not so serious but I want to rant II: Redemption

[Silver Jelly]

Wow, my phrasing! XD

I meant that I felt friendship for a lot of girls that, in some way or another, I'd like to have sex with. In some cases, Friendship is what drives the relationship, and sexual attraction is a secondary element. And even when the sexual attraction is through the roof, friendship can still be every strong.

As I said, the problems come when romantic feelings appear. (In their several intensities, like simply liking all the way up to falling in love...)

 

[Tress]

After growing my beard out for a few days I made an unnerving discovery. I knew about the growing number of gray hairs on the side of my head, but I was not prepared to see such a significant chunk of my beard come in gray. Especially since a year ago it was completely dark. Apparently I've inherited my mother's genes and I'm going gray early, like she did. I'm still in my twenties.

 

[Silver Jelly]

I was balding badly in my twenties.

And I had to walk for two days and two nights, in the snow, with no shoes, to go to school.
Added at: 09:49
Oh, you want twenties rants?

I'll be twenty five at the end of this month and I will have never even taken a girl I liked by the hand.

(this twenties business made me think of that, I'm not really trying to outrant you.)

 

[fade]

Maybe the thing that women need to understand is that god or nature or whatever your belief/science system leads you to believe created man created him to want to have sex at any and every opportunity. All the time. Sometimes that's a really hard urge to fight. For better or worse, yeah, if you're a woman, you can probably expect some sort of reaction if you talk to a dude about sex. Probably even if you're in the friend zone, just because it's nature.

 

[Espy]

After growing my beard out for a few days I made an unnerving discovery. I knew about the growing number of gray hairs on the side of my head, but I was not prepared to see such a significant chunk of my beard come in gray. Especially since a year ago it was completely dark. Apparently I've inherited my mother's genes and I'm going gray early, like she did. I'm still in my twenties.

I dreamed last night that I woke up and had a ton of grey hair in my beard. It was weird.

 

[Gared]

Grrr... Stupid Corporate IT! They pushed a mandatory security update yesterday which required them to suspend the encryption software which they require for any computer that may at some point in time ever connect to their network. The understanding was that the upgrade software would then, when it was done updating, re-enable said encryption software. Unfortunately, it failed to do so, kept asking me for a smart card which I do not have (and was never provided with). Since I don't have said smart card, it never re-enabled the encryption software. Since it never re-enabled the encryption software, I can't log in to my laptop. At all. Now I have to hope that my contract company's IT guy is around some time this week and can re-image the hard drive for me without losing too much of the data on my computer. It's a good thing I'm salaried, because I literally cannot work today. Hell, I can't even tell my manager that I can't work today unless I drive for an hour, leave a note under his door, and then drive an hour home.

 

[GasBandit]

Mordak the preventer of Information Services strikes again!

 

[fade]

Not to sound like a jerk or anything, but can't you call your manager, or is that encrypted, too?

 

[Null]

I would really like it if students could grasp the concept that "until further notice" isn't a definite time. "The system will be down until further notice" doesn't mean after 5, or tomorrow, or tomorrow night. It means "we don't even know yet".

 

[Sparhawk]

 

[Cajungal]

Here I go again. Having lunch with a friend who I haven't hung out with in a very long time for the same reason I don't hang with a LOT of my female friends that much: they can't resist making negative comments and subtle barbs all the time. We'll see, I guess. Worst case scenario is I get to enjoy a delicious sandwich followed by a satisfyingly solitary drive home to the best friend I've ever had.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Welp, my first choice of publisher rejected my novel. Time to move on to the next one, I guess. Still sucks. I hate rejection.

 

[Gared]

Not to sound like a jerk or anything, but can't you call your manager, or is that encrypted, too?

I be a lowly little vendor, and hence, have no phone. Which is a pretty shitty excuse because it's not like the problem caused my iPhone to stop working, I just didn't have my manager's contact info in any of my non-work email addresses or personal phone, because, well, I planned badly. It worked out ok though, I just had my company rep email my manager and it was a 30 minute fix by Tech Services. And why would that make you sound like a jerk? It was a perfectly reasonable question.

 

[AshburnerX]

So I almost electrocuted myself a few minutes ago. Electric trimmer cut into my extension cord while I was trimming the bushes. I see the sparks and instinctively let go of the thing. Not sure how I'm going to explain this to the family.

Oh, and the lawnmower wouldn't freakin' start ether. Joy.

 

[GasBandit]

Welp, my first choice of publisher rejected my novel. Time to move on to the next one, I guess. Still sucks. I hate rejection.

"Dear Gertrude Perkins - Thank you for your novel. Get Stuffed. Sincerely, Dr. Samuel Johnson."

 

[Piotyr]

Welp, my first choice of publisher rejected my novel. Time to move on to the next one, I guess. Still sucks. I hate rejection.

Rejection is better than not knowing. It takes out the "what-if" from the equation.

Did they offer anything constructive, or was the response basically "Yeah....no."

 

[Silver Jelly]

Ah, they are now unofficially seeing each other. (What do you call in english when non-couples act like a little more than lovers?)

 

[Piotyr]

Ah, they are now unofficially seeing each other. (What do you call in english when non-couples act like a little more than lovers?)

Physical connection with no emotional connection is referred to as "friends with benefits"
Emotional + physical connection is "boyfriend/girlfriend" or a couple. Or an item, if this is the 1950's.

 

[Silver Jelly]

Well, who knows why she didn't prefer me. I think I was doing so well that night she had dinner with my friends and me:

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Rejection is better than not knowing. It takes out the "what-if" from the equation.

Did they offer anything constructive, or was the response basically "Yeah....no."

Sort of. They said "In this case, Dill has such a strong, colloquial voice, and I'm sorry to say I didn't connect with it."

The lack of connection comment isn't new. A literary agent said something to the same degree.

 

[Silver Jelly]

Physical connection with no emotional connection is referred to as "friends with benefits"
Emotional + physical connection is "boyfriend/girlfriend" or a couple. Or an item, if this is the 1950's.

Thanks!
Added at: 21:10

Sort of. They said "In this case, Dill has such a strong, colloquial voice, and I'm sorry to say I didn't connect with it."

The lack of connection comment isn't new. A literary agent said something to the same degree.

If the problem is Dill's voice, you have two options: Either changing it -either completely or just toning it down- or keep trying until you find somebody who connects with it.

(does this situation allow you to re-submit the novel to these same people after having followed their advice?)

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Given how integral Dill's voice is to the story - or more importantly, his character - I don't think I'd have the heart to change it. It doesn't say anything about re-submitting to them, but I have two other publishers that are among my topmost picks (DAW and Ace).

 

[fade]

Do they mean word usage and sentence structure? Are you trying to duplicate the accent? I'll be honest, I never liked it when people tried to duplicate accents in text. Far better just to say where they're from. Takes ten times as long to parse out what the character is supposed to be saying.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

It's not so much an accent so much as a particular dialect. Dill tends to use double negatives an' the like. Like skippin' the 'g' on 'ing' words. And likes the word 'ain't.'

That said, I've had several friends and a couple of English professors read it. They've all enjoyed it. And these are people who would be honest with me on whether it's enjoyable or not. One professor said it was like a mix of Hammet, Chandler, Poe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Added at: 15:56
I just sent a query, along with the first chapter, to one of my next top choices for publishers: Ace. Fingers crossed, folks!

 

[Null]

Do they mean word usage and sentence structure? Are you trying to duplicate the accent? I'll be honest, I never liked it when people tried to duplicate accents in text. Far better just to say where they're from. Takes ten times as long to parse out what the character is supposed to be saying.

I agree. It's hard to convey an accent in text but simply mentioning it is usually simpler than trying to transcribe it. For instance, saying "spoke in his harsh Romanian accent" gives a better impression than writing it in Dracula-talk.

 

[strawman]

When I have to read such heavy handed phonetically written material, it ejects me from living inside the storyline because I have to concentrate so hard on understanding what the character is saying.

Stories that describe the characters accent on first introduction, then use a simple, non jarring colloquialism once in awhile to gently re-assert their voice work better for keeping me engaged in the story and helping me understand this character's accent. For instance a Russian accent would occasionally skip the word "this" but otherwise no spelling or grammatical errors would be used.

The only time I've agreed fully with the use of heavy handed phonetically spelled accent speaking is when the fact that they are hard to understand is central to the story, and keeping the reader guessing is as important as keeping the other characters in the book guessing about the meaning behind their difficult to understand words. That gets tiring though, and such a character should not make frequent appearances nevermind be the protagonist.

In my not-so-humble opinion, of course.

 

[Chad Sexington]

Agh.

School. Work. Home. School, work, home. schoolworkhome. schoolworkhomeschoolworkhomeskorkme

Being a student is stressful! I'm not gonna sleep tonight. SO MUCH TO DOOOOO.

 

[makare]

Why is it the wind is never blowing from the right direction to cool my house? and it changes within minutes. I open a window on one side of the house suddenly no wind, open on the other side, suddenly no wind. Goddamn it!

 

[makare]

Double rant/win sorta
I went to the doctor today for various reasons one of which is my throat has been hurting me. Actually it has been itchy and annoying since May. When I got my surgical staples out I told them about it but they said it was just dry throat. Today I went in and the doctor told me my tonsils are covered in pus (ew.). But my reaction was a very bright and cheerful "really!? yay!" not because I have strep but because I have something. I hate thinking that something that is wrong with me is all in my head. Getting confirmation that there is actually something going on in my throat makes me very happy, even if that something is a Strep party.

 

[LordRendar]

As high as a fucking kite and have blue balls the size of Jupiter.The girl I picked up got called up by her Mom,just as we were ready to get nasty.She should have been home at 23:00 and she send an sms that she would be spending the night at her best friends.We''ll,mom wouldn't have any of that.
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn!

 

[LittleSin]

How old is she if she has to be home by 11?

 

[LordRendar]

22.But it seems she got a crazy mom.
*I might have erred 2-3 years ago,if some of the older people might have remembered from one of my old,old theads,but im not making that mistake again.

 

[Biannoshufu]

Time for that woman (not girl) to get her ass an apartment of her own.

 

[LittleSin]

22? Jeez...a curfew at 22.

 

[GasBandit]

Heh, apparently with reason - if not for that curfew, she'd be boning stoned guys who just pick her up