The Not Happy Thread

Daniel, are you going to be a student again in the fall? I thought you graduated last month and were done for good.

 

Right now, I'm not happy about the fact that every time I get a rhythm going on a project, that's when people want to come in my office and talk my friggin ear of about nonsense bull$%^&. Then they FINALLY leave and my entire train of thought is gone, never to return.

 

So my brother and his wife are here from out of town. I'm glad to see them and all. But my alcoholic brother's drinking again. Definitely a not happy thing.

He was sober for a few years, but I suspected he was drinking from his phone calls. I just hated to see it confirmed. His wife doesn't drink. I don't know if I should ask her what she thinks about it or just stay out of it. They live in another state, she never lets on that she's unhappy about his drinking.

 

You need to show her the door immediately. If you haven't yet, just tell her you were hoping she'd get the message on her own, then do it now. Only take her back if she pleads for forgiveness.

 

Wow man.. that sucks. Maybe it's time to reconsider being in that relationship. :/ I don't know all the circumstances so I don't want to cast stones. It just sounds like it's not a good situation. I hope you get things figured out one way or the other and feel better about things soon.

Sometimes depression can be feeling numb, disconnected, or unmotivated if it goes on for a long time it could be chemical and not just circumstantial. Or you could just be overwhelmed with things. I lose all motivation when I feel overwhelmed by things because I don't know where to even start and I wind up feeling like there's no point in trying. Setting smaller goals that build into bigger ones can help with that. Or at least that's what worked with me.

Nah it's a real problem just as much as anyone else's. How big a problem is to someone is relative to what they've gone through.

 

I'm not happy.
Just got some feedback on something I had been working on for just a few days.
The thing is, for over 10 years I've been trying to write. Coming up with different story ideas, really writing out stuff, putting together chapters and outlines and things.

And I KNOW I shouldn't have posted what I wrote here today. Basically I submitted some stuff months ago and most of the feedback was that I wasn't ready. But I felt so inspired this weekend, I just started writing and I was really enjoying what I was writing.

So I posted a bit of it here, just to get some feedback before I continued. And -- I don't know, there's nothing worse than hearing that my character is boring, my writing isn't intriguing, and basically that nobody would care about any of it. I will say the feedback giver was nice about it, but still it kind of made me sad.

And it's at the point where, I'm 33 and after trying and trying to write something, I think maybe I should just give it up.

The problem, these characters are so well developed in my head that when I put them on paper it must not translate correctly, like ... I KNOW things about my character but the reader doesn't and there's a weird disconnect.

I don't know, I'm just unhappy a little bit because maybe writing just isn't my THING.

I have written a lot, and submitted a lot of it online and haven't really heard much good about any of them.

Anyhoo...

 

I'll have to go back and look at your stuff, but this is how critiques from my group go: I love what I write, take it to the group, they tear it apart. I learn from them. The next chapter I'm even happier with, I can see the improvements. I take it to the group, they tear it apart. I learn more from them. What they say is right, it doesn't bother me, I know they can see each chapter is better, they don't need to tell me that. This goes on and on. I can really see how my writing is improving. And they keep giving me lessons to improve even more. I'm not the least bit discouraged, because I can see my growth as a writer.

The only reason to give up is if you no longer find it enjoyable. Even then, maybe just take a break and come back to it.

 

As the critique giver in question, I do feel a bit bad about what I said. I can be very blunt at times so I am sorry if that discouraged you. Feedback is of course based on what could be improved, I can list several things that you did do right. For one, I think you'd make an excellent movie reviewer. You are very good at a diary-like approach of writing, putting in words exactly what happened. From what I read you are very much a teller, you are able to make the translation from what you see and relay that back into words. I am also confident that you have fully developed characters in your head and that they'll be interesting to read about. Now all you need to do is put some roadblocks in their way, throw a bunch of problems at your characters, see how they'd respond. If Arcadius would witness a car-accident involving an old lady, what would he do?

Anyway, I am rambling. I don't want you to give up, if you have been writing for 10 years, then why give up now? Wouldn't that be wasteful? Clearly you have an interest in writing and everyone here is helping each other out. You wouldn't be here if you'd really want to give up. So keep going!

 

hey MAC, please don't feel bad.
this is less about what you said, but just the combination of feedback i've gotten over the years...
i'm just very bad at writing something INTERESTING apparently lol!!!
but my characters do kind of live IN me and i guess i'm just looking for a way to get them out of my head.

you did say something in THIS thread that interests me though... about me being a good "teller".
maybe that's not quite good for novels... but i wonder how that could benefit me in some other type of creative outlet.

but, don't feel bad I did really appreciate your feedback... and sometimes the truth is hard to swallow but i'm always appreciative of hearing the truth.

 

thanks for your perspective.

maybe that's my problem, i often don't enjoy writing, but i feel like i need to write because i continually create these different characters in my head and i just wanna get them out.

maybe i'm just a fully functional schizophrenic who knows?

 

"Feedback is of course based on what could be improved"

Bears repeating*.



*I looked that up to be sure it wasn't "bares repeating" and I have to share what I found: "It's "bares repeating" only if you're watching porn loops." Hope that makes someone else laugh like it did me.

 

When you put something up for critique, it will be critiqued. No matter how good a writer you are, you won't be perfect (Shakespeare wasn't perfect, either), and people will point out your flaws. Everyone has flaws. I bet if you put work by Mark Twain or Vladimir Nabokov or Stephen King or J.R.R. Tolkien up in our Workshop, it will be ripped apart. Even great writers often can't appreciate other great writers. Tolstoy loathed Shakespeare, for example. Nabokov had little respect for E.M. Forster. The list goes on. The fact that you receive negative comments does not mean you're a bad writer; it simply means that the person who made those comments is not part of your audience.

The Canadian novelist Robertson Davies dismissed critics who only found flaws in a work as "flawyers." He mentioned a few that had found massive flaws in Tolstoy's War and Peace, which is regarded as one of the greatest novels ever written. These critics are clearly ignoring the strengths of a work in favor of mentioning the weaknesses. But in many works, the strengths overwhelm the weaknesses, and that's why we regard them as good literature.

I've said before in this forum that we should try to mention strengths as well as weaknesses in our critiques. When I took writing courses online, we were told to find at least two positive things to mention about a fellow student's work, and to mention them first, so that the negative comments would go down easier. This is probably pretty good advice.

Write on!

 

Also because we grow from the positives as well as the negatives.

 

I think there is value to positive reinforcement, but I also believe we learn more and faster from mistakes.

We only learn from the attaboys if the praise relates to an aspect were were unsure about. Also, praise does nothing to cure a swollen ego.

Oh, and if you think critique runs harsh, wait 'til you start receiving replies to submissions!

 

Sad to hear that one of my sci-fi AND general fiction hero authors died today, of gall bladder cancer, at the horribly young age of 59. Iain Banks. Not unexpected, since he announced his illness was terminal two months ago ...but it seems so quick. RIP. Lovely, funny and imaginative man.

 

That's sad. We've come so far in cancer research and yet it still isn't enough.

 

Sad news indeed My hubby doesn't know yet, Iain Banks is his favourite writer.

 

My roommate is very sick. He's running a temperature of over 103 Fahrenheit and has such joint pain that he can't get out of bed. It's been getting worse since yesterday, and we're thinking of getting him to the emergency room. I've been playing nurse for him for 48 hours now and I haven't had much sleep. Not a good weekend at all, here at our house.

 

I hope that your mate will get better soon and make a speedy recovery.

 

An adult with a 103F temp should be seen. No more nurse, take him in.

Influenza and a number of infections that will resolve on their own can cause high fever, but so can some very serious infections that you don't want to mess around with, and flu season has subsided.

 

103 is really high. I agree with Ginger; take him to the hospital. Better safe than sorry.

 

I agree with the others that your roommate should see a doctor. 48 hours is pretty long for being that sick, especially since he is now getting worse instead of better.

 

I hallucinated once with a 106 degree fever. Saw a friend climb in my bedroom window that was 10 feet off the ground and started tearing up my comics books.

Two injections of an antibiotic with the consistancy of thick soup were given, one in each thigh. l sat upright on a table and watch as the Army doctor prepared the cold and gooey injections. The needles were fat, the antibiotic cold and each one took ~ a minute to push in. They hurt like hell but it was nice to see my comic books still in one piece.

 

103 suggests a massive infection, and can start cooking away brain cells from the heat alone.

It's important to know why that high a fever is present, especially after 48 hours.

 

I know you don't like it when I correct you, but 103F can be something as simple as uncomplicated influenza. If it cooked brain cells at that temperature we'd all have damaged brains since kids 5 and under have fevers that high with the most common of infections.

Not that you want to leave a temp over 104F untreated, but you still aren't looking at brain damage until you get over 107F. That doesn't mean there aren't other considerations, and I wouldn't let a fever get over 105 without a visit to the ED if tylenol and a cool wet cloth wrap didn't bring it down.

The reason I said get it checked is because there are several things that do cause high fever that need to be treated: kidney infection, cellulitis, bacterial pneumonia and bacterial meningitis, are four that come to mind.