naomi_jay | Entries tagged with rage dump

Then why is life still so inconvenient?

Why do we still have weather? All Cobra Commander ever tried to do was build a weather dominator - maybe if GI JOE had helped instead of constantly blowing it up, we would have an actual weather dominator in real life now, and we could all talk about something different in the UK.* I love Cobra Commander.

Why can't we choose to write off bad days and get recompensed for them? Time-wise or financially, I don't mind which. But I'd quite like to be able to say "this day is bad and it should feel bad" and get some kind of compensation for my stress, wasted time, bad mood, or whatever.

Why isn't everything made of chrome yet? I keep bringing this up and nobody's doing anything about it. How are we supposed to know we're living in the future if nothing is made of chrome?

Where's the telepathy? My job would be so much easier if we all had telepathy.

*I'm well aware that none of that made sense, but I stand by it nonetheless.

Current Mood: grumpy

I don't know why it's slow. Possibly last night I was distracted by the twin blows of Matt Berry cancelling his London gig again* and realising I will never get my Mighty Boosh DVDs back. Or possibly the hideous din made by Tenacious D put me off. I'm sorry, I don't care how funny Jack Black supposedly is. I hate him and I hate his band.

(Just realised that sounded like Tenacious D were in my bedroom with me or something. They weren't; they were on TV. Just as bad, frankly.)

Anyway, I'm really excited about writing the next scene - Ethan gets an exorcism! Or does he? - so I'll be ploughing on tonight regardless of Tenacious D.

18254 / 30000 words. 61% done!

*But I love him, so I'll forgive him.

PS - Oh, does anyone want a copy of The Sweet Scent of Blood by Suzanne McLeod? I started it over the weekend but just can't get into it. For some odd reason I can't get it added to my Bookmooch inventory, so if anyone fancies it, leave a comment. I'm happy to post it to wherever.

Current Mood: nauseated

I know, I've met mine. We had lunch. She gave me half her burger because it was huge.

Every now and then, the internet and literary world get together and throw up some truly memorable episodes of crazy. The latest is that of the Rejection Queen, a truly determined soon-to-be-published writer, who keeps a blog tracking her rejections and her responses to them. Now, if you have a lot of time on your hands, like I did yesterday, you might want to go back through the archives and see her turn from pretty normal wannabe writer plugging along on the query-go-round (we've all been there, right? The hope, the rejection, the pain, the renewed hope, etc...) to vective-spitting crazy lady.

dwg reviews it all quite neatly.

Look, rejection sucks. Really, we all know that. Whether it's romantic, professional, personal, whatever. It sucks. It hurts. It batters our precious egos and we cry and everyone pats us on the shoulder and assures us that perseverence is the key and you're better off without him. And it's fine to stomp your feet and wail that nobody understands your deathless prose and everyone can drop dead because YOU'LL SHOW THEM ALL!!! Really, that's fine.

As long as you do it in private.

Because the Internet sees all. Deleting your ranty, screamy post about how all literary agents are moronic morons who wouldn't know good writing if it slapped them in the face will do you no good. Your rant can be revisited time and time again through the magic of Google caching. And anyway, even if you do delete it, it's too late! People saw and spread the word. They've flocked to your blog, either to mock you or offer you genuinely sound advice on how your blog was a bad idea.

If you want any success as a writer, you've got to let go of the idea that nobody but you knows how to make it. Let go of the idea that there's some big conspiracy in place that keeps unpublished writers from breaking out. Stop thinking of literary agents as people who exist soley to crush your dreams. Because that's just stupid. As

dwg says, if your chosen job is to find good writers with publishable books, you're going to be a pretty discerning reader. So if someone rejects your novel, it most likely isn't because they hate you and want to see you fail out of jellus mean-meaniness.

If you've got to vent, do it offline. I had my fair share of hissy fits when I was submitting AFTERLIFE around, but I kept them f-locked, or left them offline altogether. Because man, the world is connected! People can Google each other and find all kinds of exciting things out. And I'm pretty sure, if you're a literary agent with a prospective client, you're going to Google them. And when you see their vitriolic blog about how every literary agent is either a bitch or a pathetic hag, you're going to think twice about taking that writer on.

Probably in a few weeks, nobody will remember this, and Rejection Queen can go on submitting and being rejected. The Lanaia Lee thing died down (although I still check her website occasionally because her author bio is simply stunning). But in the mean time, here's my stance:

There's no conspiracy - agents want to find good writers. It's a mutually supportive system.

Art is subjective - people have different tastes. Not everyone is going to think your super-speshul novel is literary gold, and you have to learn to live with it.

You're not entitled to anything - writing is hard work and loads of people are doing it, just the same as you. If you want to get anywhere, drop the precious princess act.

Literary agents are people too - they ~~share their burgers~~ are entitled to like or dislike your writing and it doesn't make them evil, wicked mean-meanies.

"Fuck*" has a "c" in it - "fuked" is not a word.

*Sorry, Dad.

Current Mood: nervous

People. Language is important. It allows us to communicate complex ideas and opinions clearly and concisely. It lets us read and write. Properly used, language is pretty awesome. Improperly used, it can lead to cannibalism.

Grammar, punctuation, and spelling are the building blocks of our written language. These are the basic tools everybody needs in order to communicate effectively. Use them wrong, and your message gets garbled. Ideas get miscommunicated. Emails go to your boss instead of your best friend. Etc. If you're a writer, or want to be one, grammar, punctuation, and spelling should be the very first things you master. Without those tools, who gives a fuck if your heroine is the prettiest, your plot is the most action-packed, and your character arc is the most dynamic? Nobody, because nobody can bloody read your story to understand these things.

I'm infuriated by the idea that, in writing, intent is more important than good grammar. That as a reader, I should have to work out for myself what you're trying to say. Um, no. If you cannot convey your ideas through clearly written English, something is wrong. You need to brush up your skills. You can't turn around and say that the odd dropped comma or misspelling doesn't matter, because the reader figured it out in the end, right? This is not okay.

Why? Lots of reasons! Firstly, we're not talking about anything ridiculously unachievable here. Modern technology has provided us with online dictionaries, thesauri, spellcheckers, and grammar checkers. If you're using a computer, you've got no excuses for not double checking something before you post it online for the world to see. The technology is there to back you up, for God's sake. If you're dyslexic, there are online tools and resources to help with that too. There are any number of books available to teach you proper grammar if you need it.

Secondly, it is your job as a writer to turn in the best manuscript you can, whether it's for an agent, an editor, a publisher, or a critique partner. Don't make them correct your bad spelling and clumsy grammar. It's frustrating and tedious. They should be deciding whether or not your hero's secret past as a rogue cryptozoologist is believable, not whether or not you meant to slip that semi-colon in that place. As a member of a pretty busy critique group, I'm appalled at how often people are missing the kind of basic knowledge they should have picked up in school - where speech marks go in relation to dialogue, for example. I can only imagine how quickly an agent would decide "no way" on a submission if the writer hadn't bothered to get these things right for them.

Thirdly, as a reader, I don't want to spend the entire story worrying about your spelling. Leave me to interpret the subtle stuff, the underlying themes, the world building, the relationships, and so on. Don't leave me sitting there asking why the hell your character has suddenly changed from Serena to Samara. Or whatever. That part of the deal is not my job. It's the writer's. And as a writer, I don't want a reader throwing my book down and shouting "WTF?" because I cocked up on something incredible simple. Same applies to blogging. Just because it's blogging, doesn't mean the rules don't apply.

If you put something on the internet, people will read it. If you mangle the spelling and punctuation, people will judge you on it. Sorry. It's true. Maybe not everyone. Not everyone gets all excited and irate about these things like I do, but some people do. And it will affect their opinion on you and maybe stop them revisiting your blog. After all, if you're a writer who doesn't care enough about the tools of your trade to use them correctly on your blog, what does that say about the quality of your books? To the casual reader, probably not a lot.

I know I'm sounding a bit overzealous, but this is important to me. And it should be important to all readers and writers. Effective communication is a two-way street. And no, it's not okay to say "you can't achieve perfection." There's a difference between obsessing over every tiny detail so you never finish your novel and getting the basics right. Remember, if you screw up the basics, it leads to cannibalism. And nobody wants that.

Current Mood: aggravated

If you haven't yet read or commented on

yolandasfetsos 's post yesterday, you can still do so! Go forth and enter the AFTERLIFE Bag of Swag contest. And thank you to everyone who's given me a shout-out and/or bought a copy! ^_^ My dad keeps texting me to ask when he can retire and live off my millions, so if you haven't bought a copy yet, don't do it for me. Do it for him.

Anyway. Kyle and I went and saw Paranormal Activity last night, a film I would have enjoyed a lot more if the cinema hadn't been full of shrieking teenagers. Seriously. When did it become okay to sit and talk loudly throughout a film? If you want to do that, stay at home and do it, and leave those of us who actually want to watch the film in peace. Every time anything remotely creepy happened onscreen, we got a five minute chorus of screams, giggles, and OMFGdidyouseethatI'msoscared!!!?!!!s. Not amused. And, to be honest, it wasn't even that terrifying of a film. Don't me wrong - I liked it and there were some genuinely jumpy, creepy moments, but it didn't warrant the level of screaming idiocy we had inflicted on us.

Anyway. Tomorrow my guest blogger will be Jenn Moffatt, editor and founder of Drops of Crimson ezine. Hope you all stop by to join her!

Current Mood: mellow

Until I met this one. I gave up on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies last night after Lizzie threatened to gut Darcy and choke him with his own bowels one time too many. Look, I'm not squeamish, or prudish, nor do I lack a sense of humour, but this book just hit all the wrong notes for me.

Pride and Prejudice is an awesome book, so I figured adding zombies would make it even more awesome, but actually it made it a lot worse. Not only is not no longer a sweet, sharp, funny comedy of manners, it's also not a good zombie romp. I don't think Grahame-Smith gave a lot of genuine thought as to how a zombie plague would really affect Regency England (the country's overrun with zombies but Mrs Bennet's main concern is still who will marry her daughters? ORLY?), and the zombie portions are often bloodless and without humour. The goriest part of the book (as far as I read) was when Lizzie slaughters three ninjas in Lady Catherine's dojo, and all this scene did was highlight how little attention Grahame-Smith had paid to Lizzie's character in the original. Or any of the characters, in fact. Jane is apparently one of the deadliest zombie killers in the land, but she's still too shy to tell Bingley she loves him. Kitty and Lydia are supposedly equally skilled at killing zombies, but still more interested in balls and soldiers. And Caroline Bingley is more interested in drooling after Darcy than the zombies chomping on her waiting staff at the Netherfield ball, which is just stupid. All the truly funny material is Austen's.

And yeah, you can go on about pastiches and parodies and all that crap. And yeah, the book did hit the NYT bestseller list, so Grahame-Smith clearly knows more than me on how to write a book. I don't care. I've come to the conclusion that Pride and Prejudice is a good enough book on its own that it doesn't need this treatment. And zombies are a funny enough subject matter that they don't need to be crammed into Pride and Prejudice.

Current Mood: working

My make-up is a mess. I can't feel my legs. My hair is wet because even though it's June - JUNE - it's tipping it down outside. And I'm half an hour early to work.

None of these things make me happy.

And yet I am now committed to riding the damn bike home again this evening.

And all for the sake of saving £11 a week on a bus ticket. Will it be worth it?

I don't know. I just don't know.

Current Mood: exhausted

I'm battling a virus that refuses to die. There's the whole Agentgate thing, which is stressful and upsetting. There's work colleagues who are driving me mad. And now the cleaners are ganging up on me because I ordered brown hand towels instead of white ones.

Who gives a fuck what colour the hand towels are?

Seriously?

You dry your hands, you throw them in the bin, end of. Whether they're white, brown, or cerulean blue with pictures of dolphins on seems utterly irrelevant to me.

They left me a pretty snippy note asking that I get them white ones instead, and asking if we'd changed suppliers. Well yes, when I spoke to them earlier in the week I did mention several times I'd ordered through a different company this month because the usual supplier couldn't get hold of some products.

I'm sick. I'm exhausted. I'm stressed to the out and I do not want to be arguing with people about fucking paper towels.

Current Mood: bitchy

Last time I was supposed to be on holiday from work, I ended up coming in anyway because certain people were panicking over who would do my share of the work. THIS time I plan for that not to happen. I have a fortnight off coming up and all I want to do is read, write and watch bad television, possibly while eating doritos. This requires much forward planning. Somehow, in the next week, I have to prepare 20 sets of papers for a committee meeting, comprising of seven proposals for new programmes, all of which have to be copied onto different coloured paper depending upon when they were submitted. I have to make up three weeks' worth of arrival packs for newcomers to the Institute, give my new boss a crash course on "what Naomi does at Reception," and give the new catering assistant a crash course on how to use the photocopier.

I need to show someone how to test the fire alarm, how to do inductions, where we keep travel adaptors, where we keep photocopy paper and where we keep stamps. I have to prepare three weeks' worth of seminar lists (which is impossible because we only get the information one week in advance). I have fully stock up the office with maps and leave a list of outstanding repair jobs on my desk because nobody has time to check the spreadsheet on the shared drive. I have to prepare three weeks' worth of door access cards so people can get into the building after hours (which is impossible because we only have a limited number of cards and certainly not three weeks' worth).

I have to do all this next week when we have a conference running. There will be 100 people arriving on Monday who will be here all week. I'm expected to be on Reception from 8.30 - 5.30 answering questions and doing inductions, processing incoming post, answering the phone, sending faxes, filing and generally doing all the other rubbish jobs that "nobody else has time to do."

So yeah, basically I'm going to spend my holiday rocking back and forth in a corner whilst tearing out my hair.

Current Mood: cranky

Profile

Dirty Little Whirlwind

February 2018

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28

Syndicate

Page Summary

So, we're living in the future right?
Slow progress is slow
Guys, literary agents are people too!
In which Nome has a rant
The cinema is not your living room
I never met a zombie novel I didn't like
I just rode a bike to work for the first time in two years
I'd just like to say that I'm having a really shit week
Rage dump

Style Credit

Style: Chocolate Rose for Funky Circles by ninetydegrees
Resources: Dirty Flamingo

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jun. 28th, 2025 05:31 am

One Hot Mess

100% Medically Accurate

Entries tagged with rage dump

So, we're living in the future right?

Slow progress is slow

Guys, literary agents are people too!

In which Nome has a rant

The cinema is not your living room

I never met a zombie novel I didn't like

I just rode a bike to work for the first time in two years

I'd just like to say that I'm having a really shit week

Rage dump