stupid first world problems you're dealing with

Scrambling to try to find a room in LA by the time school starts.

  On 9/10/2015 at 12:19 AM, StephenG said:

 

  On 9/10/2015 at 12:13 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

Wallet's too full of money. Can't close it.

ultimate fwp

 

 

but why are you carrying so much cash?

 

 

gf just gave me her half of the rent... in all 5's and 10's. Her new employer apparently has never heard of $20 bills... and no, she isn't "workin' the streets" (I know you were thinking it, watmm).

  On 9/6/2015 at 8:07 PM, Zephyr_Nova said:

I've been fighting a war against fruit flies in my kitchen for several weeks now, and the population seems to stay at a constant. I set traps, they do exactly what they're supposed to do. I keep the garbage outside so they're not hanging out under my sink. Yet they never fuck off completely, or even mostly. Every other time I've dealt with fruit flies, they've been gone within less than a week of setting traps. I don't understand why this time is different. The battle rages on.

Sample them, or eat them, or both!

I have a feeling fruit flies are next to impossible to sample, especially over the hum of my fridge. I have been swatting and feeding them to my cat on occasion.

  On 9/10/2015 at 12:13 AM, MDM Chaos said:

I just picture myself as an active, fit and healthy 80 year old. That's enough motivation for me.

 

70 year old future image on the stage ...

While I was making dinner, a moth flew on to my frying pan.

  On 9/10/2015 at 7:29 AM, Braintree said:

While I was making dinner, a moth flew on to my frying pan.

That's one of the best ways to season a cast iron skillet. Moth fat.

^ a fly flew into my cup of tea I brewed out in the upper Michigan wilderness yesterday.

 

I would be a liar if I said I didn't turn up the heat and add butter.

I've been getting much better at writing lately, but I also have a lot of trouble doing it for more than an hour or so. I get really inspired, put all of my soul into a few paragraphs, and then I'm done with all of the ideas I had. I wish I could write less densely so I could make developed stories, but that unfortunately just isn't how it works for me. I need help.

  On 9/10/2015 at 4:55 PM, Candiru said:

 

  On 9/10/2015 at 7:29 AM, Braintree said:

While I was making dinner, a moth flew on to my frying pan.

That's one of the best ways to season a cast iron skillet. Moth fat.

Haha legendary lart. [-;

  On 9/10/2015 at 5:52 PM, drillkicker said:

I've been getting much better at writing lately, but I also have a lot of trouble doing it for more than an hour or so. I get really inspired, put all of my soul into a few paragraphs, and then I'm done with all of the ideas I had. I wish I could write less densely so I could make developed stories, but that unfortunately just isn't how it works for me. I need help.

You can say a lot with just a few words

Yeah maybe he should start a new genre, one page outlines, otherwise retitled short short stories. Although lazy people of yore already jumped on the back of an existing genre, calling their short descriptive pieces, poetry.

 

So maybe you're a poet but didn't know it. heh ..

Drillkicker: Ursula le Guin is offering some writing advice right now, you could even email her and ask her directly for help if you so desire: http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/author/ursulakleguin/

 

  On 9/10/2015 at 8:02 PM, delet... said:

Yeah maybe he should start a new genre, one page outlines, otherwise retitled short short stories. Although lazy people of yore already jumped on the back of an existing genre, calling their short descriptive pieces, poetry.

So maybe you're a poet but didn't know it. heh ..

 

Stories two page or less in length are referred to as flash fiction and is indeed a genre

 

Also some poems can be so long as to fill an entire book (or books) by themselves: i.e. Divine Comedy

 

Also you smell

  On 9/10/2015 at 8:02 PM, delet... said:

Yeah maybe he should start a new genre, one page outlines, otherwise retitled short short stories. Although lazy people of yore already jumped on the back of an existing genre, calling their short descriptive pieces, poetry.

 

So maybe you're a poet but didn't know it. heh ..

I do write poetry more often than stories, so maybe that's why I can never get far. I always write my stories as if they're prose poetry, which gets annoying because sometimes all I want to do is write like a normal person (or at least at a normal pace).

 

 

  On 9/10/2015 at 8:19 PM, Bechuga said:

Drillkicker: Ursula le Guin is offering some writing advice right now, you could even email her and ask her directly for help if you so desire: http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/author/ursulakleguin/

 

  On 9/10/2015 at 8:02 PM, delet... said:

Yeah maybe he should start a new genre, one page outlines, otherwise retitled short short stories. Although lazy people of yore already jumped on the back of an existing genre, calling their short descriptive pieces, poetry.

 

So maybe you're a poet but didn't know it. heh ..

 

Stories two page or less in length are referred to as flash fiction and is indeed a genre

 

Also some poems can be so long as to fill an entire book (or books) by themselves: i.e. Divine Comedy

 

Also you smell

Oh yeah I forgot about flash fiction. I guess that's just what I do, then. I can never get past the two page hurdle. Still, I'd like to be able to write a novel or something one day

  On 9/10/2015 at 8:19 PM, Bechuga said:

Drillkicker: Ursula le Guin is offering some writing advice right now, you could even email her and ask her directly for help if you so desire: http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/author/ursulakleguin/

 

 

  On 9/10/2015 at 8:02 PM, delet... said:

Yeah maybe he should start a new genre, one page outlines, otherwise retitled short short stories. Although lazy people of yore already jumped on the back of an existing genre, calling their short descriptive pieces, poetry.

So maybe you're a poet but didn't know it. heh ..

 

Stories two page or less in length are referred to as flash fiction and is indeed a genre

 

Also some poems can be so long as to fill an entire book (or books) by themselves: i.e. Divine Comedy

 

Also you smell

I thought I'd flush out the fantacists, heh, /gets toilet brush to clean sides of bowl (read me with a sense of fun, I mean no harm, you are all my friends, as well as fodder for my fenestration.

 

Also, who was that woman that wrote that you just need to keep on doing to get better, and if you had good taste to begin with, the process of continually working on building your ability will mean that eventually your skill level matches your expectation. So keep at it drillkicker, and at it, nan datit, lan latit, an atit. You'll get their lad.

  On 9/10/2015 at 8:45 PM, drillkicker said:

 

  On 9/10/2015 at 8:02 PM, delet... said:

Yeah maybe he should start a new genre, one page outlines, otherwise retitled short short stories. Although lazy people of yore already jumped on the back of an existing genre, calling their short descriptive pieces, poetry.

So maybe you're a poet but didn't know it. heh ..

 

I do write poetry more often than stories, so maybe that's why I can never get far. I always write my stories as if they're prose poetry, which gets annoying because sometimes all I want to do is write like a normal person (or at least at a normal pace).

My grandfather said that its best when writing a story to have a beginning and an end already in place, then you know where you are headed and are working towards that end. So maybe flowery prose is something your should eschew in favour of having a purpose first, then as the idea condenses out of the aether, you may fill it out with finely tuned form.

I think the problem is that I usually don't have an ending, or even a plot, decided when I start writing. I just write out whatever my thoughts are, and they usually don't go anywhere, which I think is probably a reflection of how my life is right now. I have tried writing something that already had an ending in mind, but even that usually fails because I can't figure out how to get from the beginning to the ending.

stuff happens, heh ..., the end ..

  On 9/10/2015 at 10:24 PM, drillkicker said:

I think the problem is that I usually don't have an ending, or even a plot, decided when I start writing. I just write out whatever my thoughts are, and they usually don't go anywhere, which I think is probably a reflection of how my life is right now. I have tried writing something that already had an ending in mind, but even that usually fails because I can't figure out how to get from the beginning to the ending.

 

Use those thoughts you wrote out as your beginning synopsis ('two characters meet over time, eventually end up in love' for eg) and then expand it to flesh out the story, told in whatever style (or styles) feel best. I'm the middle of a huge book and my synopsis was not much more than two paragraphs, which still covers the mass of text I've written since. I think the first synopsis for Infinite Jest by DFW, a 1000 page book, was 'a real sad story'.

 

Having an idea of 'theme' or 'voice' helps. You can make story / plot choices if you know what you want to get through with your writing. Even if it's something like 'a real sad story' or 'uplifting sci-fi with a heart', it can help immensely in deciding what to do next, what characters say and what they don't.

 

And short stories are a perfectly valid form of storytelling. Just ask Alice Munro and her Nobel prize. If it's any consolation, I can't write short stories at all, every idea I have seems to turn out novel sized.

I think part of the problem is that I never have more than one character. Everything I've ever written has only had one central character and their thoughts and perceptions of their surroundings. I just don't know how to introduce a second character and still have it make sense. My antagonist is always just the universe, basically all of the character's surroundings. That makes it kind of hard for a complex plot to develop, I guess.

 

Well, now that I noticed what the problem is, I can start working to fix it.

mate, plotlines, beginnings ends - wtf - hardly any of my favourite writing [fiction, novels, tv, film, music] has definite plot or characters and if they do they're often just thinly veiled sham ways of offering an explanation for something intangible [like someone pressured them to or they had to use them to make it possible for people to comprehend

 

 

also lots of good authors never studied and don't have sets of rules

 

 

just make the words happen man

Edited September 11, 2015 by fenton

People on FB whom I PM'd a simple question and never got a reply from. First, it's in English, and second, it's not inflammatory or creepy in any way. Weak shit.

Is it too much to ask to have a little class?

Maybe they're just busy? I replied to some months old PMs the other day. Facebook sucks.