The Whining and Bitching Thread

[zabu of nΩd]

In my experience Maoris are super nice and chill, one of my best buddies growing up was a Maori dude (he eventually moved back though) but those bastards are built for combat, much like Samoans. Just check this wedding out:

I was advised to take some regular muscle relaxant but it went away on its own, it felt like when your ears need to pop or when you get some water inside your ear. Can't imagine how weird that sensation would be in the elbow lmao that would be super annoying.

Yeah, it was kind of a nervous feeling, as if I'd just binged a really fast-paced video game and my muscles were trembling with fatigue. It was especially noticeable while using the computer mouse, and made using the mouse kinda awkward.

 

[Bloopy]

Just check this wedding out:

Then check this wedding out:

 

[CiG]

Fuuucking hell, I was feeling embarrassed just watching that shit.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Then check this wedding out:

what the fuck, this cant be real. Someone tell me this the Australian version of Trailer Park Boys or another one of those Ozzie comedy skits.

 

[CiG]

That's N.Z. shit but honestly it's not far off from something I'd expect here.

 

[EternalMetal]

Had a shitty day at work today. Went in on Monday hungover from the weekend to be welcomed by 4 additional people with clipboards. I work at a lab as a medical technologist doing high complexity testing and the vendors wanted to do an evaluation of our procedure. So here they are, watching me do my job all fucking day. Apparently they had stopwatches and shit to evaluate everything, and even said by their calculations it took 8 seconds for the machine to process and populate the lab test - among other stupid things that im sure they recorded in maniacal detail. Along with being hungover, Monday is the busiest day of the week, and one of 3 co-workers on the bench calls out, so it is just two of us (so it would have been a shitty day even without people staring at me all fucking day). And now it turns out they are also observing us tomorrow. And by observing, I mean carefully watching and staring at us all day while we work trying their best to come up with ways we can do our jobs more efficiently. Really not looking forward to another day of this shit.

 

[Onder]

Labwork can be pretty fucking frustrating when the result is something unprecedented so you don't know what the fuck went wrong or what the fuck any of that means. Complete randomness today.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

my shoulders ache from being a pack-mule for the other homeless people
Joker ran off with my Super Nintendo hoodie
and i'm gonna have to walk all the way back to my sleeping spot to go get scissors to cut the hair of the girl whose name i can't remember

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

I had to google Maori people. This is the featured image on their Wikipedia page, lol

View attachment 22689
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what the fuck's up with the weird-ass facial expressions on their faces ROFLMFAO

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Finally made up my mind to talk to my boss soon and ask for part-time hours. Don't care if they fire me. I'm overdue for a change. It's partly that I'm still working my ass off on the novel (45k words now), which makes it feel like I have two jobs, but I'm also kinda having a midlife crisis.

On the upside, I might be spending a lot more time on UM soon

 

[Slammed]

Yeah tell the boss to shove it up his arse and finish the book. My latest is up to 48K but I have a lot more ability to ignore the work I should be doing than most people.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Yeah tell the boss to shove it up his arse and finish the book. My latest is up to 48K but I have a lot more ability to ignore the work I should be doing than most people.

Latest? How many have you written, and what sort of books?

Yeah, I've been tempted to switch to something like paramedic or security so I could fuck off writing for large parts of the shift, but I doubt that would actually happen. I need to be inspired to write, and environment is key to my inspiration.

 

[Slammed]

I've written 5 horror/thriller novels and a YA that's three parts.

I started writing when I got injured at work and the prick of a boss insisted that 'light duties' to help me get back quicker into my role as a truck driver was to do his office work. Prick even made me work my usual night shift hours. So instead of doing his shit I spent 4 months killing the fucker off in a novel.

Once I find inspiration time is my problem. I get caught up doing the wrong things then at the end of the week I realise I have a back log of work and only ideas not actual writing.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I started writing when I got injured at work and the prick of a boss insisted that 'light duties' to help me get back quicker into my role as a truck driver was to do his office work. Prick even made me work my usual night shift hours. So instead of doing his shit I spent 4 months killing the fucker off in a novel.

Once I find inspiration time is my problem. I get caught up doing the wrong things then at the end of the week I realise I have a back log of work and only ideas not actual writing.

You talking about procrastinating instead of writing, or like brainstormy writing that's of no use in the book?

Over time I've become more aware of the spectrum of what my writing sessions can produce, from an incoherent jumble of ideas to a great scene that immediately moves the book along. I have a huge file dedicated to brainstorms and poorly-written scenes. I try to keep it organized by subject, in hopes that eventually enough crap on one subject gloms together into something better, like combining gems in Diablo haha

 

[Slammed]

You talking about procrastinating instead of writing, or like brainstormy writing that's of no use in the book?

Na I procrastinate very little when it comes to writing. I procrastinate when it comes to work quite a bit (downside of working from home and why I used to regularly take truck driving jobs). I used to do brainstormy writes that weren't related to any particular story, just scenes, or ideas that seemed good at the time but didn't have the substance for a full story but these days I don't tend to do it as much. I used to fill my time writing a few different blogs, from general fiction to horror to erotic fiction, and I used that for brainstormy type ideas because I could get away with anything from 1000 words to 20,000 words and not worry about editing, spelling or that type of thing. But in the end I gave up that put a little more effort back into work and decided to only play with ideas that seem like they can go full length

Over time I've become more aware of how my writing sessions can produce anything from an incoherent jumble of ideas to a great scene that immediately moves the book along. I have a huge file dedicated to brainstorms and poorly-written scenes. I try to keep it organized by subject, in hopes that eventually enough crap on one subject gloms together into something better, like combining gems in Diablo haha

I've still got a bunch of files on my server like that which I hope I named well because I'm sure to have forgotten what half of them are by now. These days though when I sit down to write I tend to just let it flow. I might put an idea I had ages ago into a story but I usually re-write it, or I just write and hope for the best. There has been days where I put down 8000 words, then I've re-read what I typed and deleted half of it.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Got it. Funny you mention the blog - I actually have a private wiki that I do some brainstorming in, though nothing close to 20k words in one article. I'm not as prolific as you, but I've only really been a story writer for the past two years. Before then, I thought stories were too hard for me.

I could see myself going through that earlier phase you had of writing out any idea regardless of length, but I doubt I'll want to spend much time writing once I finish my current book. For one, I don't expect to have many good ideas left after it, since it's largely a culmination of ideas I've had throughout my life. It's also been consuming me, and (as mentioned earlier) making it hard to hold a job. It's the kind of creative torture I have to go through at least once in my life, and hopefully never again.

 

[Slammed]

I think I got into blog writing because I was under the illusion that it would go somewhere. It's a good place to play around and test things, write different styles and see what reactions people give your stuff but it's terrible for decent feed back. So few people actually read and comment positive or negative towards things because too many are simply into reciprocal liking. I had a blog with 200 followers and maybe 10 gave decent feedback, told me when something was shit, when something worked that kind of thing. I also had a blog with 4000 followers that mainly attracted desperate pervs who thought every writer of adult material wanted dick pics of them or to fuck them, none of them actual critiqued the writing. For me it the lack of "real" comments eventually pissed me off and rather than posting all those stories on an form of blog or group I gave up and wrote them for myself and maybe one day for publishing.

I suppose one day I'd like to make money from writing, but I'm realistic I don't just expect a publishing deal (one has to submit for that to happen) and despite the praises of some I'm not interested in self publishing. I've looked into both methods in great detail, got friends who went the self pub route, friends who were lucky enough to be published. At this stage I've still got three businesses running and I'm not really prepared to spend as much time as I need to get a book published when I could spend that time writing...I mean working.

 

[CiG]

I also had a blog with 4000 followers that mainly attracted desperate pervs who thought every writer of adult material wanted dick pics of them or to fuck them, none of them actual critiqued the writing.

lol.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Well I spilled my situation to my boss today. Asked her if a month of unpaid leave is an option, which basically led to her asking if that's really what I want or if I just want to quit. She suggested I think about it and decide later. I don't see how self-interest would allow me to just quit without requesting a sabbatical first, and hoping there's some magical change in my attitude toward the job by the time I come back. So most likely what'll happen is I'll request the leave, it won't get approved, then I'll quit. C'est la vie.

So few people actually read and comment positive or negative towards things because too many are simply into reciprocal liking.

Yeah, it's hard. The best feedback I get comes from a critique group a friend of mine started. There's usually 5-6 of us. We've been meeting almost once a month for the past two years now, it's been awesome. Aside from that, a few people I know have been willing to read drafts of my book and share their thoughts. I wouldn't expect anything from strangers.

I suppose one day I'd like to make money from writing, but I'm realistic I don't just expect a publishing deal (one has to submit for that to happen) and despite the praises of some I'm not interested in self publishing. I've looked into both methods in great detail, got friends who went the self pub route, friends who were lucky enough to be published.

To me that comes down to the size of the advance. I assume the advance is typically the only money an author ever makes through a publishing deal. I've got plenty of savings, so unless a publishing house offered me like $40k or more, I'd rather self-publish so I have the option of keeping 70%+ of the revenue on the off chance the book actually does sell. I can afford to pay for a book design and online ads out of pocket; I don't need a publisher for that.

 

[Slammed]

Well I spilled my situation to my boss today. Asked her if a month of unpaid leave is an option, which basically led to her asking if that's really what I want or if I just want to quit. She suggested I think about it and decide later. I don't see how self-interest would allow me to just quit without requesting a sabbatical first, and hoping there's some magical change in my attitude toward the job by the time I come back. So most likely what'll happen is I'll request the leave, it won't get approved, then I'll quit. C'est la vie.[/QUOTE]

Sucks when bosses have to be stupid about things. I remember asking my old boss if I could have 1 night off a week, I was working 10pm-12pm 7 nights at the time, and you'd reckon I was asking him for his left leg. I was the one who had to hire the person to do my night off, I had to train him, I couldn't take the night off until the guy could do the job, yet the boss, who didn't even answer his phone after midnight while we worked, thought he was being put out.

Yeah, it's hard. The best feedback I get comes from a critique group a friend of mine started. There's usually 5-6 of us. We've been meeting almost once a month for the past two years now, it's been awesome. Aside from that, a few people I know have been willing to read drafts of my book and share their thoughts. I wouldn't expect anything from strangers.

A good writing group can be the best thing ever, but it really does have to be the right people. I find it funny that so often on social media people just love to hate everything, they get triggered by everything, and they bitch when someone thinks they are wrong. Put them on blog, or the like for writing critique and the same people can only come up with, "that's good", or "yeah that's ok". What the fuck cunt, you spent 5 hours arguing with someone you thought was wrong on FB and that's your writing critique?

To me that comes down to the size of the advance. I assume the advance is typically the only money an author ever makes through a publishing deal. I've got plenty of savings, so unless a publishing house offered me like $40k or more, I'd rather self-publish so I have the option of keeping 70%+ of the revenue on the off chance the book actually does sell. I can afford to pay for a book design and online ads out of pocket; I don't need a publisher for that.

There is a lot more to publishing than an advance though. There is a hundred 'vanity' publishers out there that for about $5K will take your book and treat you like a publishing house does. They foot the rest of the bill, they do the legals etc but they don't care about the book once it's made their investment back. They wont kill it but that doesn't mean they keep pushing it either. A traditional publisher doesn't necessarily offer an advance, different deals different payments. But they do handle everything from editing (no author can self edit), which includes line editing, spell checking and actual book editing, they handle the printing and publishing, they handle the advertising and marketing and they handle all legals. But they have to see potential in the book, self publishing and vanity publishing doesn't need that.

Profit margins are also a possible trap. Sure it sounds good that you're making 70%+ of the revenue (and Amazon should be higher than that) for every sale but if you only sell 10 copies a year that's not really profit. A publishing house might be as low as 30% for print and 70% for electronic but it's in their best interest to push the sales and 30% of their sales can quickly become more than 70% of self published sales.

As I mentioned I have looked at that fairly extensively from all angles and it's not that any one of them is terrible it's more of a case of each angle is only suited to certain criteria. Understanding that criteria could make a huge difference.

I've got a mate who self published a book of poetry last year. To get the books to printed stage, which was also having a saleable product on Amazon he spent more than $40K. Now he has boxes full of books he sells for about $10 through his own site and through Amazon and a e-reader version which sells for $7 unless Amazon tell him they are putting on sale and he has to sell it for 99cents.