The Not Happy Thread

@Iain Aschendale In my country if an immigrant speaks Finnish, no matter how clumsily and simply, there will be fêtes thrown in their honor, free drinks for all, the day it happened will probably be made into a public holiday and school children shall learn about it for years to come. It's basically right above the second coming of Jesus and below winning gold in the ice hockey world championship.

 

Im done with writing. Its too pricey for me. What makes it worse is that I had two independent editors that have praised my work, and offered so many good things, point by point. But in the end, if I can afford a simple typo edit. It's time to try a new venture. I do feel stupid for having written two novels. That was energy I could have put into other things.

 

You seem determined to not hear what people are saying to you about publishing, but one last shot...

Publishing doesn't have to cost a dime. Self-publishing doesn't have to cost much.

If you're willing to listen to people, we can help you through the process. But there's no point wasting time typing if you're not going to read/absorb what's written. So let us know how you want to proceed.

 

There is a difference between help, and beating one over the head with insults and mockery. Not everyone has the means to put money into this. Not everyone has the time in life to wait for agents to reply.

 

Have you considered looking online for editing services where you can set your own budget (Elance) or look for people who will do it very inexpensively (fiverr)?

 

I didnt know those services existed. I will look into them. Thank you.

 

Elance is a site for freelancers. You can set a budget there, and people will bid for the work. Fiverr is a site where people will do work for $5. You might get 1000-1500 words for that price, so I'm not sure how viable it is, but it is worth looking at to see if people will do more. The only potential issue is payment on these sites, and whether you have the ability to make payments electronically.

 

My team leader is pissing me off. He got on me today because I dropped some plastic on the ground because he didn't want me tossing it the trash because that's more work for him to clean up afterwords, but neglected all the other pieces that everyone else dropped. I also picked up the plastic that not only I dropped, but the ones that everyone else dropped so what's the problem? And the thing that irked me was that I helped sweep and clean up too. I'm starting the hate the job because of him. When he's busy and away with the manager everything's cool.

I had my first day back at the college again today too. I thought that would take my mind off it. I was wrong. We were split into five groups and we had to introduce ourselves, but my group kept making fun of and laughing at everyone as they introduced themselves and I felt that was very disrespectful.

Ergh. This is going to be a tough three months.

 

Are you being sarcastic? In any event, I was led to believe that people of other countries appreciate it when you try to speak their language even if you botched it up.

 

Hyperbolic. My mother-tongue is notoriously difficult to learn (although I believe Hungarian is even worse), so if a foreigner or immigrant speaks even two words of it, we'll be over the moon.

 

Wow, google translate has gotten better. It failed to translate "X has problems" idiomatically, but it almost got it grammatically right.

 

Found an email last week where a colleague was complaining that I hadn't put any effort into something (I had).

Today, I go to make my coffee and he's in the kitchen.

Him: "I think I owe you an apology."
Me: *waits for apology*
Him: "The explanation is that I didn't think it was up to your usual standard and I was disappointed."
Me: *waits for apology*
*silence*
Me: "It was the lie that you had to rewrite the whole thing which annoyed me."
Him: "Well, I don't accept that was a lie."
Me: "It was. The proof is there in black and white. You added two paragraphs."
Him: *mumbles something*
Me: *leaves with my coffee*

Great apology!

 

Guy's got no balls. If we pulled his pants down, there would be none because he's a wuss.
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As for my Not-Happy moment?

-- I had a nightmare that (a) my pets had gone missing and (b) I HAD CANCER!!

-- I'm having the usual anxiety regarding all my WiPs that have pages upon pages of crappy writing. There's a voice in my head (a gut feeling) telling me to delete it all. I don't want to, but the feeling is telling me, "It's not perfect...it's not perfect...delete it all and make it perfect..."

with sarcasm fully intended.

 

I've just decided to re-write everything. There's too much of a dissonance between the starts of drafts and the end. I mean one short story starts with a joke and ends with possible murder, committed by a main character. My mind wanders too much even when I make an outline. My novel is the same. So I'm scrapping nine months of work. I hated it all anyway. I can't be consistent and pisses me off. Mind you, little doesn't these days.

 

At least you're making some kind of progress, I haven't opened my doc file in over a month.

Maybe this weekend.

 

Don't worry, my novel is in several notebooks, so no I won't be actually getting rid of them physically, just no longer used. My short stories (on my laptop) are now in my story and character graveyard.
I'm just really not sure what I want to go for half the time, sometimes I'll write down-right stupid, childish things but literally in the next line I'll kill someone or make them loose copious amounts of blood. There is something wrong with my brain.
I know what feelings I want to show, and what story I (generally) want to tell but how to? I've got no clue on that.

 

That's pretty sexist and trans-phobic, Link. I am surprised...and delightfully offended.

 

I just had the shittiest Friday this week. To wit: my stomach was very upset all afternoon and well into the evening, culminating in an all-night session of puking in the toilet. Not only that, but when I stretched my legs for some amount of comfort, sharp, painful cramps shot through the backs of my legs and would alternate between settling down and spiking up again.

Now I'm sore, exhausted from lack of sleep, and very dehydrated. I'm gonna have to take it easy today.

 

Get better soon

 

Thanks. I think I'm on the comeback trail. Drinking plenty of fluid to keep me hydrated.

 

Me too! Well, I had something to say, but I'm not all that unhappy.

I'll go to the Happy Thread!