Action Shero
Alison Carroll, official Lara Croft model
I was discussing this morning with one of my forum co-writers, bringing up ideas for our next story arc, when he said that my character was ‘a stone badass’ and that ‘Samuel L. Jackson could learn a thing or two from her’. And I was buzzed for the rest of the day. I still am, in fact. I’ve never considered action/adventure to be my strong suit in story-crafting, so the whole thing took me by surprise, and elated me more than I thought at the time. (And I haven’t even brought out the big guns and explosives! The scene is about to turn into something out of Die Hard!)
I’ve heard compliments about my writing from other writers there, and some have led to new storylines with them. Sort of carving my own niche and building my own reputation. But it’s my co-writers’ comments that really make my day. There can be a long time without much communication, especially if the story runs smoothly, or we just debate ideas, without much commenting on each other’s writing skills. It shows when one does a good post: it spurs the other to do even better. That’s exactly how I’ve been improving my writing (and there’s a very noticeable improvement, over the last seven months): by accepting challenges to write with people at least as good as myself, and match them, post for post. It makes for some pretty exhilarating exchanges.
Am I even making sense here?
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