The Overlook Hotel

3:24 AM

@NathanCTresch - You and your IRC.

woot!

Thinking about writing a blog post on profanity tonight. But all I can do is respond to the meta post on it.

Maybe they're the same post.

10 hours later…

1:51 PM

I was alone.

I was all by myself.

Nobody was looking...

1 hour later…

3:11 PM

I was thinking of you
Oh yeah, did I mention I was all by myself...

A moment of feeling old: Knowing that someone born the day Green Day's Dookie came out is graduating high school today :(

First moment like that that I remember was watching a garage band play at an open mike, probably all high-schoolers, and the frontman was wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. Then I realized it was like when we wore Led Zeppelin t-shirts in high school. Nirvana was old school for them, before they were conscious of music.

Q: How well would this beginning sell the book to readers? Not necessarily for money

4:23 PM

I have a question based on the following critique posts:

Disclaimer: English isn't my native language. A while back, I posted this and this. I got... well, reviews. While not outright helpful (ie. indirect, which is the whole point of critiques, I guess) they helped me shape the following extremely revised beginning. I'm dead. Conscious enoug...

Q: Critique on Writing meant to create Emotion

The thing I hear most often about my writing is, "It's too dry." I'm sure this happens to other people too. I'm working on eliciting emotion through writing, and I'd like a critique on some of my first bits. Please feel free to close this question if it's off-topic or just not a good enough qu...

fiction technique criticism

My question:

Is my kneejerk reaction to hate and despise all things written in the first person reasonable?

Completely unreasonable.

Is my kneejerk reaction to hate and despise all writing prefaced with "English isn't my native language" reasonable?

perhaps.

Maybe I just have a bad taste in my mouth from Twilight and hunger Games

I read the first few sentences of the second one and immediately disliked it.

Also, the first.

There's a couple more that I can't remember as I have blocked those traumatic eventd from my memory

I think it is probably just bad writing that you dislike.

And that's frequently in first-person.

4:28 PM

Hmmm. There is that.

Also true

But not all first person is bad

Which makes me think that I should certainly do an exercise in third-person.

Frankenstein is first person, I seem to remember

This is a writing exercise I did for first-person perspective.

what else is there? [thinking cap on]

Lovecraft is almost all first-person.

4:31 PM

[don't tell Nathan but I'm not a big fan of HP Lovecraft's actual writing]

Hmm. I really should do more third-person. First-person is beginner hack.

Of course, I am a beginner.

His worlds and creatures are awesome. The writing, not so much. For me.

It gets tedious.

The part I read felt like poetry

But since I hadn't read any until recently, it was the first author I thought of.

4:34 PM

I liked it. It flowed. Few (if any) needless words. Highly descriptive, yet it was show and not tell. Slighty flowery, but not overtly so. And again, it flowed like poetry.

What? Lovecraft?

You, silly.

Me? Oh, the exercise.

[rolls eyes]

Yes, what I was going to say was the exercise was to write in first-person using personal pronouns no more than twice.

4:35 PM

And it worked beautifully.

I used three, but hey, nobody's keeping score.

So, anyway, see? You didn't immediately hate it, right?

But when EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE is I..., I..., I..., it gets VERY tedious

~~Truly.~~ Truely.

um...but you didn't immediately hate it, right?

I'm reviewing my 3800 word personal essay to see how many personal pronouns I've used...

Oh.

Personal essay?

4:39 PM

It's not online ... yet

What's it for? A letter of introduction?

It's really more of a short story, a la David Sedaris or James Thurber. It's about learning to drive and my first car. Two essays I smooshed together to meet the length requirement of a writing contest I ultimately didn't enter.

Hahaha.

I use "I" like once every 100 words or so

a "my" every so often

a "me" hither and thither

a "mine" thither and yon?

4:43 PM

mayhaps

Three kids. Duuuude. My hat is off to you.

I mean, were I wearing a hat, I would doff it to indicate my respect for your devoted paternity.

5:05 PM

Actually, I have five kids. But two of them live with their mother and I never see them :'(

But...but...oh.

That's a lot.

It really, really is.

This is where my social awkwardness rears its ugly head.

No, no. It's okay. I'm socially awkward too.

Either that or I just really hate people.

persons are okay

just not people

People are stupid.

5:35 PM

I certainly am.

No, Neil. You're a person, so I like you.

People, to paraphrase Men in Black, are a bunch of dumb animals

A person is reasonable

it's overstatement, to be sure. but I appreciate the sentiment

Well, some persons are stupid too.

is per capita two words or hyphenated?

two words, right?

two words.

no hyphen.

no waiting.

5:53 PM

My AP stylebook fell behind my desk. I'm debating the merits of removing all the crap from my desk and moving it or just buying a new one.

@JedOliver - I use the web version. It's pretty cheap.

Yeah but I'm old school. It also has notes in the margin for when AP is being stupid.

You can do that on the web version. But that only works if you pretty much always have signal.

(I subscribed to it recently when I had a project that needed it and I was away from home for a few weeks. Haven't regretted it at all.)

that's not really going to work for me. I tend to get easily distracted by bright shiny objects so I turn my network card off while writing.

(with this being the exception as I'm doing research)

Probably a good move, then.

6:01 PM

presents shiny object

[focused like laser]

slides wallet out of Jed's pocket

Finished my blog post on cursing: Spitting Out the Words

Do you want to hear about the typos?

Oh, yeah. Where?

Oh, thanks for the follow!

6:06 PM

nods

It's more orthographic than a typo: "When my even-keeled father-in-law lets a naughty word slip, I t’s really jarring."

You've got a big I there.

You probably want a little one.

Fixed, thanks.

Also: "but seeing this as a good thing assumes a all readers are the same." You want a 'that' there, I'm thinking.

Thanks, got it.

Plus, I disagree with you.

But well written, just the same.

Feel free to write a response post! That would be awesome.

Which part do you disagree with, BTW?

6:11 PM

Expletives are used as intensifiers for everyday language. You don't intensify language at sedate times.

Yeah, people actually do.

People who pepper what they say with expletive to appear cool or whatever.

That causes them to be less intense.

I didn't make that clear?

And that's also why they are considered low-class. If you can't express yourself better than that, you must not know many words.

@NeilFein You made that clear, but I disagree with you.

Oh, okay. Fine.

Thanks!

And that was a generic "you" not a "you-Neil-Fein-you."

Yep, got it.

Gotta go to the store. See you guys later!

6:14 PM

Later!

Thanks again for the proofreading!

No problem. Thanks for sharing the post.

3 hours later…

9:03 PM

Hey! I think today is our 18 month anniversary.