Writer search - Arantor's... suggestion
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So in reference to http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/the-daily-wtf-wants-writers-again/4028/1
Pretty hard to find an angle on this one - the actual WTF itself is of course the idiot user - but there's only so much mileage in a pretty dull PEBKAC (much less than most of TDWTF's articles I can remember)
I was aiming for jaded Apple store employee, and a healthy dash of Apple reality distortion field.
Weighs in at 301 words, which given the limited material seems non-terrible especially given that my posting history shows I can clearly write so much more.
Our Apple store is an interesting place. It's not all about selling the latest iFad 27 gizmo or the shiniest new iDrone 8 Plus gewgaw. You'd probably never believe how many people come in just to check their Facebook and forget to log out afterwards. And of course, going through and re-adjusting all the laptop screens to be at just the wrong angle takes a lot of effort, too.
But there's also repairs, and while usually there's a lot of fairly dull and unexciting things, sometimes something a little fiery comes in, and just like your turkey probably was this past Thanksgiving, a little bit overdone.
At least it wasn't as overdone as the one that came in to us this week. The customer had been out at some exorbitantly priced turkey feast, perhaps with apple baste, and his bratty little cat hadn't been invited. And while the owner's away, of course, the cat will play. Unfortunately it was playing with fire – or at least, playing with a lamp that set fire to the TV, promptly melting it all over his pride and joy: the Apple computer his company had lent him over the holiday season.
Instead of a perhaps more traditional apple-basted turkey, it was a TV-basted Apple, and it looked terrible, smelt worse and probably tasted at least as bad as it smelt.
The customer did have one saving grace, and gave many thanks for it! Due to Apple's highly innovative build techniques, it just needed a minor replacement of a new case and keyboard – as opposed to other machines that might have needed replacements of the entire bodywork and chassis! – and it was as good as new afterwards. Sadly we never did find out whether the customer had roasted feline as an appetizer come Christmas.
Of course... it's not quite normal TDWTF style but for this, it's not necessarily entirely terrible. Been a while.
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@mark_bowytz, I feel that this story would be better with the front page formatting. I know that you can have publicly-visible articles that aren't published to the front page. Can you please make that happen? Here's a cat:
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It's publicly visible ;)
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You get:
+ for writing this
- for using a narrator that is yourself (usually front page articles credit some (imaginary??) person
+ for not completely taking away all reference to the original (from a readers perspective)
- for not completely taking away all reference to the original (from the typical front page article perspective :D )
- For keeping the advertisement character of the whole thing.Due to Apple's highly innovative build techniques
- for not having Comments and / or other little gimmicks involved
- for not really working out a WTF (though this one is particularily on the article itself and you DID mention it in the prelude)Then again, that is only my opinion.
Filed Under: Obligatory: 10/10 would read again after posting a lot of "-"
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That's the really neat thing about this... it's actually so much less of a WTF than the usual round of WTFery we get here. It's actually really hard to find a real WTF angle. There's the idiot owner leaving his cat unattended, sure, with a lamp that could ignite, near a TV set - but that's hardly the most idiotic thing in the world in the grand scheme of things, and the fact Apple fixed it with just a case/keyboard replacement is really a testament to build quality (even though there's the snarky comment about how, ultimately, pretty much any machine of the time would realistically be in a not-so-distant position)
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and the fact Apple fixed it with just a case/keyboard replacement is really a testament to build quality
To me it sounded way more like a testament to marketing quality. You are looking at an apple-advertisement. If you were to bring such a story to the front page (let's just assume it) and you leave that sentence it, I'd be willing to bet that you'd be eaten alive by the comments ("We come here to read WTFs not Apple-ads", "I'd rather read Hanzo stories than this", "Frist" etc)
It's actually really hard to find a real WTF angle.
That is true then again, I did mention shifting the blame towards the article at least partially:
@Kuro said:- for not really working out a WTF (though this one is particularily on the article itself and you DID mention it in the prelude)
Maybe it would have been better to just take one WTF and roll with it.Filed Under: Just my two cents | Disclaimer: I really don't dislike your writing. I am just .... pedantic.. in a way? | trying to improve your writing! That is what I was looking for!
Addendum: Please note how quoting myself changed the bullet-point from a "-" into a ".". Clearly this is as designed and should never be fixed!
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I did try to get snarky about the whole 'build quality' thing in the closing of the article knowing full well that their build quality is not really quite as special as they would like to make out. And the opening is very definitely Apple snark.
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Oh, yeah, I totally forgot to give you a "++" for the intro!
The snark on the closing is not nearly at your normal snark-levels, though. You should probably get that fixed!
Filed Under: We should totally apply for the position as a team! ;P
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Oh, yeah, I totally forgot to give you a "++" for the intro!
The snark on the closing is not nearly at your normal snark-levels, though. You should probably get that fixed!
Filed Under: We should totally apply for the position as a team! ;P
The lack of snark is a combination of inner sadness and a lack of confidence. It's been a long time - years, in fact - since I did creative writing. All the stuff I've done around here was done from first hand experience and that just requires technique to reinterpret, as opposed to creating something from basically nothing, and that's something I haven't done since like 2009... and before that... I don't even remember when I wrote anything creatively until I start going back to the realms of 2002-4 when I tried to write novels.
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hey, I am not trying to pull you down. I am just offering free feedback. You really don't have to defend yourself.
If this one didn't have enough snark, just make the next one a tiny bit snarkier and there you go. This is not rocket-science (so Kerbal Space Program won't help you), it's more of a practice thing.
Filed Under: I haven't really written anything like that since I was in school back then. Plus I would have a language barrier. So your text is probably just fine | Did you actually get feedback from @mark_bowytz for the story?
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This isn't defence, this is an explanation. :) It's all good.
I'm just so not used to writing and not used to sharing and for me... sharing what's behind it is part of sharing the thing itself for me.
Filed Under: Actually, I suck at KSP
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You get:+ for writing this- for using a narrator that is yourself (usually front page articles credit some (imaginary??) person+ for not completely taking away all reference to the original (from a readers perspective)- for not completely taking away all reference to the original (from the typical front page article perspective )- For keeping the advertisement character of the whole thing. Due to Apple's highly innovative build techniques- for not having Comments and / or other little gimmicks involved- for not really working out a WTF (though this one is particularily on the article itself and you DID mention it in the prelude)
Do you get a plus or a minus for cornification?
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Oh yeah - on the old site for sure. I'd "publish" an article back to 10/17/2000.
Can that kitteh fix HTTP 500 errors? ;-)
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No, but I have a knack for fixing 500s. Then again I do PHP so, you know... I'm naturally TRWTF before we start
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I happen to enjoy coding in PHP!
If you're interested in branching out though:
GitHub - tdwtf/WtfWebApp: The Daily WTF Website
The Daily WTF Website. Contribute to tdwtf/WtfWebApp development by creating an account on GitHub.
Also, I'd like to see you take another stab at your article. I'm working on constructive feedback for every submission, so I'll send you a note with some details and direction (hey, it's my job as an editor to make my writers stuff look as good as possible!).
Some thoughts in general on the WTF-ness of this story/submission.
- This is the guy's work computer. What's the impact of it being ruined? Bad boss angle? Business continuity fail? Can this dude afford to replace the computer / save his job?
1a. Why is he trying to work at home over Thanksgiving? What's so important? - He's arriving home only to find his house in ruins - on Thanksgiving!
- IMHO, the computer is fixed on Black Friday (busiest shopping day of the year!).
- He gets back to work on Monday with everything back to normal. Cat goes to kennel next year.
This is exactly what happens when we turn a submission into a story. The fluff isn't really important to the CORE WTF - guy's work computer was ruined by his cat and somehow he was able to get it all together. Ignore that it's Apple. Make it an IBM XT. Put him in Hawaii. Alaska. Change it to Europe and make it happen over one of their 15 million bank holidays. Make it factual based on what you have but still make it entertaining.
- This is the guy's work computer. What's the impact of it being ruined? Bad boss angle? Business continuity fail? Can this dude afford to replace the computer / save his job?
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Thanks for the feedback, I will give it another shot over the weekend
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EXCELLENT. Please do! If you have any questions, I'll watch here or you can email me directly (fname.lname@gmail).
PROTIP: without a doubt, stories with character dialogue do better (pageviews, comments).
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Thanks for the suggestion. I'll definitely mull it over for a little before tackling it, just because it wasn't an approach I had quite thought about - despite having read TDWTF for years now.
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Some thoughts in general on the WTF-ness of this story/submission. 1. This is the guy's work computer. What's the impact of it being ruined? Bad boss angle? Business continuity fail? Can this dude afford to replace the computer / save his job? 1a. Why is he trying to work at home over Thanksgiving? What's so important?2. He's arriving home only to find his house in ruins - on Thanksgiving!3. IMHO, the computer is fixed on Black Friday (busiest shopping day of the year!).4. He gets back to work on Monday with everything back to normal. Cat goes to kennel next year.
This is exactly what happens when we turn a submission into a story. The fluff isn't really important to the CORE WTF - guy's work computer was ruined by his cat and somehow he was able to get it all together. Ignore that it's Apple. Make it an IBM XT. Put him in Hawaii. Alaska. Change it to Europe and make it happen over one of their 15 million bank holidays. Make it factual based on what you have but still make it entertaining.
You know what, this explains so much…
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OK, so take two. @mark_bowytz, this one's just for you. I wasn't going to let the 'apple-basting' gag go, though
I make it 501 words.
A few years ago, Peter was working for small-but-established UK-based game development house as a senior developer. In fact, they'd just released the latest instalment of their flagship desktop strategy game series – and were hungry for fresh ideas.
Unsurprisingly, Dick the CEO, already knew what he wanted to do: mobile games. In-app purchasing, cow clicking, you name it – pretty much the antithesis of everything the company had built its reputation on.
And so, Dick turned to Peter and told him to make it happen – and to make it happen on New Year's Day or else. Even purchasing of a shiny new MacBook specifically for this purpose was no object. In essence, the future of the company depended on this project's success.
“So,” Peter thought. “There's still several weeks until New Year and even the app store shouldn't be a problem, right?”
As the weeks ticked by, Peter was feeling overwhelmed by the impending deadline. November came and went – and December came. Even pulling unpaid overtime throughout mid-December seemed little comfort. In the end, he started taking the laptop home and working evenings and weekends too.
Eventually it's Christmas week. A week until Launch Day and still not quite ready. Christmas Eve with his folks – turkey, stuffing, all the trimmings and an apple-basting that only his mother seemed to know how to make.
A pleasant enough evening... until he got home to find a fire crew there. Seems his cat had knocked over a lamp, which caught fire. The fire crew got there pretty quickly and salvaged most things, but not Peter's desk. More importantly... not the desk that had an apple-basting of its own.
“What am I going to do?” said Peter, head buried in his hands; replacing a couple of thousand pounds worth of laptop – for which he was not insured – was a hard enough blow, but having to face Dick in a few days' time and tell him that the company was going to fail, and that it was all his fault... he'd never work in game dev again.
Clutching the mangled and melted laptop to his chest, he spent the night on his parents' sofa. What a Christmas present. There is a peculiar gait that a man has when he feels his world is falling apart... a slow weary and yet determined trudge. Walking through the streets of his home town, looking for somewhere, anywhere, open... any way out for this... he found somewhere. A backstreet laptop repair shop... open on Christmas Day. And... in the manner only found in Christmas miracles, with enough parts to scavenge the thing together.
Peter could barely mumble the words together in gratitude for what had happened, and handed over many crisp £20 notes, and walked out with his head held high. Sense of purpose renewed, he was able to sit on his folks' sofa, finish the app, save his job, save the company. But perhaps, next time not so much apple-basting for the turkey.
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I like this one much better. Reads more like a story than a memoir, and is much less purple.
The only nitpick I have is that one of the actual cores of the WTF (cat knocking over a lamp) could be a bit more emphasized. But good work, nevertheless - I'd vote for that.
Also, a few word glitches:
looking for somewhere, anywhere, open... any way out for this... he found somewhere.
but nothing disqualifying.
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Better than me. But nevertheless... I'm going to give it another go.
Yes. I'm afraid so. But this new one is much more like it. The first would be good round a dinner table, this would be good round a campfire and I think it's the latter they're after.
I think I still prefer Macie's though if I'm honest.
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So do I. Truth be told, I prefer all the different entries that I've seen to mine, but I've never been my biggest fan.
Perhaps this really isn't for me after all. After all... I work best when telling a story I'm invested in - and this one I'm so not. But I don't regret giving it a go.
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So do I. Truth be told, I prefer all the different entries that I've seen to mine
I think that's natural for any decent person: to not be fans of their own work.
Perhaps this really isn't for me after all. After all... I work best when telling a story I'm invested in - and this one I'm so not.
That seems a shame to me but, to be able to get invested in a story, would be an important ability to have: 'Method story-telling' if that is a thing: believing that the story is your own - that it happened to you - just while you tell it.
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Yes but it's not the same. I went from building a website with close to a million words I'd written... including a complete novel, parts of other novels, to not writing anything creative for years because I was that convinced I wasn't good enough.
Hell, this is the first time I've written anything creatively in prose in over 5 years as it is. And I'm just hit by how far short of my own expectations I am.
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Hell, this is the first time I've written anything creatively in prose in over 5 years as it is. And I'm just hit by how far short of my own expectations I am.
As I said, you can't just dive back in. Rev your engine for a while, try writing some scratch short stories based on set ideas ( http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/ seems to be a good place to start), and when you get back to your previous level of skill, go ahead and start your serious writing.
I actually treated the TDWTF content as a scratch story idea - I don't really expect it to take off, but I like to remind myself once in a while how to write a creative piece.
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That's just it... I have never been convinced of actually having any skill at this. In fact, I've never been convinced I have that much of any skills of any kind, just enough to get me through whatever's needed to be done.
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In fact, I've never been convinced I have that much of any skills of any kind, just enough to get me through whatever's needed to be done.
Come on, now you're just waiting for a pat on the back. And it's not the right forum.
If you care enough to improve some skill, and you're not satisfied with your level, train until you are.
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No, no I'm not. It's the balance between what I want (to write) and what I don't believe I'm any good at (writing)...
You do know there's a reason I stick primarily to PHP, right? It just happens to be the same one.
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So where on the Dan Brown-to-Shakespeare scale do you think you are? And then where on that scale do you need to be to be good enough at it to do it because you want to?
I think, of all the arts, writing is the hardest to judge your own work so you have to leave that to other people. In this case, for what it's worth, my very inexpert opinion is that there's nothing bad about your style. It is just, like you say, a lack of enthusiasm for the story that comes across to me as a reader. If it were a story you are excited about telling, I expect you would write a good read.
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To the first question... definitely further towards Dan Brown than Shakespeare *laughs*. Seriously though... I've been told a number of times over the years that there is some potential there, including by a number of people whose opinion I trust not to be entirely biased about it.
Where do I need to be to be good enough? I won't ever be good enough in my own mind. It's always been the way with me. I've found that the minute I think I'm good enough, I don't want it enough. I've never been one to easily accept 'good enough'. Always wanting to be better. To do better. And always let down by never living up to my own expectations.
What's really weird is that quite often other people are quite happy to accept my 'not good enough' as 'more than good enough'. Certainly it's that way with PHP.
And yes, the lack of enthusiasm definitely shows. I just can't care about something I'm not invested in and I'm also mindful of a certain amount of self-sabotage. By the time I came to the second attempt, I'd read the other attempts out there and was like... "these are all so much better than me, what's the point beyond saying I'd give it a try?"
But despite that I picked up the ideas I'd had in my brain and am starting my own creative writing thing again.
I'm just also very mindful that I've been down this road before and I put my creative writing aside and it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Things have been changing in my personal life of late to the point where I felt compelled to try... but I'm really not sure that was a good idea. I'd been sort of content to let that part of me wither inside, because I'm really not sure I can go to that place again.
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That all sounds very familiar.
Being your own worst critic is good to a point (the really shit artists and artisans are the ones who aren't) but it can be very debilitating. It is much harder to be a perfectionist than it used to be because the [near] perfection of the masters and the ever so high standards of the oh so many experts is so readily available to us and there's just such a vast and ever-growing quantity of it. It's hard to stay motivated against that backdrop.
Being a perfectionist can cause a situation where the chase is better than the catch when it comes to learning. Learning is fun because there's no pressure to get it right first time: mistakes are fine - you learn by them and you know that; you're chasing the prize of getting good at it. But having learnt, then doing it becomes no fun because every little mistake is an imperfection that makes the end product bad/wrong/embarrassing/etc. The trick is, of course, to keep treating it as learning because, of course, we always are.
Also, a great man once said "Nothing, except a battle lost, can be half so melancholy as a battle won". The battle is fun, the aftermath isn't and it's the aftermath you deliver to the audience (with things like writing). Overcoming that relies on being able to enjoy (or at least appreciate) your own work and not take it too seriously: to not look at it as a critic.
These are things you have to break through if you want to do it seriously. I think the upside is that a perfectionist who can break through (because it never completely goes away) will probably then have the grounding to be really proficient.
Having said all that, some things might be best left as a hobby where they are more fun: having creative outlets that you don't take seriously is very important I think. Perhaps you're dodging a bullet by not having to write a tedious article every month
Disclaimer: I haven't overcome any of this myself so I wouldn't take advice on it from me: only when I'm 100.00% sure I know the cure that works for everyone, then I'll get back to you.
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Debilitating isn't the word for it. It's also in part caused by the fact that I can get to analysis paralysis. It has even been a think that I've overthought myself on situations where I've actually given myself panic attacks. It's also what makes me able to program to the level I can - because I can understand the consequences of any change I'm making.
I always treat it as learning - the problem is I can't see the good in what I do. I only ever see the flaws. Only ever seeing how I could do it better.
I know it's something I've got to figure out if I want to get anywhere. Sometime or other I managed it with programming to be able to get to the point where I can accept something is done and can't be made better. I got to that point with my second attempt in writing too - I realised that no amount of extra work from me could make it any better, and just submitted it, even as half-assed as I felt with it, because there was literally no more I could do to it that would fix the fundamental flaw that it wasn't my story.
I mentioned I wrote a novel. 2/3 of it I haven't even seen in over a decade; I never re-read it. I wrote, and carried on running, not daring to look back, because I couldn't.
The problem with this being a hobby is that I can't do that. I either have to embrace it with all the gusto and passion I have, or not do it at all. I cannot let it be just a thing, because that's not how I work. I put it aside once, I either need to put it aside again sooner rather than later, or embrace it fully.
Everything I do gets imbued with my passion, my love for the act of what I do. I end up giving a part of myself to it. Things I don't care about are quite clear - because you can see it. Things I do care about... you can really see it.
I guess in a way I was looking for a way I could do something that wasn't entirely terrible that gave me some kind of unbiased validation - as a prelude to taking it further, and it being something I could safely let go without it being a complete soul drain.
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(the really shit artists and artisans are the ones who aren't)
On the other side of the spectrum, there's always that one guy who keeps complaining about how his writing is so bad, that he's so hopeless, and that he'll never take off. No correlation with actual writing skills have been found.
@arantor - look, dude. Do or do not. If you want to write - write. You aren't getting paid for it, and even you can see it's not My Immortal level of bad that would get you ridiculed even among your friends, family, and that spaniel of yours.
You're going to think it's shit. You're going to think there's no point. Keep writing anyway. Don't even care too much about the quality of every word - just write for the sake of writing, scratch short stories or prosaic poems to feed your drawer. Then, after you do a few, take a look at them, pick one which you like the best (or hate the least), and show to a few people. Incorporate feedback, rinse, repeat.
No novel has been written out of complaining alone. And no other thing has been done, for that matter. You want to be good at something, then do it.
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I mentioned I wrote a novel. 2/3 of it I haven't even seen in over a decade; I never re-read it. I wrote, and carried on running, not daring to look back, because I couldn't.
I had the same thing with a novel I've been writing. But when you put away the excuses, all that's left is "I could have had a novel, but I don't".
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Said to the guy that turned out 1000 words this evening. I am doing. It fucking hurts but I am doing it.
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I had the same thing with a novel I've been writing. But when you put away the excuses, all that's left is "I could have had a novel, but I don't".
Oh, in my case, it's "I have a novel. I have no idea what it says. But I have it. And I did it."
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Said to the guy that turned out 1000 words this evening. I am doing. It fucking hurts but I am doing it.
Nanowrimo, or whatever they call it? Good stuff, I've registered, but I'm a bit tapped out with that London assignment and whatnot.
Also, one rule that has helped me write more than one page - once you finish a paragraph or a page, it's set in stone until you finish the draft.
Oh, in my case, it's "I have a novel. I have no idea what it says. But I have it. And I did it."
Well then, you have one novel more than most, or probably all, people here.
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Nope, I'm not doing this for some arbitrary goal in an arbitrary timeframe. I'm doing it because I want to.
I'm also very mindful in myself about not going crazy with editing. I can spend hours on individual lines. I once spent 3 hours on 14 short sentences.
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You want to be good at something, then do it.
Doing it won't guarantee you'll be good at it, but not doing it will guarantee you're not.
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I once spent 3 hours on 14 short sentences.
The reincarnation of Douglas Adams, perhaps.
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The reincarnation of Douglas Adams, perhaps.
Except unlike Adams, I don't love the whooshing noise deadlines make as they go by. I agonise over them and it encourages me, sometimes too hard.
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Your re-write is MUCH improved. This one read like a feature. I like it how you mixed up the setting to update it, plus you answered a lot of the questions.
I always treat it as learning - the problem is I can't see the good in what I do. I only ever see the flaws. Only ever seeing how I could do it better.
Amen brother. 8 years later, I still get the same way
Here's the funny thing though - I've felt that there were articles that I wrote which were maybe just passable. The stories got published, I got some jeers from the vocal minority, yadda yadda. AND THEN, out of the blue, I'll run into a reader (or in my case recently a vendor at work) who mentioned that they enjoyed an article that I hated writing. I'll go ahead and re-read it only to find that, you know what, it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered it. In fact, I've had times where I've wondered "Who was this person who wrote this? Clearly not me."
The moral is this: Write for yourself and yourself alone. Let go of worrying about how it will turn out and just whip up something, set a deadline, whack away at it, keep that deadline and declare it done, and say 'FUCK OFF! I DON'T CARE IF YOU DON'T LIKE MY WRITING!'
...and then shove it down someone's throats. Get the visceral "your writing gave me AIDS" hate reaction. Get the 'meh'. Get the love. Get uncomfortable.
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See, that... that I think I could do.
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Doing it won't guarantee you'll be good at it, but not doing it will guarantee you're not.
QFT!
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On the other side of the spectrum, there's always that one guy who keeps complaining about how his writing is so bad, that he's so hopeless, and that he'll never take off. No correlation with actual writing skills have been found.
@arantor - look, dude. Do or do not. If you want to write - write. You aren't getting paid for it, and even you can see it's not My Immortal level of bad that would get you ridiculed even among your friends, family, and that spaniel of yours.
You're going to think it's shit. You're going to think there's no point. Keep writing anyway. Don't even care too much about the quality of every word - just write for the sake of writing, scratch short stories or prosaic poems to feed your drawer. Then, after you do a few, take a look at them, pick one which you like the best (or hate the least), and show to a few people. Incorporate feedback, rinse, repeat.
No novel has been written out of complaining alone. And no other thing has been done, for that matter. You want to be good at something, then do it.
http://www.amazon.com/Become-Famous-Artist-Still-Pictures/dp/0595144551
The main idea behind the book is that the best way to make a good painting is to make a couple hundred bad ones first. Then if you destroy the first ones, no one will know you weren't a good painter all along.
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And that is exactly where I am gotten to in my head. I can do this. And I will... And I am.
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What's really weird is that quite often other people are quite happy to accept my 'not good enough' as 'more than good enough'.
I've thought that for years. The only solution is to keep on doing stuff anyway; the good bits might be remembered, the bad bits hopefully won't. And keep listening out carefully for feedback about what bits worked as you intended, what bits didn't work at all, and what bits worked unexpectedly. That last category remains the most interesting.
This applies to code as well as writing. And presentations. And editing. And any other intellectual activity you can name; maybe the physical ones too (but that's not me).
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Exactly. And the 1400 words I wrote, I've shown to people I can trust, and got feedback on the things that needed changing, and what worked and what didn't.
I now know I can do this.
