Tough old Xmas

[themightysrc 5]

Jav and Lou,

 

I actually welled up a little when I read your posts. Perhaps that's me simply trying to get some of my anger and sorrow out into the open.

 

I will do it.

 

I may never be published, and perhaps the whole thing might only ever be read by one or two people, but I think it worth a try.

 

I'm immensely touched - believe me, you don't know how much - that you should compliment my writing. I've spent years telling myself that I can't do it because I'm not a full time writer, without focusing on how I might become such a thing. How stupid of me.

 

Times are looking dark here, but if I do this - and I think I can, given my knowledge and background - then I damn well will. I don't quite know what I'll be producing, it may be a novel, a play or a script, but I'm going to write it and hawk it round. I guess I'd better change my main protagonist's name...

 

Thank you for taking the time to reply. It means a lot.

 

Cheers, and the very best to you and yours,

Si

Edited December 22, 2010 by themightysrc

[Slartibartfast 153]

Jav and Lou,

 

I actually welled up a little when I read your posts. Perhaps that's me simply trying to get some of my anger and sorrow out into the open.

 

I will do it.

 

I may never be published, and perhaps the whole thing might only ever be read by one or two people, but I think it worth a try.

 

I'm immensely touched - believe me, you don't know how much - that you should compliment my writing. I've spent years telling myself that I can't do it because I'm not a full time writer, without focusing on how I might become such a thing. How stupid of me.

 

Times are looking dark here, but if I do this - and I think I can, given my knowledge and background - then I damn well will. I don't quite know what I'll be producing, it may be a novel, a play or a script, but I'm going to write it and hawk it round. I guess I'd better change my main protagonist's name...

 

Thank you for taking the time to reply. It means a lot.

 

Cheers, and the very best to you and yours,

Si

 

Do it what have you to lose maybe time but thats it and a little effort that even if it doesn't see the time of day (Hopefully it does) you will still be able to be proud of yourself that you tried... and your writing is damn good going by the After action reports. Do keep us informed on how it is going and I am sure that we will all wish you the best of luck. So from me best of luck and look to the future with a smile knowing you have a wonderful challenge ahead... if you need a proof reader let me know...

 

Have a great Xmas and New Year and may 2011 be a wonderful year for you.

[Javito1986 14]

Writing like anything just needs discipline. You just chip away at the boulder day by day. I try to write about 500 - 1000 words a day... if I'm busy or tired I'll just throw in 250 words minimum. That's totally fine, because every time you write another sentence you're letting the story simmer and develop in your mind, then comes a day where you're just hit with a burst of inspiration and pump out 3,000 words just because you don't want to stop, or you immerse yourself in a scene.

 

Everyone works differently but I recommend devising a good outline of a scene before you write it. I don't outline whole chapters ahead of time, that's too time consuming and I'm lazy. But outlines help as a guideline, so that you're not wasting time trying to think of what to write next because you've already done that and now you're filling in the details. I just do the vaguest outlines possible in notepad then have that and my Microsoft Word windows open side by side as I plunk away at it.

 

A lot of writers tend to get bogged down revising or scrutinizing what they've already written over and over. J.R.R Tolkien did that, it took him like 15 years to write LotR. George R.R. Martin has the habit as well and god knows when we'll see the next Song of Ice and Fire book because of it! The best writing advice I've ever heard is Hemingway's: "The first draft of anything is s**t". Your first draft is just a skeleton, it's the light brush strokes on a canvas. You can't worry about it too much, the important thing is to get it down on paper and remember that "The worst thing you write is preferable to the best thing you didn't write". I've closed my eyes and typed without any concern for grammar, punctuation, or artsy prose, I just let it flow out of my brain naturally because the #1 killer of manuscripts is most people just never finishing the first draft. No writer just sits down and composes a work of gorgeous prose off the top of his head. Prose develops organically through revisions, it's not created out of thin air!

 

Then once you have it drafted, -then- you go back and clean it up. Then you draft it again and you add form, composition, color, shading. It's exactly like doing a digital painting in Photoshop CS5, adding layers upon layers.

Takes a while but it's worth it so you can leave your personal mark on the world. How many millions of people lived and died in Ancient Rome and are now utterly forgotten? The ones whose legacies live on are the ones who wrote!

Edited December 22, 2010 by Javito1986

[Hasse Wind 46]

I wish you the best of luck with your writing, themightysrc. It always angers and saddens me to read about ordinary people who pay the price for the gambling and speculation of the small minority that already has everything, but because they know nothing but endless greed and their only value in life is money, they want to become even richer, consequences be damned.

[Wodin 0]

Here here....the OP has my sympathy....this government are protecting the businessmen and rich and screwing everyone lese as the Tories usually do...and those Liberals...yellow thats what they are...clinging on to a little bit of power....sold their soul...disgusting...I'm a single parent and disabled...just waiting to screw me over with my disability benefit...then I will really be in the sh1t...

Edited December 23, 2010 by Wodin

[themightysrc 5]

Thanks all.

 

Wodin, in particular, I feel for you.

 

I know only too well what's likely to happen in 2011: the current government, to my utter disgust, have managed to insinuate to their chums in the media that it is the poor and disabled, the underpaid and those in civil service that are somehow to blame for our current woes. They've managed this disgusting deceit without blinking, and, of course, the Daily Wail and the cheerleaders on the right have now decided that it's the vulnerable who are at the root of our problems - it is a deception of incredible magnitude and mendacity that utterly ignores the root of the problem, namely, the reliance of most Western economies on casino banking and the biggest Ponzi scheme ever devised, backed up credit agencies whose credentials should have been shredded after Lehrmann's but curiously remain intact.

 

So prepare for a terrible New Year. We continue to limp along - both individually and collectively - as the leeches (and I can't find a more descriptive or accurate word) in the financial sectors drift along on a sea of tax-payer funded largesse, picking off their seven figure bonuses and threatening to leave the UK for distant shores if we don't support their blackmail. Their moral squalor is beyond my powers to describe, and I would cheerfully hang the lot of them from the nearest lampost, such is the wanton destruction that they have caused.

 

I hope you have a good Xmas, and I hope that you escape the cuts to the poor and disabled that are to come, and which are apparently deemed to be the price that ordinary people have to pay for this insane state of affairs.

 

My best,

Si

Edited December 23, 2010 by themightysrc

[Von Paulus 8]

I know only too well what's likely to happen in 2011: the current government, to my utter disgust, have managed to insinuate to their chums in the media that it is the poor and disabled, the underpaid and those in civil service that are somehow to blame for our current woes. They've managed this disgusting deceit without blinking, and, of course, the Daily Wail and the cheerleaders on the right have now decided that it's the vulnerable who are at the root of our problems - it is a deception of incredible magnitude and mendacity that utterly ignores the root of the problem, namely, the reliance of most Western economies on casino banking and the biggest Ponzi scheme ever devised, backed up credit agencies whose credentials should have been shredded after Lehrmann's but curiously remain intact.

 

That speech it's not England's exclusive. I've heard 1000 times in the last years here in Portugal. This a European and above all a globalization problem.

We have very bad politicians and are being governed by them. We don't have any truly statesman figures in Europe anymore (Merkel it's not a Kohl or even a Brandt). We're weak and I'm afraid we were sold to the Chinese, Indian and to high financial barons.

[Hasse Wind 46]

We're weak and I'm afraid we were sold to the Chinese, Indian and to high financial barons.

 

Yes, and if we are to believe the politicians, we should be very happy about it. But for some reason I'm having trouble believing the benefits of globalization, when all it has meant here is companies leaving and jobs being outsourced. But I do believe this can't go on forever. There will be a reckoning one day.

 

Still, I try to think positively. I wish you all the best, Von Paulus, and don't give up. Don't give the bastards that satisfaction.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Best of luck m8 in whatever path you take

[BirdDogICT 3]

That speech it's not England's exclusive. I've heard 1000 times in the last years here in Portugal. This a European and above all a globalization problem.

We have very bad politicians and are being governed by them. We don't have any truly statesman figures in Europe anymore (Merkel it's not a Kohl or even a Brandt). We're weak and I'm afraid we were sold to the Chinese, Indian and to high financial barons.

All too true...it's just another version of the old "blaming the victim" game, wearing a slightly different skirt. Basically the same game we've been playing for 40 years: http://www.amazon.co...n/dp/0394722264

Edited December 23, 2010 by BirdDogICT

[Wodin 0]

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn"...Hemmingway showing how you can write a story in six words....amazing....

 

Sorry abit off topic there....just the writing thing made me remember this quote....

Edited December 23, 2010 by Wodin

[Flyby PC 23]

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn"...Hemmingway showing how you can write a story in six words....amazing....

 

Sorry abit off topic there....just the writing thing made me remember this quote....

 

 

 

I can write a story with no words -

 

(It's a curling stone if you don't know or can't make out what it is, - saw it today walking the dogs and had to chuckle. ).

[Siggi 10]

Thanks all.

 

Wodin, in particular, I feel for you.

 

I know only too well what's likely to happen in 2011: the current government, to my utter disgust, have managed to insinuate to their chums in the media that it is the poor and disabled, the underpaid and those in civil service that are somehow to blame for our current woes. They've managed this disgusting deceit without blinking, and, of course, the Daily Wail and the cheerleaders on the right have now decided that it's the vulnerable who are at the root of our problems - it is a deception of incredible magnitude and mendacity that utterly ignores the root of the problem, namely, the reliance of most Western economies on casino banking and the biggest Ponzi scheme ever devised, backed up credit agencies whose credentials should have been shredded after Lehrmann's but curiously remain intact.

 

So prepare for a terrible New Year. We continue to limp along - both individually and collectively - as the leeches (and I can't find a more descriptive or accurate word) in the financial sectors drift along on a sea of tax-payer funded largesse, picking off their seven figure bonuses and threatening to leave the UK for distant shores if we don't support their blackmail. Their moral squalor is beyond my powers to describe, and I would cheerfully hang the lot of them from the nearest lampost, such is the wanton destruction that they have caused.

 

I hope you have a good Xmas, and I hope that you escape the cuts to the poor and disabled that are to come, and which are apparently deemed to be the price that ordinary people have to pay for this insane state of affairs.

 

My best,

Si

 

I like your style Mighty. :)

 

I too am trying to gear myself up to write. My IT business has gone down the crapper due to lack of money out there in the world and making parts for guns isn't exactly flooding the coffers. Lean times ahead, thanks to the scum at the top who think the world exists for their benefit alone. The pleasure of the few at the expense of the many (feel free to quote me on that).

 

Good luck to you guys.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

I like your style Mighty. :)

 

I too am trying to gear myself up to write. My IT business has gone down the crapper due to lack of money out there in the world and making parts for guns isn't exactly flooding the coffers. Lean times ahead, thanks to the scum at the top who think the world exists for their benefit alone. The pleasure of the few at the expense of the many (feel free to quote me on that).

 

Good luck to you guys.

 

Moving away from IT myself...bored sh*tless with it now

[Slartibartfast 153]

Moving away from IT myself...bored sh*tless with it now

 

Don't blame you old chap... only reason I am doing it is to pay my way in Vienna and as I don't speak good enough German to do anything else at present its all I have...

[Flyby PC 23]

Biting my lip a little bit with all these budding writers about, but of all the careers out there, isn't writing actually a pretty tough way to go about it?

 

From what I've heard, it's the lucky few who can make a living from it, but demoralising and habitual rejection for the vast majority of would be authors trying to find a publisher. It seems to me like one of those professions where talent and ability are much less important than luck and having the right connections.

 

Don't get me wrong, I salute the bravery and initiative, and I really wouldn't want to discourage anybody keen to start, but may I maybe recommend they have a plan B worked out to keep some pennies rolling in while plan A gets some momentum. I once thought about writing a book about stonework. I know a lot about it, (stone that is, not writing) some of it 'old school' knowledge I've never read in any book, but once you crunch the numbers, it would have to inspire an awful lot of people to take an interest in stonework before I'd see anything but a token return for my endeavours. As a published author, you'd only expect to get 10% of the books sale price. Even assuming you can get a publisher, thats a shed load of books to sell before you see a decent income.

 

Just my personal opinion, but I'd try to stay employed until my first book was actually written, then see if I could find a publisher. Even then, it might take months if not years before you see any money at all. Can you support yourself in the meantime? As a parralel, take a look at how good and unique OFF is as a piece of software, and yet still how difficult it remains turning all that talent and ability into money.

 

I am really a positive person most of the time, or try to be, but as a means to an end, I wouldn't have much faith in a writing career. I know, I know, I know, I'm contradicting myself when I said do something you want to do, but unless you're financially independent already, a reasonable income is still an important part of the formula. I'm sorry if that deflates you guys a bit, but you'd be doing yourself a big favour to find yourself a real published author and actually have a good heart to heart talk with them before doing anything.

 

Just my tuppenceworth, and that from a man who break rocks for a living.

[Javito1986 14]

I think the rule of thumb is that if you write a good story you will be published. Yes, rejections are countless but, speaking as someone who has family in the publishing industry, 99% of rejections are due to problems with the story. Usually it's just abysmal writing. Then there's good writing, good story, but the editing needs a lot of work. A lot of the time your manuscript isn't what a particular company is looking for, at which point your agent would ideally distribute it to a more welcoming publisher.

 

Agents and publishers are ALWAYS looking for new talent. They love good stories as much as the next man or woman, and they know that if they get hooked on your tale that others will too. They don't -like- rejecting manuscripts but fact is that most of what they get is complete drivel and what's left needs a lot of work. The good news is that they're good at finding potential and will often work with you to improve your manuscript.

 

You definitely need to earn an income during the process though. Writing a novel is as time consuming as it is challenging, even if you work on it every day. If you're an amazing writer, you write full-time, and are so good you don't even need to make revisions the process from first sentence to agent submission is a minimum of three months. On average it takes about a year. Once you have an agent it can take a while to find a publisher, and once that happens it takes a while more to finalize your book's publication.

 

Until you're a professional writer, writing is something you do on the side. Thing is you HAVE to make time for it. Writing 500 to 1000 words a day is not wildly time consuming and 2 years will go by whether you write or not so you may as well.

 

 

ps. It's actually starting to get easier to be published now in the digital age. Many writers who wouldn't have had a chance 5 years ago are right now making a good income having their work distributed on ITunes for example. Less risk for the publisher = more authors signed.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Javito1986

[Dej 17]

It's sad to hear so much bad news, especially at this time of year. I pray that 2011 is better than all expectations of it, for everyone here.

 

Si, it's said that everyone has a novel in them... I hope you find yours. If J.K. Rowling can do it - with the initial writing skills of a twelve-year old - then I'm damn sure you can, given what you've posted in these fora. The key is finding the right story and getting the lucky break and I wish you the best with those two, too.

 

It's tragically and painfully ironic that the IT contractor market is quite healthy... IF you've good data skills and can stomach, morally, working in the financial or insurance sectors, helping the guilty to look as if they're paying attention to Basel or Solvency compliance. Not sure I could, and thankfully I don't have to. Mind you, I bet there's a whistle-blowing novel in there somewhere. But if it were a choice between that or losing our home.... I'd have to consider whether to starve on integrity, swallow my pride or make the kind of radical change that you've envisaged. I actually envy you the chance to try writing for a living but I fervently wish it had come about in other circumstances.

 

Best of luck to everyone.

[themightysrc 5]

Hi Dej,

 

Thanks for the kind comments - I seem to saying that a lot just of late, don't I?

 

I've already talked through the implications of writing with my beloved wife, who, being the star she is, is willing to have me work at it, on the basis that I'm still looking for other work - which I will be. It's my profoundest wish that all of this could have come along at another time - like, some 20 years after I'm dead, for example - however, we have to work with what we are sent, and that means, for me, a radical drop in living standards (ie, guess who'd just moved the mortgage to a different, higher payment scheme? Yep) but, I hope, without the fear of losing our house.

 

As it is, I'm looking at contracting and anything else I can lay my hands on. As they say, never let a good crisis go to waste. I suppose in some ways, it's got me out of working for the local authority - much as I loved it - before the government completely f*** over the library services of the UK. Mark my words: 10 years hence, decent public libraries will be confined to affluent areas in the South and South East; in other words, the places where they are least used and appreciated. I cannot begin to express my contempt for what is being done to the UK in the name of supposedly saving our creditworthiness with the amoral gamblers that put us in this situation in the first place. I would happily piss on their burning remains, given the unwarranted suffering that they and their handservants in government are in the process of unleashing on us.

 

Well; I've said all that before. But in my heart I maintain a burning hatred for the Tories and their spineless LibDem sycophantic chums. And I'm not particularly sorry if that offends anyone.

 

Time to get back to the job applications and the writing. At least I now thoroughly understand how Pride and Prejudice works as a plot, however, unlike the 'writers' of Bridget Jones' Diary, I will not be plundering that source.

 

Happy New Year everyone.

 

Cheers,

Si

Edited December 28, 2010 by themightysrc

[Siggi 10]

Hi Dej,

 

Thanks for the kind comments - I seem to saying that a lot just of late, don't I?

 

I've already talked through the implications of writing with my beloved wife, who, being the star she is, is willing to have me work at it, on the basis that I'm still looking for other work - which I will be. It's my profoundest wish that all of this could have come along at another time - like, some 20 years after I'm dead, for example - however, we have to work with what we are sent, and that means, for me, a radical drop in living standards (ie, guess who'd just moved the mortgage to a different, higher payment scheme? Yep) but, I hope, without the fear of losing our house.

 

As it is, I'm looking at contracting and anything else I can lay my hands on. As they say, never let a good crisis go to waste. I suppose in some ways, it's got me out of working for the local authority - much as I loved it - before the government completely f*** over the library services of the UK. Mark my words: 10 years hence, decent public libraries will be confined to affluent areas in the South and South East; in other words, the places where they are least used and appreciated. I cannot begin to express my contempt for what is being done to the UK in the name of supposedly saving our creditworthiness with the amoral gamblers that put us in this situation in the first place. I would happily piss on their burning remains, given the unwarranted suffering that they and their handservants in government are in the process of unleashing on us.

 

Well; I've said all that before. But in my heart I maintain a burning hatred for the Tories and their spineless LibDem sycophantic chums. And I'm not particularly sorry if that offends anyone.

 

Time to get back to the job applications and the writing. At least I now thoroughly understand how Pride and Prejudice works as a plot, however, unlike the 'writers' of Bridget Jones' Diary, I will not be plundering that source.

 

Happy New Year everyone.

 

Cheers,

Si

 

Telling it like it is mate.

[Von Paulus 8]

Well; I've said all that before. But in my heart I maintain a burning hatred for the Tories and their spineless LibDem sycophantic chums. And I'm not particularly sorry if that offends anyone.

They have a lot of names. I called them neoliberals boys. They are everywhere. Them and the new pseudo liberals are poisining the western civilization.

[Flyby PC 23]

I blame the media.

 

In a capitalist system, money is power, or THE power to be more specific. Your elected government may sway how things are done to a degree, but if the 'money' loses confidence in that government, just wait - it won't last. It's money, not policy, which makes the country function. When it comes to political parties I reckon they're all same if you look closely. Labour, Tory, Lib Dem, - they'll all have their saints, rogues, heros and villains. Democracy is just the illusion of control that's needed to stop revolution breaking out. You have a red government, blue, yellow, but ask yourself what REALLY changes in any structural sense?

 

Don't focus on the subject matter, that's not the point, (I don't mean to be partial or nationalistic) but to illustrate the case very clearly, look at Scotlands devolution. Not the 1997devolution, but the 1979 devolution referendum. 52% of the vote was a yes for devolution, but the Labour Government introduced the thoroughly undemocratic 40% rule, whereby every person who didn't vote was counted as a 'no' vote, and Scotland was denied it's DEMOCRACTIC right. Scotlands North Sea oil revenues then kept pumping into the UK coffers. Democracy? It's skin deep, a sham, nothing more. Who really rules our country? Follow the money... and I'll bet it doesn't take you to Westminster.

 

Do I promote revolution? No, not really. I live in the West. While I'm not affluent or well blessed financially, I'm not stupid either. I'd still prefer my lot over that of anybody anybody in the third world. I find capitalism thouroughly unpleasant and immoral, but it works and delivers a degree of global stability. If we could get rid of capitalism but keep the stability, I'd be all for it. Why do you think China, the mighty empire which has never once invaded foreign soil, is presented to us a threat? They now have money to rival ours. We have to take them seriously, but it's all about money.

 

Politics? Just a puppet show. It shouldn't be, but we let it be.

 

On a more day to day level, what I find most depressing about our modern world is the national anaesthetic of soap operas and reality shows were are bombarded with through our TV's every day of our lives. We even get omnibus editions at the weekends! So what, 'repeat' is a dirty word so we'll call it an omnibus edition?

 

Such TV is mind numbingly dull, and directly responsible for the theft of initiative and creativity which once defined our respective cultures. Nowadays we all expect to be looked after, have things done for us, and be able to own whatever we like. Just my opinion, but TV is making our society into the walking dead.

 

When you think what TV had and still has the power to deliver, and compare that to the nightly drivel actually presented. If I could change one thing about our society, I would end the domination of the soap opera / police drama, and create a TV which asks questions of us and stimulates our collective intellect, not stifles it until we are all zombies, or a nation of sheep. In Orwells 1984, the viewscreens didn't have off buttons. It's not too late, our TV's still do...

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

Flyby, I agree with your entire synopsis and have been mentioning the same thoughts for some time now when conversations such as this arise. I will add: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Doesn't matter which group has it, the end result has always been the same throughout history. All that being said, it is up to us as individuals to make this the best world it can be in our own little ways and in our own little lives, and honour the rules and truths we believe to be honest, right, and just. God will sort us all out in the end and there won't be any room for negotiation, bribery, or coercion when that time comes. Just keep fighting the good fight my friends and follow your hearts.

 

.

[Von Paulus 8]

Sorry but I think then that both of you are making a mistake.

We live in a democratic (and parliamentary in most of the cases) systems and nothing says that we should be rule by anything than else than by those who we elect.

Democracy is the rule of the people by the people itself. If you're telling that this is an utopia, than lets talk seriously and we'll have to change the system and create a new one.

But until then, we have to point them and ask for the responsibility of their acts. We cannot dismise and diminish that responsibility. It's that absence of guilty that's mining our political class. We don't have leaders anymore. All we have is this... mediocrety, that is corrupted by their own self interests.

The current state of things have true faces and can be named.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

VP, I'm not saying we don't live under a democratic or parliamentary system, (or in the case of the US a "republic"), and that there aren't true faces that can be named and pointed to. The problem is that our politicians and leaders have become so deeply beholden to those with money that it is ultimately "money's" interests that are being looked after, and the electorate just becomes something that needs to be controlled rather than served. When political systems and governments reach this point they are no longer of the people, by the people, and for the people, and need to be torn down and rebuilt to truly serve the citizens. That usually requires drastic action of some form: be it revolution; mass turnout at the polls to elect a complete new slate over the course of a decade or so of elections; total refusual by the masses to support the current government by refusal to pay taxes; whatever. Until such things happen I am afraid it will continue to be business as usual with the occasional scapegoat thrown to the general public to keep us all placated.

 

.