Just curious about how many of us readers are writers as well....
If you write, what do you write?
I'm a poet of sorts; I've won a few contests, and as a result some of my poems were published in a local newspaper, but I've never been PAID for anything, lol. I put most of my 'stuff' on my blog:
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-u.Ja8I0hdKOge8vMhhHUCaE-?cq=1&p=924

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-u.Ja8I0hdKOge8vMhhHUCaE-?cq=1&p=921

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-u.Ja8I0hdKOge8vMhhHUCaE-?cq=1&p=911

I also have 4 novels 'in the works' but don't anticipate finishing any of them any time soon...

So what about y'all?

I write academically - learned papers (supposedly) for journals and conferences.

I also write screenplays. I've just started on a biopic of Copernicus.

I used to write short stories, but haven't done that for over ten years. Ten years! Yike! Where is the time going?

I write short stories, poetry and am working on a novel which takes place in an alternate-history seven thousand years ago.

I'm afraid that your links aren't working, poettesse.

I like to think I'm a writer. I've completed one historical novel and am working on another.

WOW, look at all the writers! That's really excellent.
Well, I don't know why the darned links aren't working....they work on this end. Anyway....here are a couple of my 'wee poims.'

'Sweet Magnolia Blossom'
(for Mama, with love)

This is a tale of a Belle from the South,
a woman born deep in old Tennessee:
An angelic face with a demon's mouth;
one half Miss Scarlett and one half banshee.
Batting her eyelashes with great appeal,
she'll sweetly tell you of all that you lack,
and you'll be so charmed that you'll hardly feel
that big ole knife sticking out of your back.
Sure she has the might of God on her side,
'tis her duty to put you in your place.
She says "Go to Hell!" There you'll promptly slide
with a beatific smile on your face.
Hands on hips she purrs, "You hear me, young man?"
and meekly God Himself says, "Oh, YES MA'AM!"
============================================
'Vignette'

Through her open window,
the city ventures in:
All of the sights and sounds,
all the virtues and the sins.
Wispy, gauzy curtains
blown inward by the breeze,
ghostly in the darkened room,
seem to whisper 'help her, please.'
Three feet from the window,
still in her narrow bed,
she sleeps the endless sleep,
stained pillow beneath her head.
Too late for any help,
she's gone from pain and doubt,
the city and the room:
death within, and life without.

I am a writer , too. Just sold my first story.
I hope to sell more maybe if ot this year next.
I write science fiction , detective and poems ,
essays been doing it forever it seems .
Well , if your looking for fame and money it's
hard work , it don't come over night .

Banana, welcome aboard!
Keep working, but, and no offense meant here, I hope you pay closer attention to the spelling in your stories than you do in your posts.

Guilty.
Used to work as a copywriter for agencies. Have always written poetry. Have had a couple published in journals and have self published two books. The most recent entitled: "May Contain Traces of Nuts".
Over the past couple of years I've been spending more time on short stories. Goes in fits and bursts. Seem to be much better at starting them than finishing but I keep on putting one sentence after another and hey presto pretty soon I have a paragraph.
Just finished one about a boy who buys a rocket ship which is now sitting tucked in a drawer collecting some distance before I try it on again for size.

Not sure if this is frowned on or not but I wrote this a couple of years ago as a performance piece.

And Peace Will Come

And peace will come like an infection.
Flowing from the underground like a rush hour throng.
Passing from hug to hug, kiss to kiss, Mother to son,
lover to lover, hooker to John.
Spreading from the sheets to the streets. Warming
our bellies and minds with a million meet and greets
at corner shops and office blocks,
elevators and playing fields.
Pressing the flesh passing the cold hard facts
that it is rising; like a fever.
Leaping from body to body, house to house,
city to city, the old world to the new.
Its electric anesthetic will fire down our latitudes,
searing synapses, the truth rising from old platitudes,
from the tattered tees and toothless buttons
resurrected from a million drawers with the scores
of Mitchell and Dylan and the beats. Oh the beat,
the pulse of the street pounding in our veins
until we “Howl” again.

And peace will come like a wave.
Flooding through the holes in your arguments,
scuttling warmongers sending the U.S packing
with its bush between its legs.
Uniforms will be deserted, guns and weapons laid down,
buried for all those who were carried home
draped in flags, fresh from bags.
MPs and PMs down pens, no need for a referendum.
This is the way their world ends.
News flashing from screen to screen,
the truth finally seen with Donovan refrains.
And we’ll all ride that train because this movement
is already in you.
Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, laying down their holy wars.
It’s not about the size of your almighty,
it’s Newtonian Law, we push the world and it pushes back,
with all its weapons of mass destruction.

And peace will come like an exclamation,
a realization that cause and effect aren’t just rhetoric,
it’s the real deal.
And then that shocked inhalation when we turn and see
that last wave come to make our goodbyes,
and a billion voices sigh “Oh Shit!”
before we all rest in peace.

Writer here, too. I'm still struggling to sell something... anything. I've been working for nearly five years and been sending stuff out regularly for about two. I publish an online webzine called If - E - Zine(tm): The Free Online Magazine of Thrilling Speculative Fiction! I'll be celebrating five years on the web with the webzine this August, something I'm somewhat proud of.

Iffy (what I call the webzine for short) is somewhat of a throwback to the pulp era sci fi, horror and hard boiled paper mags. I started it as a way to keep myself in the practice of writing and to promote myself.

I just finished my first full novel last October. It's out to the publishers now. It's a science fiction piece set in a future where technology is outlawed and feared and cyborgs are considered dangerous. Our hero is a cyborg. The novel is called Soar. Please wish me luck with it.

I find the sci fi and publishing industry completely frustrating. It makes one want to quit at times, but I persevere somehow.

If nothing else, I know my stuff is being read on my blog called Atomic Swan Serials. I post every Friday. Generally I post science fiction-related items, but on occasion I'll post a serialized short. I'm even getting readers from China now.

My webzine also has a MySpace Profile. If anyone here also has a profile, feel free to shoot me a message or add me as a friend.

I wish every writer here all the best. As Joseph Campbell once told Bill Moyers, "We are our stories." Keep at it.

Poettesse, like your poem 'Vignette'. The whole poem to me brings a silent great feeling.
I am a writer. I actually think I'm pretty swell. I would consider one of my stories science fiction. It's about this group who are amateur investigators(one though is a paid professional) and go to this crash site on another planet. However, what they don't know is that the crash site is haunted by a ghost!
Here is a piece of writing I'm still working on(it's title may change to):
Night Phenomena
The dark fall night with a far, stark, chill in the air. A light breeze touches my skin, but so very softly, oh but so very softly. So soft that chimes chime without making a chime. A distant owl drones in the soft night."Ho, hoo,ho,hoo,hoo." His innervoice gentle and innocent,'hoos' into the night, but to whom he speaks is the true question. Its essence tells only to the wind. While the wind carries it all across the land. All other activity pays no attention, each doing their own contributation.
"Shhhhh," the wind awakens the trees, bring anxious, silent-swaying faces upon them;knowing it has the efficacy to do so...

I like to think of myself as a writer and poet. I mostly (well, largely) write science fiction, Fantasy and horror (although my attempts at the last are not really scary *laughs*). I still haven't been published as of yet and school (I'm in college full time) is interfering with the writing process. But I'm still trying, so hopefully some time soon *crosses fingers*.

"Was a windless, wetless, dryful, unsunny non-afternoon outside a non-planet where I last met Sheriff Watsisfase. I rather undecided myself to stay put and skeedaddled. Now the sheriff'd be hunting for me for sure, and by the look of the blackening sky I'd have no chance to remain intact if I lingered."

~ The first uncensored paragraph of an unwritten, entitlted: Unentitled

Folks,

I'm a certified safety professional. But I do write a few short stories once or twice a year. I mostly write some stories for a good friend of mine and give them to him as a birthday present.

Best Wishes.

BH

Nard! Sounds like an apophatic narrative.
Reminds me of the Douglas Adams quote, "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."