The Not Happy Thread

Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Cogito, Nov 20, 2010.

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  1. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    See what you can do to bring the idea down to personal level. I just read an interesting remark, in Steven James's Story Trumps Structure that is actually a quote from Flannery O'Connor: "When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be sure the story is not a very good one." In other words, it's the entirety of the story that matters, not the story's intent. And if your story is too big to handle, you need to cut it down to size.

    Make the story as personal as you can, create good characters, focus on your characters and what happens to them, rather than what it all 'means' in the grand scheme of things. Not only will your readers enjoy the trip much more, but you may actually discover angles you hadn't thought of yourself.

    Whenever a story idea seems too big to handle, the solution is to condense focus on a manageable part of it. Let the story's meaning evolve inside a microcosm, if you can.
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2015
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  2. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yipes. That would drive me demented. I like to take my time making decisions I'm going to have to live with for a while. Good luck.
     
  3. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Are you getting any medical help with your depression at all? It sounds as if this has been going on for a while.
     
  4. edamame

    edamame Contributor Contributor

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    My landlord is still overcharging me and asking me to pay a sort of penalty fee. I thought I straightened this out last month. I'm really upset. I can't keep affording rent at this rate.

    One of my relatives is also in the hospital. Luckily he's doing okay, but coming home to more bad news is so wearying.
     
  5. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    No. Been dealing with depression for 15 years, some days are just really bad. I did spend a little over a year in counseling when I was 25-26 (28 now) for a complete mental breakdown, found out I also have PTSD (had a rough childhood). Doing my best to cope with depression, but some days it is like there is absolutely nothing that will make it go away. Functioning a lot better today than a few days ago. :p Not sure what to say. I don't 'cut', or go into planning any drastic means to 'end it all'. Had zero self confidence since my ex-wife cheated on me, and it has been almost two years now. Sum it all up, some days are a living nightmare and others are ok.
     
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  6. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Perhaps having a bit of medication to take on bad days might make them less scary. I know many people who take various forms of anti-depressants, and while nobody wants to become dependent on them, they all say the medication improves their ability to function quite a lot. I just feel very bad for you. If you had a sore back or a chronic migraine you would seek medical help no bother, but somehow depression is still stigmatised. I look forward to the day when it's seen as any other physical ailment ...treatable and perhaps curable, and certainly nothing to just try to cope with on your own.

    Whatever the ex-wife did, it's not a reflection on you. It's a reflection on her. Cheating is never justified. Ending a bad relationship or one that no longer suits both people is traumatic, but at least it's above board and gives both partners a chance at a new life. It may knock your confidence to know that a marriage has 'failed,' but it doesn't leave that horrible leftover feeling of betrayal—that you've been lied to and taken for a mug. I've never had a husband or long-term partner cheat on me, but I know what it felt like when a couple of my old boyfriends did. Trust issues linger, and can taint relationships thereafter as well. It's nasty. But it's not your fault. You were faithful. She was not. She's the one who should be feeling shaky. However, they never do, do they?

    Anyway, take care. And maybe look into getting some anti-depressants? If they don't suit you, you don't have to take them. But they may well be a huge help, not only when you actually take them, but just knowing they're there, and that you don't have to hit a brick wall every time a depressive episode happens.
     
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  7. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    @jannert Thanks. I appreciate what you have said. Thank you. :D
     
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  8. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    If there is anything that we on the forum can do to help you feel better, encourage you with your writing, etc, please ask.
     
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  9. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Well I had posted the 'intro' of my novel in the "Novels" section. The person who tried to critique it recommended that I get another pair of eyes on it. They also made suggestion of using what they called 'idiot filler'. Makes me wonder if I wrote the thing a tad to complex, but IDK. That is pretty much what I need help with at the moment. Know anyone willing to give a look at it, and tell me what I could do to fix it? Much appreciated, and thank you again. :D
     
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  10. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I just wrote a critique of that for you....
     
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  11. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    So I wrote this for the 'What Would Your MC Do' thread answering what my character would do if he/she got a venomous snakebite.

    I wrote this:
    Shit. I knew this day would come. . .
    Mike Wolfletter sat on a boulder, staring at the snake bite on his wrist. It had happened too quickly for him to do anything. A sharp pain and out of the corner of his eyes, something slithered under the rocks. The wound was swollen, an angry red. His body was lethargic now.
    I am dying. He closed his eyes, his throat tightened from the emotions. He wanted to scream, wanted to curse God, the Fates, everything that led him to this point. But he was too tired to do even that.
    His right hand held his revolver, loaded and cocked. Tears ran down his hot cheeks.
    Either I die now, or die because of a fucking snake.
    He shook his head, took a shuddering breath. A cool calm washed over him, or was that the wind? A small ditty was beating in his head.
    Oh Susana...Susana don't you cry...
    He tightened the grip on his gun, a choked sob escaped his throat. Memories of his childhood emerged. The warm, sun-kissed everglades, ships at the docks carrying bales of cotton. His mother on the sofa sewing.
    I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee...
    Time to end this. He lifted the revolver up to his head, the sobbing coming out in a flood. He wanted to be back there again. A child wrapped in the warm embraces of his mother, not dying on a rock to a snakebite.
    My true love Fortune see...
    “Good-bye, Mother,” he whispered.
    A single, loud explosion rang across the desert.
    It was all over.

    And now I feel really sad. :( Coupled with the fact that I wrote 700 words of a scene where the main villain of my fantasy story being an absolute shithole to my teen protagonist. Knowing full well that in an earlier version, he was actually nice and a father/mentor figure for her. Not a good day for my characters at all. :(
     
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  12. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

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    Mother dirt, and no that's okay. There's just a wasp nest in one of our outer walls. We've poisoned them and no longer see them coming and going from their little hole in the siding. But as best we can figure they've managed to get into the air vents. Somehow.

    This means that, two or three times a day, a dying wasp falls out of the vent and onto my desk. They're too sick to fly, so they just wander around while I scoop them into a cup and throw them outside. There is a small pile of dead wasps underneath my balcony now.
     
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  13. DeadMoon

    DeadMoon The light side of the dark side Contributor

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    I wish that I would have pursued writing years ago when I had so much more time. before my dead end hateful job, before more and more cash was needed just make a living, before when I had hours on end that I instead devoted to drinking and watching pointless TV. It's true that all of those experiences can help in the long run but damn it.. I want my wasted youth back
     
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  14. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    Hey, take it from me: it's better to just learn from it and move on. Don't waste the rest of your life in regret for the things you didn't do when you were younger. Trust me, I wish I could've been this serious about writing back in high school and college where I had a large chunk of free time to do absolutely nothing, yet I blew it all playing video games. I can't steal Link's Ocarina and go back in time eleven years and smack some sense into my bone-headed fifteen-year-old self. All I can do is just keep moving forward.

    Regret can be just as damaging to you in the long run as laziness or fear.
     
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  15. DeadMoon

    DeadMoon The light side of the dark side Contributor

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    Very true words indeed. I have already let depression take its share of my limited time. I have made giant leaps in squashing that pest.
    Thanks for the wise words...
     
  16. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I have two swollen lymph nodes on my neck and behind my ear. I really don't need to get ill at the moment, I'm way too busy at work.
     
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  17. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Finally capitulating to the necessity of getting my teeth looked at. Pretty sure at least one is fooked and needs to be removed. le sigh.
     
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  18. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I think the climax of my novel has turned too dark. Losing faith in it at 84,000 words.
     
  19. DeadMoon

    DeadMoon The light side of the dark side Contributor

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    Wes Craven dies and the damn news directors decide that Kyane West and Miley Cyrus should be placed above him on the new feeds....
     
  20. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    View attachment 6651 View attachment 6651 View attachment 6651
    Don't laugh, but we had problems for years with wasps. EVERY single damn year they built nests in our attic, after coming in under our eaves (and sometimes through wee openings beneath our slate shingles.

    THEN I discovered ...the Waspinator. Never mind that it doesn't look much like a wasp nest to us. Apparently it does to them. It's available for sale on Amazon (and other places as well.)

    Untitled.jpg

    Amazing thing. It really works. BUT you have to employ it early in the spring, while queen wasps are looking for nest sites. If you stuff one full of old newspaper (plastic works too, but seems to deteriorate the plastic fabric of the device) and hang it as high as you can beneath the eaves of your house (one in front, one in back ...and one on each side, if you have that kind of roof) and get them up soon enough, the queen wasps think it's another nest and go elsewhere. I did this for the first time last year, and it worked, but I wasn't sure if it was a fluke. So I did it again this year. That's two years in a row with no wasp nests in our house. Every other year since I moved here 29 years ago we have had at least one nest. Suddenly ...none.

    If you hang the thing too late in the spring, however, once they've started building their nest, they'll actually attack the Waspinator, thinking it's an enemy nest. So it's got to go up early. But dammit, it really works.

    ..........

    Some reviews mention that it doesn't work, and actually seems to attract wasps. That's true, but only if there is another established nest in the area. If the wasps are looking for a nest site, this will keep them away. However, if there is a nest nearby, beware. They'll see this as an interloper, and attack. They're very territorial, are wasps.
     
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2015
  21. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

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    This is cool and good advice. However we're past the window of preventative measures. Now we're in the raining dead wasps stage. It's my second least favorite stage.
     
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  22. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, I hated that stage myself. Especially when the Rentokil guy turned up dressed as if he were going to decontaminate a nuclear plant. I actually hate killing creatures like wasps, and unfortunately by the time they've chewed enough wood to build a nest, the damage is done anyway. But they do get into the house, crawl around on the carpets, especially later in the summer when they're getting weaker. My husband got stung on his big toe once, because one had crawled into the bottom of our bed. That was pretty nasty. It's not the buzzing wasps that are the problem, it's the ones you don't see or hear.

    The Waspinator would be a great thing to have handy for next spring. That may prevent the problem from happening again.
     
  23. No-Name Slob

    No-Name Slob Member Supporter Contributor

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    I'm beginning to believe that there are two groups of people in this world; those who achieve fulfillment, and those who go through life endlessly chasing that proverbial carrot. I think I fall into the latter category.
     
  24. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    Why would you chase this guy?

    [​IMG]
     
  25. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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