Is it 'worst' or 'worse?' Which is the proper use of irregular comparative and superlative adjectives in this example? Ms Mod? And if the GNT used the wrong term... How about you jumping all over his a$$, also.
I Am Discouraged. Anyone else?
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Is it 'worst' or 'worse?' Which is the proper use of irregular comparative and superlative adjectives in this example? Ms Mod? And if the GNT used the wrong term... How about you jumping all over his a$$, also.
No need to jump over his a$$, he's right. Do your worst with that.Is it 'worst' or 'worse?' Which is the proper use of irregular comparative and superlative adjectives in this example? Ms Mod? And if the GNT used the wrong term... How about you jumping all over his a$$, also.
No need to jump over his a$$, he's right. Do your worst with that.
(you always did like him better, anyway.
)
No need to jump over his a$$, he's right. Do your worst with that.
Amazing that after all these years, there's still that little opening right between the eyes.......did you learn nothing from Goliath?....again, do your worst.....
...here, if it'll make you feel better.....
(you always did like him better, anyway.
....you forget the steel plate in me melon.....
(you always did like him better, anyway.
No scrapple?...here, if it'll make you feel better.....
....nope, just wurst.....
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.)
I always want to ribbon what you have to say Top marks, son.R.E. 'naturally gifted'. I agree. There are people to whom writing is easy peasy, who write beautifully very naturally... but I'd add the caveat that even those writers have to have a bit of life under their belt for their writing to resonate. Some people have a lot of life knowledge early (and god help them. I really mean that); most of us have to have a few years of adulthood to have anything to say that's much worth saying to another adult. I had a few writers pop immediately to mind, those that were born with the gift of writing but not the life with which to imbue their work, but I'll be circumspect. Suffice to say that the words are pretty, the structure is light, airy, and effortless, and at the end of the day they haven't said a damn thing worth remembering. Sound and fury, signifying not much.
View attachment 18562 I always want to ribbon what you have to say
R.E. 'naturally gifted'. I agree. There are people to whom writing is easy peasy, who write beautifully very naturally... but I'd add the caveat that even those writers have to have a bit of life under their belt for their writing to resonate. Some people have a lot of life knowledge early (and god help them. I really mean that); most of us have to have a few years of adulthood to have anything to say that's much worth saying to another adult. I had a few writers pop immediately to mind, those that were born with the gift of writing but not the life with which to imbue their work, but I'll be circumspect. Suffice to say that the words are pretty, the structure is light, airy, and effortless, and at the end of the day they haven't said a damn thing worth remembering. Sound and fury, signifying not much.
Doggone it, one of these days I'm gonna say something cool enough to win me one of them nifty Skimom blue ribbons. One of these days...
Muskie, you get one just for existing
Muskie, you get one just for existing
Oh, I get it. A sort of 'lifetime achievement' ribbon, like the oscars they give to old actors who've never gotten one before. Very well, I'll take it.
Guess I can mark that off the old bucket list now...
Is that another way of saying 'participation award?'Muskie, you get one just for existing
Is that another way of saying 'participation award?'
.....I concur.....
So one candidate "winning" when the other received millions more votes constitutes a "Landslide" to this rag?