Greetings from the other side of the fence...

Hello everyone...

I am an aspiring Sci Fi author, and Neuroscience Researcher/Student. I've written lots of behavioural/POV analysis on altered states of consciousness in the past; including phenomenology of anaesthetic dissociation, lucid dreaming, temporal lobe seizure/sleep parasomnia and psychedelic hallucination. Over time I decided to "jump rails" as it were; and write a fiction manuscript of my own. That has been the past 12 months of my life, while my supervisor has increasingly despaired about my deteriorating focus

Well, that's too late to take back. I can only hope the finished product (120,000 words; my fourth draft) has made the sacrifice worth it. I'm planning to publish on Amazon/Kindle soon.

I've come here, in the hopes of taking my writing to the next level. I feel like I've hit something of a plateau; and that there are invisible weaknesses to my work that I am constantly banging my head against the wall to see, and simply not seeing.

That's the short version
I'll be sticking around till I hit the magic 50 post mark, and then we can all find out whether this project of mine has been worth all the hours!

J

Thanks for all the welcomes!

Most of my better writing is yet to be released, or will be some years off, such is the slow pace or research and publishing.

I put this out earlier in the year. Quite technical but good if you are interested in vision/hallucination.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00089/full

metahead said:

I have written a lot but I don't think a single thing I've done ever reach that many words. I can't imagine doing that either. I always like to write the least amount of them.

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I was originally aiming for 60-80k, but it really exploded once I started writing

I think I got really inspired by the writing in "The Sopranos": every episode is essentially a self-contained, 1 hour mini-movie that coheres with the whole (series) while also cohering with itself.
So when I started a chapter, it never followed the plan I set for it. It just kinda wrote out its own little story, that maybe described 1/3 of what I needed it to, to advance the plot, then ended itself somewhere around the 3-5k mark.

Up side: I could email you a random chapter right now, and it should theoretically be quite readable.
Down side: word count explosion

Eviora said:

Your background seems super compelling! I bet you know a lot that would interest me. I write more fantasy than sci-fi, but if you want, I'd totes be willing to take a look at some of your work, tell you what I think, and see whether I can put my finger on that invisible weakness!

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Thanks! I'd happily read/review anything you've written in return.

Perhaps it gets a bit technical (or even philosophical) but my MS also has some fantasy elements too, nested deep between the lines. So maybe it won't be so raw? A Wizard of Earthsea played a very major influence.
Anyway, PM me with your email address and preferred format (.mobi or PDF) and I'll send you the latest re-write.

Cheers

J

tenuki said:

OMG, I know this feeling well!!! If you figure out how to get rid of it let me know. I hate it.

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Hahah! Yeah, getting criticism from others is basically the only thing that does it.

There's a delay effect... a few days (or weeks) later it mysteriously sinks in, and you notice it yourself on a re-read.

The problem is getting constructive/appropriate criticism in the first place. Analysing somebody else's work applies a certain creative burden that many people are simply not up for.

P.K. Torrens said:

I also come from a medical/bio sciences background (and New Zealand). I would love to beta read swap with you.

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Lets do it! I'll PM you

Keen to get a critique from somebody a bit more specialised in the bio, actually. I refer to epigenetics quite a bit. But it's been years since I studied it.