Timewaster's Guide Archive

I started reading the first chapter and my major problem was one of boredom.  The plot just seemed so standard and cliche that I felt like I was wasting my time reading it.  Maybe it gets better later on, but unless the reader is a personal friend of yours, they're not going to keep reading in the hope of getting to the good part, they're just going to set the book aside.  You need to hook the reader right off and unless your writing style is fantastic, ordinary peasant boy who stumbles into adventure isn't going to work.

My recommendation would be to start the book later in the story.  Maybe start out right when the main character joins the sky pirates or soon after that point and give the reader all that background information about him later on, after the reader already cares about his character because they've seen him do cool sky pirate stuff.

I don't like how Harry Potterish the boy looks, but I like the title font (like an old serial) & the subtitle.  Cover aside, it's a really fun book: like a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy aimed at the Young Adult crowd.

Personally, the way I look at the whole genetics/upbringing issue is to look at singing.  Yeah, some people have a natural talent.  However, anyone can choose to take active steps towards improving their singing by practicing, hiring experience singing coaches, etc.  Likewise, our genetics and upbringing results in us having various attributes, some desirable and some undesirable, but it's a personal decision whether or not we chose to develop those those attributes we find desirable and fight against those attributes we find undesirable or just do what comes easy.

As for the whole love thing, despite what popular media may tell us, love is a verb.  Whether or not you decide to love someone can be an active decision.  Jesus taught us to love our enemies; obviously if love is something that just happens to us this commandment would be impossible.  To give a few examples:

I spent 2 years as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Taiwan.  Now there is a rule that says that missionaries can't date while they're serving a mission.  So for 2 years, dating was out of the question for me.  Now during those 2 years, I saw individuals who under normal circumstances I would have enjoyed dating.  However, because I knew that was impossible without breaking rules, I made a conscious decision to not to fall in romantic love with anyone.  And you know what?  It worked.  Likewise, a husband or a wife can make a conscious decision not to fall in love with anyone aside from their spouse and if they truly mean it, they won't.  They may look at an individual, think for a second that they're attractive, and that's as far and as long as it goes, because they've made a conscious choice to act and think in that manner.

I read in a book recently about a man who said that he was no longer in love with his wife and so he went to a psychologist for advice.  The advice given?  "Love her."  The man argued that since that was precisely the problem, how could he love her?  The psychologist then explained that feelings of love naturally arise when we do acts of love.  Simply put, the verb love leads to the noun love.  If you don't have feelings of love for your wife, then do more acts of love for her (listen to her, talk to her, do nice things for her) and the feelings of love will naturally follow.

I think the main thing I want to get across here is that one of the fundamental beliefs of the LDS religion is that people are free to chose their actions.  There are many things in life that we have no control over, however we're always free to chose how we respond to events that happen to us.  Not only are we free to chose our actions, but we are also free to chose how we think as well; not perfectly perhaps, but when a thought comes to us, we are free to dwell on that thought or to banish it.  Yes, homosexuality may have a genetic aspect to it that makes it easier for some individuals to be homosexual, but even in those cases, the individuals still have freedom to decide whether or not they wish to dwell on those homosexual thoughts and act on those thoughts or whether they won't.  Aside from the seriously handicapped (I'm thinking vegetables here), everyone is responsible for their own thoughts and actions.

pg 56 - "Good.  And, in the alleyway you'll the find the..."
(extra "the")

pg 156 - "Kelsier didn't think she was practiced enough go with him..."
(missing "to")

pg 198 - "Do not apologize to me, Mistress," Sazed said quietly.  "Is it both unseemly and unnecessary."
(Should be "It is")

Since this has turned into an opinion post, I'll just say that I'm agreeing with Spriggan and Archon.  I hate these "Game X is cool" posts, especially when they're about games that have been covered to death in the news and other sites.  At least give me a "New Game X is going to be really cool, and here's why" post.  Heck, I guess I'd even settle for a "Game X is cool," as long as it added a detailed account of why.

Proof that "New Game X is going to be really cool, and here's why" posts don't work:

http://www.timewastersguide.com/boards/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=video_games;action=display;num=1141869482

i.e. I post what I thought was a succint introduction to a relatively unknown game series complete with a link to a really nice and long trailer for the game, hoping for some discussion on the game and what's the first response I get?  Someone accusing me of being a bot.  Admittedly, things improved from there and there was a decent discussion on cyberpunk thereafter, but still...

Seriously, it seems like forums are breeding pools for prideful "I'm smarter than you" mentalities.  Yes, the opening post for this thread was a bit weak, but there was need for the insulting and condescendingly sarcastic responses that it got.  Despite the brevity of the opening post, it was pretty obvious that he was trying to start a discussion on GTA; there's no need to insult the guy.

Looks like I'm going to withdraw from the writing group.  Although I'm still working on and off on my novel, my major writing project at the moment isn't the kind of thing I think anyone here is interested in (I've teamed up with a coder friend to translate a Chinese RPG about a girl who turns into a mermaid into English), and well, as Jena said, I've been getting really frustrated over how inefficient the writing group has felt to me lately, between meetings that either take forever or are cancelled.  And unlike the rest of you, I feel like I get more productive feedback in emails than in drawn out meetings.

Sarah, if you want extra feedback, feel free to keep sending me submissions of your novel.  I've rather enjoyed it so far and think it's got potential.

Best of luck to everyone.

Forgive me if there was an earlier thread like this, but I thought it'd be neat to collect a bunch of quotes from various famous writers about the act of writing.  Inspirational stuff when you're feeling blue about your own writing.

One that I particularly like.

"I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours and a fixed salary and very little original thinking to do.  The life of a writer is absolute hell compared to the life of a businessman.  The writer has to force himself to work.  He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him.  If he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear.  Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.  Two hours of writing leaves this particular writer absolutely drained.  For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great.  It is almost a shock.  The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze.  He wants a drink.  He needs it.  It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him.  He does it to give himself faith, hope and courage.  A person is a fool to become a writer.  His only compensation is absolute freedom.  He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it."
-Roald Dahl

Like Entsuropi said.  Show me someone actually playing one of these things on a computer that costs less than $2000 and maybe I'll get excited.