you need to lie down in a dark room,and play some relaxing music to help you sleep..I suggest an extended play version,like Debussy Claire de lune..breathe and forget your troubles,just relax..
I Am Discouraged. Anyone else?
- Thread starter CoriSCapnSkip
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A John Prine song mistakenly interpreted to refer to imbibing illegal substances but actually about the power of imagination on the human spirit. It's basically about being happy when every force in the universe is conspiring trying to ensure that you not be. It sums up a lot of my life.
It don't cost very much, but it lasts a long while.
(Cori explained it nicely. Google it for the song. ... on my phone or I'd post it.)
It don't cost very much, but it lasts a long while.
(Cori explained it nicely. Google it for the song. ... on my phone or I'd post it.)
I did, thank you.
Take a job. Any job.
Volunteer organizations always need people. Unless you have a criminal record (and sometimes not even then), you will not be turned away if you try.
Get out and do something, lad.
The myth of the 'naturally gifted' writer is just that: a myth. Made up **** sounds like made up ****, to be blunt. I'm talking about life experience, not events--those can be invented, but the feelings that surround characters, their motivators etc., can't. So put down the pen, take a deep breath, and go find something (some one, some feeling, some breath-of-life instant, etc.) to write about. If you're meant to note it down, it will happen. If you're not that guy, you'll be on your way to finding out exactly which guy you really are.
Can I second, but tentatively qualify, what skimom2 said above?
Take a job, any job - as long as you're sure you still want to write and get it done.
For one thing, you'll be earning (yay!). For another, you'll be able to observe life and people in their natural environment, so to speak. It'll help you improve in a way knowledge of people in high school or college never could, because how young people are in those places isn't how people are - no matter their age - in the big wide world. Writing, of course, would be your main job on any given day, so no need to sweat the small stuff too much re: work (though by all means take it seriously and give of your very best; anything less is a disservice to your employer).
If you're not sure you want to be a writer anymore, your career choice might require a little more thought. Just don't overanalyse and fall into 'paralysis by analysis'.
On the other hand, if you have no idea what you want to do next and you want to/can give up on writing, then yeah, just take any job and see where it leads.
Re: the myth of the naturally gifted writer. OK. Here's the thing: some people are naturally gifted writers. They are extremely rare, because they're the ones who produce a first draft, hand it over with a comment like 'I know it's a bit rough...', and have editors and agents go wide-eyed because it's actually publishable right there and then. But like I say, they are extremely rare. You can also feel like writing is what you do best in the world, no matter the actual quality (that's me, btw). It's OK to feel that way, but...
Whatever type of writer you are - the natural, the 'this is what I do best', the wannabe, the workmanlike slogger - you have to have the capacity for three things: 1) hard work (damn hard work, even if it's not the sort that saves lives or is on a par with mining, etc), 2) selfishness, by which I mean the ability to set aside a chunk of time and say "This is my writing time. I refuse to do anything else" (emergencies aside, of course...but unless your leg's hanging off or a relative is on the way to hospital in a serious condition, etc, it's not a real emergency, i.e. running out of milk, the cat needing a tin of food, and so on), 3) bloody-mindedness. Writing, on a base level, is easy. Writing a novel is difficult. Writing a novel - or even a good short story - to a publishable standard is hard, and you will come to hate the thing you're working on, and maybe even writing itself, with a passion...but you have to get through it. You have to push on and 'gut it out'.
Without any or all of those attributes, you'll find it hard to get anywhere or even complete anything. It's why it's better to be a workmanlike slogger than an airy 'natural' - and most 'naturals' are really only in love with the idea of being a writer, not the reality of it. They want the adulation, the wide-eyes gasps and blushing demurrals when they say 'Oh, I'm a writer', when in fact writing is more like trench warfare - plenty of guts, self-doubt, panic and pain, but glory? It doesn't exist. (Though I say again, it's not on the same level as being a doctor or a nurse, a coal miner or an oil-rig worker.)
As for anything else, don't worry about it. Do what you need to and let life happen. Women, for example. I was single for the vast majority of my 20s. I didn't want to be, really, but that's how it was. By the time I met someone - the someone I'm still with now, almost 14 years later - I'd given up, I was resigned to, and had made my peace with, being one of those people for whom it never happened. I met my gf in late 2002, when I was about 8-9 weeks shy of turning 30. We moved in together the following August. We've had maybe three arguments in very close on 14 years (the key has been to always try to stay calm, let the other have their say if anything's been bugging them, and try to see things from their perspective before giving a response rather than flying off the handle in a 'me, me, me' style; getting things out in the open early, so they can be nipped in the bud before they grow into a big issue or resentment, is also a big part of it). We have occasional outside difficulties but we ride those waves as they come. We just...fit.
So, I'd say you can't chase these things - success, but especially love - because if you do you'll never find what's right, only what seems to be a close fit (and they never are, in the end). You do, however, have to be open to them. See the difference?
(Sorry. I seem to have my waffling fingers on again today.
)
Take a job, any job - as long as you're sure you still want to write and get it done.
For one thing, you'll be earning (yay!). For another, you'll be able to observe life and people in their natural environment, so to speak. It'll help you improve in a way knowledge of people in high school or college never could, because how young people are in those places isn't how people are - no matter their age - in the big wide world. Writing, of course, would be your main job on any given day, so no need to sweat the small stuff too much re: work (though by all means take it seriously and give of your very best; anything less is a disservice to your employer).
If you're not sure you want to be a writer anymore, your career choice might require a little more thought. Just don't overanalyse and fall into 'paralysis by analysis'.
On the other hand, if you have no idea what you want to do next and you want to/can give up on writing, then yeah, just take any job and see where it leads.
Re: the myth of the naturally gifted writer. OK. Here's the thing: some people are naturally gifted writers. They are extremely rare, because they're the ones who produce a first draft, hand it over with a comment like 'I know it's a bit rough...', and have editors and agents go wide-eyed because it's actually publishable right there and then. But like I say, they are extremely rare. You can also feel like writing is what you do best in the world, no matter the actual quality (that's me, btw). It's OK to feel that way, but...
Whatever type of writer you are - the natural, the 'this is what I do best', the wannabe, the workmanlike slogger - you have to have the capacity for three things: 1) hard work (damn hard work, even if it's not the sort that saves lives or is on a par with mining, etc), 2) selfishness, by which I mean the ability to set aside a chunk of time and say "This is my writing time. I refuse to do anything else" (emergencies aside, of course...but unless your leg's hanging off or a relative is on the way to hospital in a serious condition, etc, it's not a real emergency, i.e. running out of milk, the cat needing a tin of food, and so on), 3) bloody-mindedness. Writing, on a base level, is easy. Writing a novel is difficult. Writing a novel - or even a good short story - to a publishable standard is hard, and you will come to hate the thing you're working on, and maybe even writing itself, with a passion...but you have to get through it. You have to push on and 'gut it out'.
Without any or all of those attributes, you'll find it hard to get anywhere or even complete anything. It's why it's better to be a workmanlike slogger than an airy 'natural' - and most 'naturals' are really only in love with the idea of being a writer, not the reality of it. They want the adulation, the wide-eyes gasps and blushing demurrals when they say 'Oh, I'm a writer', when in fact writing is more like trench warfare - plenty of guts, self-doubt, panic and pain, but glory? It doesn't exist. (Though I say again, it's not on the same level as being a doctor or a nurse, a coal miner or an oil-rig worker.)
As for anything else, don't worry about it. Do what you need to and let life happen. Women, for example. I was single for the vast majority of my 20s. I didn't want to be, really, but that's how it was. By the time I met someone - the someone I'm still with now, almost 14 years later - I'd given up, I was resigned to, and had made my peace with, being one of those people for whom it never happened. I met my gf in late 2002, when I was about 8-9 weeks shy of turning 30. We moved in together the following August. We've had maybe three arguments in very close on 14 years (the key has been to always try to stay calm, let the other have their say if anything's been bugging them, and try to see things from their perspective before giving a response rather than flying off the handle in a 'me, me, me' style; getting things out in the open early, so they can be nipped in the bud before they grow into a big issue or resentment, is also a big part of it). We have occasional outside difficulties but we ride those waves as they come. We just...fit.
So, I'd say you can't chase these things - success, but especially love - because if you do you'll never find what's right, only what seems to be a close fit (and they never are, in the end). You do, however, have to be open to them. See the difference?
(Sorry. I seem to have my waffling fingers on again today.
)
Good thing you used the small 'o' in Dio, as using the capital 'O' in your comment could have earned you a ban from a mod not be be named.
Good thing you used the small 'o' in Dio, as using the capital 'O' in your comment could have earned you a ban from a mod not be be named.
We're all smarter than to do that! 
One of these days you're going to slip up and pay me a complement... and then I'll never let you forget it.
One of these days you're going to slip up and pay me a complement... and then I'll never let you forget it.
compliment-- giving praise to someone
complement - add to something in a way that enhances or improves it
You did that on purpose, didn't you?
If that's the case, we complement him daily just by allowing to be near us!!
compliment-- giving praise to someone
complement - add to something in a way that enhances or improves it
You did that on purpose, didn't you?
.....Sooner or later the improvements have got to start showing
Until then.......I'll just give you daisies!!!One of these days you're going to slip up and pay me a complement... and then I'll never let you forget it.
Let me know when that happens. I'm not sure I'm going to be here long enough.If that's the case, we complement him daily just by allowing to be near us!!
.....Sooner or later the improvements have got to start showing
I knew you be looking at that. Haven't seen mention of the twitchy eye as of late.
compliment-- giving praise to someone
complement - add to something in a way that enhances or improves it
You did that on purpose, didn't you?
I have thick skin... which complements my thick skull.If that's the case, we complement him daily just by allowing to be near us!!
.....Sooner or later the improvements have got to start showing
If she pays me aLet me know when that happens. I'm not sure I'm going to be here long enough.