, which is why I try to just write one-shots.  I'd like to keep some anonymity, though, so I'm not giving my pen name here. 

[Kimblee]

I write (well, wrote, I've updated a story maybe three times in the last year) fanfiction, and now am working towards something publishable.

Which mostly means I write a lot, but have never finished anything non-fanfiction and have no idea what I'll do with a finished work if I ever manage one.

But I enjoy it, and it gives me something to do with my strange thoughts.

[LifeOnPluto]

Very timely thread!

I've kept a personal blog since 2004, but am now planning on giving it up (or at least, pulling back on it) and starting up a new blog, aimed at aspiring writers.

I also write short stories and send them into competitions. I haven't won anything yet, but have been shortlisted.

I've also had a crack at NaNoWriMo for the last three years, but failed to meet the 50,000 word target. But I haven't given up on it yet.

[Bandu]

I'm a lurker on this forum for the most part, but I'll chime in on this one.

I've been writing for publication since 1980. Started as a humor columnist and feature writer for the weekly alternative newspaper in Austin, Texas. Drifted into small-town newspapering when I had to get out of Austin's explosive growth and all that entailed. Worked my way up a small chain of weeklies/semi-weeklies and ended up writing a weekly column for a small group of papers.

Moved overseas to work at an English-language daily newspaper as an editor and teacher of raw talent. Then went into freelance writing of anything and everything--travel, features, copy for car dealers, you name it--to pay for my shack on the beach. I was dirt poor, but wow, having a coral reef in my backyard is a goooooood way to live!

Came back to the mainland several years ago to be with aging parents, and went back to small-town newspapers. Now I run the editorial side of a thrice-weekly paper in a town of 8,000, covering school board, city council, kids learning to fish, car wrecks, murders, homecoming queens, and anything else one could imagine.

I didn't even consider writing ANYTHING until I was 23. Being paid to do so still delights me, and I'm 55 now.