I was sitting here at my computer as usual, and I suddenly felt like, "Gee, I want to write something!" Not an unusual feeling for me, I am a writer after all. So I looked at my 3 current writing projects (Bad habit of mine - you write better if you only work on one thing at a time. On the other hand, writing nothing because you don''t feel like working on your designated ''current project'' is worse.). I was looking at these files, and I realized, "Well, yes I want to write. Rather eagerly, actually. But I don''t want to write _this_." The obvious next question being, "Well, what''s wrong with this, and what _would_ I like to write? Are there different kinds of urges to write, that writing something will satisfy your urge one day but not the next?" IMO, a good analogy for the urge to write is hunger, specifically cravings that you get when you run short on this vitamin or that mineral. Of course there are habitual cravings too - all my friends know that if you want to bribe me you just have to show up with salt and vinegar chips or eclairs. ^_~ So I, personally, always hunger to write science fiction, usually hunger to write romance, and sometimes hunger to write about particular motifs or atmospheres or character dynamics. Now, here''s where things become complicated. How do you make sure that you have the right sort of writing project for your hunger, or the right sort of hunger for your story project? Various writers throughout history have discovered that if they live like hermits (deprive themselves of the ''vitamin'' of socialization, if you will), they have move desire to write. It is documented fact that lonely people, particularly those in a look-but-don''t-touch situation, tend to write romances. Reading or hearing something that disturbs you will often result in writing something either directly or inversely related to the cause of your disturbance. Writers in general tend to write wish-fullfillment - they create fiction that will vicariously give their characters an experience the writer would like to have. Okay enough theory, back to me sitting, stymied, at my computer. I think over the dreams I''ve had recently; dreams are a great source of writing ideas, because your subconscious must be really interested in something to go to all the effort of making you dream about it. I sort through my files of old and half-finished stories; sometimes you''ll look at something years later and figure out what you were doing wrong to foul up the project the first time around, or you will see some element that still interests you and can be an ingredient in a new story recipe. (I agree 100% with all those writing teachers who tell you never to throw anything away and always backup your files!) So, I pick out the old writing project that most catches my attention. I write a few paragraphs where I left off, but I stop because I can feel something''s not quite write. I think of the most narratively interesting dream I''ve had in the past few months, and I realize -the old writing project and the dream are about the same thing! Now we''re getting somewhere! They''re not quite the same story, of course. Both of them feature dragon-like aliens, but that''s just my subconscious'' default kind of alien, and largely irrelevant. (Yes I know, I have a wierd brain. ) Both are romances, but then so are the other projects I wasn''t satisfied to work on - what makes this one any different? The characters? In both of these ideas one of the characters is a member of a minority subspiecies who feels alienates from the mainstream of his culture, and the other character is an outsider who is adapting to this culture - that''s probably important. I can feel that idea resonate in my mind, if you know what I mean, always a sure sign that it will be easy and interesting to write about. Both of these ideas have a futuristic setting, whereas two of my current projects have been frustrating me specifically because they have early medieval settings, which I find rather limiting. But then, the third unsatisfying current project has a futuristic setting almost identical to those of the two ideas, so what''s wrong here? Pondering this for a while, I decide that the third current project is unsatisfying because its character dynamic isn''t dramatic enough, and the details of the characters don''t catch my imagination/empathy/attraction/whatever enough. So now the question is, do I try to rework the current project, or do I try to start a new projeect? The rework would be really a lot of effort because I would have to change fundamental things, and for a new project I don''t have enough ideas yet, particularly I would need to think of a plot, which is always the hard part for me. So, thus concludes my little journal entry masquerading as a post. Anyone have any advice or thoughts about any of this?

I like writing poetry, and as an added challenge, following a strict format. I also like writing new components to my engine :D

Join the World Wide Revolution:

Reworking an old work ?
yuk...
I cant stand the idea, myself.
I keep everything precisely as a reminder of my progress. It''s useful in down times to remind myself that even though I might not be steaming with new ideas, at least I get better.
I do this mostly for Art stuff, but it''s the same with all my written works. It''s nice to see the same kind of idea being prefected over the years.
I dont really like reworking something as such, but incorporating elements of past works into new ones is part of my creative process.
It''s all something to do with brewing process if you will The older the idea, the deeper its taste becomes

As for limitations, well, the best way I know (in Arts that, is. I am no writer as such) is to precisely work with them.
I never really like people giving me a restricted environment to work with.
But for some reason (pure stubborness, I would guess), it''s in those exercises that I had the best craic, as I would happily trample the expectations of everybody and still respect the limitations.

If you want a good analogy, think of it as drawing with only black and white as opposed to using a full palette. By restricting a particular thing (in this case the use of colour), you get a better appreciation of its importance, and end up being more careful about their future use.
Less is better, as you say.

Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Hehe I know the feeling of having something you must complete and then you come up with this greeat plot which just got to write and then the "must complete" work falls behind.

Damn I really have this problem of not completing things, I write half books and then I store them in the closet in a box and then I bring them out sometimes and try to finish one of them, but it rarely finishes.

I think I even know the problem, I tend to write to much which after a while makes it impossible to complete because I drained all the energy on the first 100 or 200 pages.. So now I''m turning to short stories, hmm seemed funny, but they are a lot easier to complete, at least for me

Now I havn''t written in a week because havn''t got the time for all the programming, webdesign, and on top of all studies, cycling, girlfriend, gaah all I want to is write! At least for an hour or so )

Wonder why I wrote all this, well felt like I had to get it off my chest I wish I could write sci-fi but I just can''t, having a lack of imagination I quess. Mostly writing criminal and police plots and sometimes historical plots (not very often).

Well take care!

//Daniel

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
Bad habit of mine - you write better if you only work on one thing at a time.

But it's a good thing from a creative POV to compose a lot, your brain isn't going to let focus interfere with lateral thinking processes. I'd say this is a perfectly good natural thing, and you'll find it's actually good for you.

quote:
Are there different kinds of urges to write, that writing something will satisfy your urge one day but not the next?

Absolutely. The one thing I find constantly amongst the creative kind of human is the same thing I find amongst any other human being: diversity. We eat different things, take interest in different things, engage in different ways. This pattern extends to the higher cognitive functions almost as if it were natural. Hmmm.

I find that when I am working in genres quite diverse from each other, a historical work here, a near future sci fi there, etc., that a good contemporary work is a great pit stop, and these are all interchangeable.

quote:
So I, personally, always hunger to write science fiction, usually hunger to write romance, and sometimes hunger to write about particular motifs or atmospheres or character dynamics.

Until you have become a master artist in your discipline after having worked in it for at least twenty years (a well documented standard and springboard), this will often be the modus operandi. As for my last two decades, I just keep a highly organized database to drop into it's appropriate category when it comes out on the paper.

This is a great tool for managing multiple projects, which you are going to produce anyway, and works more harmoniously with how we actually produce our content creatively. The fine balance here is that you still have to get individual projects produced, but with this design, I never stress over what to write this or that, I just simply go with whatever is on the TOMA. This is not a marketing term exclusively.

Imagine it as if you were a painter. Almost inevitably, you are going to compose the scale of the composition, choose it's light sources and shadows, colors and tones of color. These things do not come in rigid order compositionally. Sometimes you have to look at the blank canvas awhile, sometimes you have to erase half the lines you already laid down. Sometimes the story emerges whole, sometimes partial, sometimes indirectly through another representation in an entirely different project.

quote:
How do you make sure that you have the right sort of writing project for your hunger, or the right sort of hunger for your story project?

The magic word here is choice. Choices are well thought out decisions about partially discernable areas called passion and discovery. I couldn't live with myself over losing something good, even if it came to me in the middle of another project (and that will happen), so I designed a capture method that creates the least resistance to generating anything.

Part of the choice is confronting the hunger itself. To extend the metaphore you have chosen, do you want steak or tomatoes, asparagus or blueberries? Each of these desires or passions means something to us or we wouldn't be considering them. Your job as a creator is to know yourself well enough to filter the choices down to what represents significance, meaning and process progression to you. Otherwise, you'll be ten or twelve thousand words into something, and you'll be saying to yourself, "OMG, I could have figured this whole thing out much faster with another format of representation, and I should have been working on this other thing because this was just an exercise in mental masturbation." Those will happen -- try to confine them to the awards ceremonies.

It has been said that any artistic expression, no matter how sublime or grotesque, is merely an attempt to attract a desireable member of the targeted sex. While I am not about to authoritatively usurp PBS (heh), I will say that it's a lot simpler than you think to make these choices, and complication is not infinite in design or in awareness.

quote:
Various writers throughout history have discovered that if they live like hermits (deprive themselves of the 'vitamin' of socialization, if you will), they have move desire to write. It is documented fact that lonely people, particularly those in a look-but-don't-touch situation, tend to write romances.

I think this is more attributable to the fact that 90 percent of all creative acts occur in solitude and not in collaberation. So it's environmental perhaps more than it is individuated self actualization. This is the great trap in good art, it runs the show, not you, and you simply have to have the tools ready and the motivation present to look out over the mindscape and say, "Gosh, this story is sprouting, I'd better work on this now, and then, five seconds later, this story is moving, I'd better work on this now." This is the way the mind works creatively, and it is better to adjust to how the deal is than to try to change the deal to your terms and enjoy diminishing returns.

Better to create a sein that captures all of the muse droppings that to build a gilded net of barely significant size. In my experience of witnessing hundreds of creative carreers come and go, the number one reason why ppl give up and go get an income is that they think they have control over the process, and they extrude content out of their realities often in great pain (the suffer myth) because they thought they were intelligent or creative enough to make the process bend to their wills, or perceptions of how it ought to be.

These are fools, obviously, and we see the roadsides littered with the carcassers of one-hit wunderkinds who never quite get it back, though they will do everything they can to demonstrate they never lost it and are as good as ever.


I call this personal papal procession thinking -- they thought they were the center of the creative solar system.

quote:
Reading or hearing something that disturbs you will often result in writing something either directly or inversely related to the cause of your disturbance.

This is cause and effect, and more than one solitary confinement artist will appreciate the fact they put strict limits on their stimuli because of how dramatically their work can be effected.

quote:
Writers in general tend to write wish-fullfillment - they create fiction that will vicariously give their characters an experience the writer would like to have.

I don't buy that the suspension of disbelief is for authors only, it's for the audience. Those are the people we work for. Unless you are of the camp that doesn't believe nobody ever wrote for fortune or fame. Everyone does. It just a question of whom you were trying to be famous for, your own self perception or the public?

I am often amazed by how much amazingly rewarding and satisfying creative lifetime gets passed over because we were afraid to give up control. In Da Vinci's advice to artists, we learn just how much of the playing area the pawn gets to see.

quote:
I think over the dreams I've had recently; dreams are a great source of writing ideas.

They are more than that. Dreams are your method of personally processing archetypal relationships to yourself. Dreams are how your subconscious (and let's clear up another myth while we are at it; the subconscious mind is nine times smarter than your waking consciousness and it is actually running the show) communicates complex ideas to you in the form of symbology, symbology being the tool one uses to communicate complex ideas to you in a simple single form, the symbol.

Having dream journaled for years in my early twenties to early thirties, I began realizing that I was (waking or asleep) working out how I saw thing (simple or complex), and once your frame of reference rules in sufficient perceptions, your number, fantasticism and intimacy of dreams drops off significantly, but never entirely disappears.

Your mind is so powerful that you can ask it to do amazing things during the night to solve story problems (after all, let's stick to the fact; creativity is problem solving) that you would never seriously consider during waking moments, yet it is these extraordinary efforts that are required to produce significant and original work. This doesn't mean you sit around in focusing chant parlors all day, it means your ready to catch and advance to the next base when you throw yourself the forward gaining pass.

quote:
Because your subconscious must be really interested in something to go to all the effort of making you dream about it.

The catch here is that it disagrees with you sometimes about the validity of an approach, idea or technique, and presto, doubt and denial pop up, and the project never manifests itself because you qualified it rationally and killed it before it got legs. The blue pencil is always for later. We are more than adept at rational and analysis, the opposite, lack of judgment and giving up control are what is seminally important.

quote:
So, I pick out the old writing project that most catches my attention. I write a few paragraphs where I left off, but I stop because I can feel something's not quite write.

I did this for years. I cleared up the problem by determining if I had come up with the content to address something I was working out for myself or for my audience. It's a key separation tool when choosing what to move forward with.

Hemmingway rightly tells us that great writing comes from great experience. If you know yourself, trust your creative machinery, and can quickly distinguish what you produced to help you make sense out of something was intended for your own personal or creative growth, and what was intended for your public self (the submission or presentation final draft), then you have ninety percent of the game won. Figuring the market is the rest of the battle. It's what publishers and producers are figuring on, and it represents your common dialogue when selling the work.

quote:
I think of the most narratively interesting dream I've had in the past few months, and I realize -the old writing project and the dream are about the same thing!

Nice. It's about connections, this path to realization.

quote:
Now we're getting somewhere! They're not quite the same story, of course. Both of them feature dragon-like aliens, but that's just my subconscious' default kind of alien, and largely irrelevant. (Yes I know, I have a wierd brain. ) Both are romances, but then so are the other projects I wasn't satisfied to work on - what makes this one any different?

I suspect it was because the representation was not satisfying to you. If it were, they would not be recurring, they would be in rewrite.

quote:
I can feel that idea resonate in my mind, if you know what I mean, always a sure sign that it will be easy and interesting to write about.

A word about creativity here. We work for ten years developing concepts for our creative careers. After about ten years, all these concepts form a superconcept, and it is in the lexicon and design of the superconcept do we produce our first masterpieces. Most people just don't have this patience, so they force it and produce competitive but not seminal work, and then having forged that method of production by force, are condemned to producing that way pretty much the rest of their career. Other people, lacking the patience for the criteria of this higher cognitive function called creativity, just give up, got into IT or something, and comfort themselves until the midlife crisis realization compels them to accept they could have done it if they'd just stuck with it, so they buy a masterati and get a divorce to console themselves.

People so easily forget that art is discipline. Discipline is a down a dirty word, not predisposed to walking about like genius miracle on demand in clean trendy gear posing with a new drink.

quote:
Both of these ideas have a futuristic setting, whereas two of my current projects have been frustrating me specifically because they have early medieval settings, which I find rather limiting.

Whether your aliens in a limitless world(s)/universe(s), or the humble page in the mud of the moat, both these characters and settings must relate to something in you that you either had to know about or wanted to display as significant in order for either to be any good. Of course, then you have to write yourself out of the story, unless you want the audience to be only as big as people like you.

It's them. The audience. Those people who will never be like creative people, but life regular lives -- those are the people we are working for. You can't consider yourself validly on the cutting edge of development in anything unless a whole bunch of regular, barely descript people whom you don't even know are significantly and substantively impacted by your representation of art that imitates an aspect of life they can or need to relate to. Did somebody mention box office?

quote:
But then, the third unsatisfying current project has a futuristic setting almost identical to those of the two ideas, so what's wrong here?

The core. Use the Harvard method. Define the problem. There is a common thread between all three of these stories that extremely diverse character types in vastly different settings that everyone involved is pondering the answer to, or at least the common definition agreement. Be careful though, the answer may make the bulk of some of the projects fileable, but not preservable as included copy.

quote:
Pondering this for a while, I decide that the third current project is unsatisfying because its character dynamic isn't dramatic enough, and the details of the characters don't catch my imagination/empathy/attraction/whatever enough.

Ok, this is definitely core assertion problem zone.

quote:
So now the question is, do I try to rework the current project, or do I try to start a new projeect?

The ID of the core assertion should indicate which direction to go. I write by the height of the flames in the fire of my belly.

quote:
The rework would be really a lot of effort because I would have to change fundamental things, and for a new project I don't have enough ideas yet, particularly I would need to think of a plot, which is always the hard part for me.

Hehe. Take it from somebody who has been writing now for almost thirty years. If these are your problems, you really don't have any problems you don't have the technical prowess or the intellectual capacity or the creative capability to overcome. The overwhelming instinct I am getting here is directions to go, and prioritized discovery.

What is it you want to know next? What is it you just got done conquering or understanding that precipitates the next journey. I'd go out and watch the clouds for an hour, sing some songs and dance awhile with strangers, and I bet the second you sit back down to work, it will be right there; where to go next.

You're fine. Let it figure you, and trust it, not the other way round.

FWIW, Addy

[edited by - sunandshadow on March 2, 2003 12:13:11 AM]

adventuredesign - Well, this is very interesting. Before I reply, would you mind explaining what the Harvard method is and how your TOMA/database works?

All humans get unsolicited irrational desires for something (like "i must have an apple" or

I get urges to write about anything where i get a "eureka" flash of insight. At this point i eat lots of sugar and jot down notes non-stop until i get tired or bored. I have a mass of random notes. Sometimes there are overlaps eg two characters written independantly were tested in response to coincidental circumstances and reacted differently. Eventually the light-bulb switches on and brain sez "those two characters are two ends of the same stick- write something about them together!"

As far as dreams go, i usually don''t remember but they are esoteric to say the least. I have never been able to find any meaning or inspiration from a dream. This is annoying.

********


A Problem Worthy of Attack
Proves It''s Worth by Fighting Back

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
adventuredesign - Well, this is very interesting. Before I reply, would you mind explaining what the Harvard method is and how your TOMA/database works?

The Harvard method simply put is an exacting definition of the problem. Some say it is the first step in problem solving. There are books on it out there that go into excruciating detail about it, and they can illustrate the formal approach. I just analyze what data I view and ask myself, "Is the problem clearly defined here?", and that does half the job. It won't work for more complex problems, but then you'd have to apply criteria anyway, and that is where the formal approaches apply.

As far as the database works, it's derived from something I learned in my very first database design class: before you create one table, think about you data.

Well, that was a tall order for me, because I think and work about a lot of stuff. Besides game design, I write for TV (commercials, interstitials, PA's, show concept proofs and executive summaries, etc.), film (screenplays, treatments, outlines, character bio's, exec summaries, pitch docs, queries, etc.), industry (business plans, ad campaigns, creatives, process docs, etc.) -- you get the picture.

What it boiled down to was that I wanted to cover everything I created, no matter what the subject category, and not let anything slip through the cracks. That span of activity, per se, became the column heading for my row of columns at the top of the DB. Then I broke down by level of complexity (you can arrange it anyway you want as long as you define yourself) of the project (a novel takes longer to dev than a commercial, and has more support and research associated with it, thus it is deeper down the row in that genre or area column), and last but not least the third dimension of the data is related to time (e.g.; how far along the project is in terms of it being completed, final draft submissible copy).

Once I defined the scope of my endeavors, activities and aspirations, then I began associating all creative production activities (conscious or sub) with their relative category and project row (or folder, more precisely, as it is not an excel spreadsheet per se, but a directory tree structure similar to Windoze Explorer).

Three marvelous things happen when this construct is applied. One, you have a place for everything, even if the folder is names 'morgue' (a very old tradition in writing for things we find interest in but have to bury until we see where it fits in, then it is 'resurrected' LOL), and this means you miss nothing.

Two, it prevent the predelection of humans to avoid closure and completion by showing you at all times what you've got and where it is at in the process (I think this is more closely associated with the human addiction to wonderment; but that is another thread), and three, it's a plain old graphical representation of what you represent as a human creative entity, and what you have accomplished while in the warm and vertical fleeting moments we entities enjoy.

So it keeps you on track, you lose nothing (unless of course you failed in discipline to write it down and file it later; but these are the earmarks of the professional), and it's a comprehensive and finite management tool for your career.

TOMA feeds this construct by presenting to your awareness the thoughts and ideas that come up during the day or night. This we recognize behaviorally as going, "Oh, I thought of something just now, I think I'll jot it down." It is immaterial whether or not this thing we just thought of is relative or even a priority to anything we are currently involved in. What is material is that the record is created for the database (you'd be quite surprised what crashing two plots that were going nowhere individually into each other can manifest, but that is another discussion), and the record you create finds it's way methodically and in a timely manner into the database, even if you are only filing it in a folder named Misc./misc.

I actually have a folder named that. You will have to find your own naming convention, and I venture it may be more flavorful than mine.

The point here is that by working in this way, you create the trust that has always been lacking between you and your incredibly far more powerful, far more intelligent and far more creative subconscious mind that if it goes to the trouble to come up with something, no matter how trivial it may seem at the time *consciously*, you are going to honor yourself and the creative process by not dismissing it as a lesser being may, but instead consider it significant enough to do the due diligence and write the thing down.

I am touching on a very important point here, one that may effect your creativity for the rest of your life, so pay attention: we tend to dismiss our subconscious processes almost exclusively in our 'rationalizations only' waking mindsets, and this discounting and tossing out what bubbles up from where we have no control, or have given no credibility tends to piss off the subconscious. If you were really sensitive and self aware, you would see that this is actually self abuse, but that is a wide, wide other discussion. LOL

Our whole culture and civilization has historically discounted, diminished and swept under the carpet or discredited the very thing that makes us protean to begin with, IMO (getting past archetypes to the protean self is another thread also, tyvm).

After all, who's got time for incomplete and uncomfortably revealed deeply intuited data? It has no practical, immediate profitable or exploitable value, so what possible value can it have. This has been the POV towards our subconscious long before the word evolved in the dictionary.

Just like humans to squander resources as if they were unlimited and controllable.

Rare, unique and courageous individuals discovered within themselves this fount of info, and started giving it it's due, and as they began the relationship with this part of the self, it began to get less and less pissed off that it's contributions to consciousness were being dismissed and discarded, and just like people, it warmed up to the idea that it was being respected, listened to and given credibility.

Voila, protean thinking emerged, and creativity was out of the gate and in the (human) race.

What is distinctly different from honoring these contributions from deep within ourself, and working with a process we cannot control (frankly it kind of scares me that this does not work unless you give up control, but I'm still corporeal and don't plan on dissolving through evolvement into the etheric quite just yet :D) and all other known development processes is that you have to be patient, disciplined and above all else at a high level of trust in order for it to work on the level it's capable of operating on.

Now, as a creative entity, I've seen many, many sides of development. I've stayed up all night to draft three times a twenty one page script based on a dream to my conscious literary satisfaction, stumbled down to the coffee shop in the early light to revel in my creative feat and fortune, and literally have a director tell me they would make it before the second cup of coffee was done, to long term projects of epic story scale that have taken literally years (this last screenplay took six months to write, but seven years to research and ferment) to complete.

The bottom line in either type of dev scenario was that I was patient and trusted the process enough to know my onboard wetware would do the job if I was a, using it properly, b, trusted it, and c, was on good terms with it.

I think those three things must be present, along with the aforementioned construct if you are to be capable of all the creative things desired or necessary that you want out of life.

What we are talking about here is creative development and methodologies, not jumping both feet first into the black depths of the subconscious mind. Of course, the degree of innovation is reciprocal to the amount of resistance it encounters, which is why I am a writer. I am solely responsible for the content and context of my market viable or not market viable output. I choose how to configure the system (did somebody mention success is a system?) of creative production so that it suits me, and serves me, so I can serve the audience, lest we forget too quickly greatness lies in humility.


Frankly, I can think of no higher freedom choice. And, I can also tell you from direct observable experience very, very few people, even creative human beings, will go this far in foundating their careers or skillsets. Part of the problem lies in acceptance (which arises before this in the dismissing of the idea because it has no immediate, practical applications) that the undefined or underdefined thought is not what our expectations desired (boo hoo, expectations are the bane of culture and civilization in most cases anyway), and the other part of the problem lies in the fact that if it did get out there was a way for this to work more powerfully and for everyone anywhere, why then, many artists would not be able to put themselves on a pedestal because they somehow can hack away at a creative process most other people find too much work.

And yes, it is hard work. True creativity is in everyone, and to manifest it everywhere would simply ruin the perception that only the lucky or special can access and use it. That would sure burst a lot of bubble of self aggrandizing perceptions, but then again, preservation of those perceptions have led to most of the exploitation, suffering and abuse you can think of or name. We could have to stop using words like genius and special and jedi if that happened. Oh pity.

I've been studying and developing creativity for a very long time, and I'm certain just like the guy who can take anybody off the street and turn them into a real estate millionaire over the weekend with no money down, I could take you and any one of your projects, and not only litmus test it for validity as developmet worthy, but help you complete it in less time, at better quality, while simultaneously supercharging your productive creativity process that the only things that would prevent you from heartily accepting such an offer is that a, I'm booked, and b, it wouldn't have quite the same magic feeling about it anymore after we were done. That's a quick descent from the altitude of wonderment.

Sorry for the soapbox. Hope this helps.

Addy

EDIT by bishop_pass: fixed quote tag.

[edited by - bishop_pass on March 5, 2003 10:01:21 PM]

Totally Off topic, but I *had* to post it:

adventuredesign : when you quote someone, you have to open close the quote tag properly, otherwise, well, it's quite annoying to read.

So for example you would type :
[quote]whoever you are quoting (use [i] [/i] to make it italics)
whatever you are quoting
[/quote]
your answer

[quote]
whatever you are quoting 2
[/quote]
your answer to this bit

Which would end up looking like this

quote: someone
something interesting

my answer

quote:
something else

another bit of answer


Again, I am sorry for the offtopic but you have done the mistake quite a few times, and it's annoying because it makes your posts quite hard to follow, which is a shame as they are quite interesting

[edited by - ahw on March 4, 2003 2:16:03 PM]