Once again, you UKers (and Irish just in case LaGas lives in the Republic of Ireland) never fail to educate me. What have I learnt today? Consult a bloody dictionary before assuming words mean things they do not mean!
Happens to the best of us, Link! I once said "Incontinent" instead of "incompetent". Boy did that change the context. XP
Yikes! Eh, we all have slip-ups. I just learned the hard way that unless you write something your publishing house didn't sign you on for instead of what they did, you don't technically owe them back an advance, no matter how terrible your sales. Talk about whiplash in the face.
Wow. You must've been thinking traditional publishing is a million times harder than it actually is, and yet it's already hard enough an industry to break into. Are you still happy with your decision, though? Have you made some sales?
Reading fanfic, and for the hell of it, I wanted to see if they had fanfictions of blind Gohan or blind Harry Potter. They do, and almost all of them are angst. #1- The internet never ceases to amaze me. Seems that if it doesn't exist, someone will make sure it does. #2- My God, the writing on some of those fictions are horrible!! Someone please book them into a Writing 101 Class pronto! In the blind Gohan fic I was reading, the POV was unclear and jumped everywhere. First we'd get a few paragraphs from one of the other character's perspectives, then right in the middle of the chapter, we jump into Gohan's head where he spells out the events we just read from his perspective. Another had the author's Original Character who, I think, shows all the signs of being a Mary Stu. #3- What's with the angst? They love to make stories like that romance/angst where blind Gohan or Harry get hooked up with a girl (bonus if it's an Original Character the author made up) who helps them accept their new way of life.
If you're on fanfiction.net, you'll see a lot of that. It's a lot better if you google Livejournal communities or fic rec lists, because LJ is more quality and fic recs tend to be made by people who are competent writers/readers.
Some of the fanfics you find online are really horrible! For just Harry Potter fanfics I managed to find a really good site called checkmated that has a publishing and editing system and has some quality fanfics.
Yeah, checkmated is good, and there are probably some Livejournal coms. FF.net is awful, and the Potter section is the biggest, so wading through that is awful.
Oh yes, I am still one hundred percent happy with my decision. I did honestly believe though that was how advances worked. Lesson learned! There's a thread in here where someone asked about which way you'd want to go in the publishing world, and I stood behind my decision to go self-published versus a publishing house. But I made a mistake by remarking that in a traditional house you'd have to pay back an advance if it wasn't met in sales, something I had thought to be true for years. Major whoops. But I admit I was wrong on that.
99% is pure crap, I agree, but you can still find some real gems on FF.net. Searching out the good ones is one of my minor talents, lol.
Double posting for the win! "the billowing cape ice-white cape of Skuld billowing behind her." << Definitely signs that I need a break from writing.
Doing an assignment for my Islamic Civilization class. Pretty interesting. Of course, I learnt that I'm taking the second half of the course (the period that follows after Muhammad's death) so...yeah. Don't know why my registering-for-the-classes site didn't stop me to say, "Woah, dude, you have to take the first half!" Good thing I have DVDs about Muhammad so I can get some background info. 8D
Yeah, DVDs can fill you in on a lot. I've been thinking of getting a tattoo this year. It would say "live free" and have a quill pen writing by itself, except instead of ink it would have sparks of fire coming out of it. It's be kind of small -- maybe 2 or 3 inches in each dimension -- and probably on my upper back. (No one steal this, please! haha) And I've read some really good LOTR fanfic, although a lot of it is really godawful.
^ Yeah, same here. The 'blind gohan' fic I read on fanfic.net was surprisingly good. It wasn't a cheap 'angst' plot, the author actually tried to work the plot so it could fit with lore of DBZ. The way I see it, most sloppy fics are just the author having fun and they don't care about the actual process. The good fics are the authors who actually want to learn and are practicing (though some may disagree with that notion) their writing ability with already created universes EDIT: The tattoo idea looks good. You should do it.
Aaaah, flaming quill is an awesome idea. If I was going to get a tattoo reflective of my writing addiction it'd be a ragged old quill with a load of stylised ink blots all down one arm or something. I make soooo much mess when I use ink pens. Though the tattoo I really want to get is a wee little frog in a sweet wrapper. Because poisonous frogs look like candy. Humans are screwing with years of evolution and learning what not to put in your mouth to make luminous colours the tasty ones.
Mel, that sounds awesome! We should both do it and then compare tattoo pics. I still have to save up some $$ but I'd love to get it in a few months.
Don't get a tattooooooo, think about it for a secondddddd you dont know what the weather's gonna be like tomorrow you can't predict what climate you're gonna be in twenty years from now or even ten days from now
Lol wha? I totally agree that it's smart to think it through first before you get it. Wait 6 months or a year or something between when you think of the idea and when you plan to get it, so it's not an impulse thing. And that's my plan. I've thought about it for a while and would do it in 6-12 months, not right now. Also, I'm getting something that actually means something to me. I think it's stupid when people go out and get things like a heart or a flower or a 4-leaf clover when those things don't have any personal significance to them. And it'll be on my upper back. I can totally cover it up for work.
Currently in Chichester. And can I say: the South is very different from the North of England. The trip was hell, but I got a good few hours in London. Which is a nice enough city, but over the years of hearing about it, actually seeing the place was a little bit of a let down.
So what do you find so different about the south? And London is something you get a feel of over time. It's more about the atmosphere, but tourists won't get that in just a brief visit.
Like Ashleigh said, there's so much to see in London that I don't think you could get a proper sense of the place in a few hours. And I second the question of what do you find so different about the south?
I can't say exactly what is different about the South, but it honestly is. I can honestly imagine being told the same if one of you visited the North. And yeah I suppose.
