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Like...have you ever tried math? Maybe you might like numbers?
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Aug 9, 2013 04:19
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How about instead of posting old stuff, you edit one of your blog entries up to what you consider a professional level and post a before-and-after for us? It would provide a lot more information about what errors you can and can't recognise.
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Aug 9, 2013 05:17
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HazCat posted:How about instead of posting old stuff, you edit one of your blog entries up to what you consider a professional level and post a before-and-after for us? It would provide a lot more information about what errors you can and can't recognise. This is a great suggestion. It'll be a good writing exercise for you. Also please explain the function of 'yet' in this sentence: "Roland Emmerich is another director from the Tony Scott school of filming where action scenes are pure spectacle and yet charters and their interactions are as about as thin as the screen the film is projected on." What are some punctuation marks you could use in place of the word 'where', and how might they effect tone? Can you tell I work as a tutor  ?
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Aug 9, 2013 05:33
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Xenocides posted:I think you are being optimistic here. Your free time will drop when you get a job. If you cannot find time to write now I do not think it will appear when you are working 40 hours a week. Writers who make enough money to live on writing stories are usually the kind of people that write almost compulsively. I only know one guy personally who has done it and he writes ten hours a day six days a week and when his wife drags him out to be social it is often obvious that he would rather be writing. Back before he started making enough to live on he was writing about seven hours a day five days a week while working a full-time job. I am not knocking the lifestyle. He loves it. He loved it before he made any money. A lot of people want to be a writer so they can talk about their work with their friends at the bar or a coffee shop or have people think they are great artists; far fewer want to sit at a desk and write, revise, and proofread sixty hours a week.
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Aug 9, 2013 05:37
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It not only sounds dumb, it is dumb. You've gone full scale delusional again if you don't just man up and say "I suck at writing and I am not willing to put any effort into improving," because Benny boy, it ain't just about your typos or the syntax.
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Aug 9, 2013 05:44
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HazCat posted:How about instead of posting old stuff, you edit one of your blog entries up to what you consider a professional level and post a before-and-after for us? It would provide a lot more information about what errors you can and can't recognise. Do this. I really think it could be helpful to you. Writing is just a skill like any other. It's not some magic gift that comes from within your soul, it's a set of learned behaviors. What people in this thread are telling you is that you need to learn those behaviors more thoroughly than you have to date before you can get (or hold on to) any kind of work involving writing, editing, or proofreading. This isn't an insult or a value judgment on you as a person, Benny. It's just a recognition that your skills are not up to par right now.
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Aug 9, 2013 05:46
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AlbieQuirky posted:This isn't an insult or a value judgment on you as a person, Benny. It's just a recognition that your skills are not up to par right now. This. You seem less defensive, but you still have excuses. Practice makes intelligible, after all.
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Aug 9, 2013 05:48
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Benny you are never going to make money on what you call writing until you suck it up, choke down your immature fantasies of being a best seller novelist and actually write something. Stephen King and all these other dudes didn't get famous from sitting on their rear end after doing a 20 hour week of pushing carts into car doors. If you want to spend the rest of your life then the joy has to come from the act of writing, not the rewards or status you think it'll give you. The fact you only want to write for money means you don't take this poo poo as seriously as you should be. Being an artist loving sucks. It's not glamorous and it's not something you should aspire to. Only a 12 year old who read their first adult novel would think like that.
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Aug 9, 2013 06:05
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Benny the Snake posted:I have this complex of "If I'm going to write, it has to make money" towards my fiction so I've held off until I can find a job so that I can write without that immediate anxiety on me. It sounds dumb but hey it's something I addressed with my therapist. I think you are pinning way too much hope on writing as a way to live. I am not sure working a near-minimum wage office slave job is going to make you feel less pressured to succeed either. Do you have any long-term career goals or plans beyond "write bestseller"? Literally thousands of people who write with more skill then you have tried this route and failed to write a bestseller. Why are you different? I would not tell you not to try but do not plan your life around it. If you do you will likely end up like my ex's dad writing lovely poetry and trying to convince your kids to spend hours putting it to music so he can sell it and finally be rich. He is also working on a great novel that he insists will redefine the fantasy genre. What he has written so far is a cliched sixth-rate knockoff of Tolkien with incoherent dialogue and a boring and hackneyed plot with a twist so obvious and stupid you end up wanting to punch the author for being smug enough to imagine it is clever. Do not become this man. Please. Edit: Please watch this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9fc-crEFDw It says a lot of what this thread is trying to tell you. Xenocides fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Aug 9, 2013 |
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Aug 9, 2013 06:30
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Xenocides posted:Please watch this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9fc-crEFDw Yeah, you know, if anything, this should prove as motivation Benny. Hear me out here. In this day and age, you can upload long, painful, steaming piles of crap, and as long as you target it to for a specific audience (or if it's actually funny/engaging), your dreams could come true. Check this bro's hook up: http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1417 This objectively awful video landed this guy his ~dream publishing deal~ and for that I give him props. The video is still stale, awful, and if anything massages the massively delusional ego-rections of fellow failed and frustrated writers. The lesson is clear, Benny—YouTube. You might think I'm yanking your chain, but imagine—you could build an empire out of you making a quick short of your post-apocalyptic fiction. Or better yet you doing some other stupid poo poo, you get the idea. edit: That for fanfiction. Fuck da Mods fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Aug 9, 2013 |
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Aug 9, 2013 07:30
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Somebody suggested that I donate plasma for cash. I donate blood on a regular basis so I figure it'd be a good idea now. Any information on how to do it? Do I contact a reputable blood donation office like Red Cross?
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Aug 9, 2013 15:03
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When I debated starting writing fiction, I looked up the standard words-per-day that different successful writers demanded of themselves. It seems to be a sort of industry standard that around 1500 a day is a pretty good pace for a novel, and it'll take about a year to complete the whole thing, including a few weeks for research and outlining at the beginning and extensive time for edits and rewrites. When reading the above description of the generally-agreed-upon proper minimum pace for writing a novel, do you think "that makes sense, I'll have to see if I'm disciplined enough to keep up with that pace", or do you think "nah, I'll just do x, y and z instead, it'll be fine"? Have you outlined your story? Do you have a plotline you want followed, already determined and put down on paper? Are you actually seeking to follow a structured writing process?
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Aug 9, 2013 15:05
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Benny the Snake posted:Somebody suggested that I donate plasma for cash. I donate blood on a regular basis so I figure it'd be a good idea now. Any information on how to do it? Do I contact a reputable blood donation office like Red Cross? No. Reputable outfits don't pay. Just do a Google search for plasma clinics in your area. I've had to do that in the past and it's a pretty thoroughly dehumanizing experience, just as a heads up. The place will probably be pretty filthy and the staff will likely be quite unprofessional. It will not be like the experience of giving blood at a Red Cross clinic. It's been 10 years since I did it so I don't know what the going rate is these days, but back then it was $20 and you could donate twice a week.
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Aug 9, 2013 15:27
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These days, I think it's like $3K/year if you go twice a week. Websites will tell you it's about saving lives but rather it's just that pharmaceutical companies need blood plasma to make their boner pills 'n' poo poo.
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Aug 9, 2013 15:31
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Benny the Snake posted:Somebody suggested that I donate plasma for cash. I donate blood on a regular basis so I figure it'd be a good idea now. Any information on how to do it? Do I contact a reputable blood donation office like Red Cross? No, shut the gently caress up and post your resume/cover letter with any/all personal information blacked out! You live at home! You don't need "cash money" you need a kick in the right direction. You don't have bills to pay! You don't need to waste time doing random poo poo, for petty cash, in order to fuel the anime porn collection your parents don't want under their roof, in the first place. You need full time, stable employment. Jerking off into a cup and donating blood/plasma is not employment! Stop procrastinating and looking for distractions! Stop using this thread as your little place to go, when your bored or need ideas to further your delusions. I'm almost mad you weren't banned or probated for the quoted post. It veers way the gently caress off topic and acts a total derailment. (Which I'm sure you were aiming for, after poo poo got real.) People are bending over backwards to give you advice, none of which you address. gently caress you. Post your cover letter and play along with the game you created, then forced yourself into, or gently caress off. Edit: I forgot to tell you to try your best on the cover letter. Considering you claim to not really try that hard on your blog/forums posting, yes, I did actually feel the need to tell you to "try your hardest," Benny dearest! Give us your best shot, just like coach told you back in T-Ball. cname fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Aug 9, 2013 |
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Aug 9, 2013 15:36
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cucurbit posted:When I debated starting writing fiction, I looked up the standard words-per-day that different successful writers demanded of themselves. It seems to be a sort of industry standard that around 1500 a day is a pretty good pace for a novel, and it'll take about a year to complete the whole thing, including a few weeks for research and outlining at the beginning and extensive time for edits and rewrites. Benny, please read this. You need to actually write to make money as a writer. And to be honest, if you want to make a living, you have to publish many novels a year. Four, five, six... I'm on my fourth novel this year. It's trashy romance for ladies (a genre I love and that makes money) and I'm praying I have the ovaries to push out three more by the end of December. I make a good professional salary. I'm not a bestseller by any means, but this is my first year doing this and I'm pulling down first-year STEM grad money. I have to work like a dog to do it, but if that's what moves you then it's not a BAD career idea. To be honest, I would suggest you start reading, like, a lot. A TON. Your writing style makes me think that you've read nothing BUT comic books for a long time, and while that might help storyboarding your novel, it will destroy your style. READ BOOKS. GET A JOB. You're taking the right steps, but the right steps mean jack poo poo if you sit down on the side of the road five steps into the journey and think, "Man, walking is hard, I deserve a break!"
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Aug 9, 2013 16:00
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XAsi_5lmzU I'm sure I'll get lit up for posting a Family Guy clip, but jesus, you can't get much more accurate.
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Aug 9, 2013 16:31
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Benny the Snake posted:Somebody suggested that I donate plasma for cash. I donate blood on a regular basis so I figure it'd be a good idea now. Any information on how to do it? Do I contact a reputable blood donation office like Red Cross? This just cements to me that this is a master level troll. No human being, no matter how messed up their mind is, acts in this manner. Well played, Benny. I look forward to your next effort-post in the D&D political cartoon thread.
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Aug 9, 2013 16:55
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WampaLord posted:This just cements to me that this is a master level troll. No human being, no matter how messed up their mind is, acts in this manner.
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Aug 9, 2013 16:58
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Benny the Snake posted:My blog writing is a little more slapdash but it's because I like getting my stuff out there on the same day. quote:For bigger articles, I'll read through it twice. quote:For my academic projects, I was much, much more considerate about grammar and spelling. quote:My blog writing really is only for me. Benny: "Well, I wasn't trying hard because..." Everybody in this thread: "If you don't try hard every time, you will stay the same writer you are now." Everybody I know hates being edited. I hate being edited. My standard procedure on getting edits (I do both fiction and non-fiction) is to read the edit, curse about how insanely wrong the editor is, and go away for a bit. Then I reread and realize "oh poo poo, that's a bad mistake, better fix it." Everybody writes things that suck. The answer to that is not "Well, I wasn't trying very hard". The answer to that is to get critiques, absorb them, and rewrite. If you want to be a writer, you should be trying hard every drat time. That post upthread about "no excuses"? That was three whole paragraphs on a site that the world will little note nor long remember. When I finished writing, I stepped back, reread the post window, cut some sentences, rearranged others, cut words, and slashed waaaay back on my pet nemesis the semicolon. Why bother? Because I am a writer and I always bother. You don't let yourself get sloppy when something is going out in public. * * Now I will have oodles of fun as everybody rips apart that post and this. I deserve it; I'm posting in public about writing well.
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Aug 9, 2013 17:12
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To repeat what has been said many times: Benny you are not going to have a career in writing. Write for fun if you enjoy it, but throw out the idea that you just have to tread water until you land some Big Writing Gig. It is not going to happen, and if you don't pull your head out of the sand and start thinking about a future for yourself that doesn't involve you as a bestselling author, you are going to find yourself in serious trouble when you get older.
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Aug 9, 2013 17:38
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Benny the Snake posted:Somebody suggested that I donate plasma for cash. I donate blood on a regular basis so I figure it'd be a good idea now. Any information on how to do it? Do I contact a reputable blood donation office like Red Cross? Check to see if your medication is compatible with donating. DO NOT stop taking meds to make $50 a week. Really you probably shouldn't bother. This is the kind of thing people do in college to get supplemental beer or fun money. You need a job. Doing this gets you no nearer to any goal and will probably give you delusions that you are. On the bright side we could all use a hilarious post about how you end up getting kicked out of the clinic for pulling out your IV or knocking over machines so it might increase thread morale.
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Aug 9, 2013 17:45
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Excuse. Haha, I love getting edited! Mostly because I'm so sick of what I'm working on by the time it goes out to get edited that I'm like, "JUST TELL ME HOW TO FIX THIS SO I NEVER HAVE TO LOOK AT IT AGAIN" But yes, agreement. I spend way too long tweaking my dumb posts because I genuinely care about whether or not my post is coherent. I literally re-read and tweaked each sentence in this reply. Benny, that's what you have to do to be a writer. People are telling you to give up your dream--I'm not going quite that far, but you definitely need to take about five years to read a lot and write a few novels before you'll be in good shape to make any money. As a bonus you can get a job and fix your life before stepping into the world of publishing, which is a maelstrom of rejection and cattiness that you are, quite frankly, not psychologically equipped to handle right now.
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Aug 9, 2013 18:18
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lexan posted:No. Reputable outfits don't pay. Just do a Google search for plasma clinics in your area. I've had to do that in the past and it's a pretty thoroughly dehumanizing experience, just as a heads up. The place will probably be pretty filthy and the staff will likely be quite unprofessional. It will not be like the experience of giving blood at a Red Cross clinic. It's been 10 years since I did it so I don't know what the going rate is these days, but back then it was $20 and you could donate twice a week. What kinda lovely plasma donation center did you go to that it was dirty and unprofessional. Maybe it's just better down here because of all the biotech companies, but you have to pass a fairly strict health check so it's not all homeless people and junkies (you have to be well nourished to give.) Down here if you just have normal ol' plasma it pays $35 and you can give twice a week. If you have some nifty antibodies in your blood you get paid way more because they want them for making stuff. Benny, google Octapharma or Biomat. Biomat is what we have down here, but it looks like Octapharma may have some centers close to you. I'd do more research but googling stuff is really what you should be doing.
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Aug 9, 2013 19:06
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I would buy a book about Benny's life, just saying.
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Aug 9, 2013 19:20
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Grin and Tonic posted:I would buy a book about Benny's life, just saying. Even if it was autobiographical?
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Aug 9, 2013 19:23
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Grin and Tonic posted:I would buy a book about Benny's life, just saying. So would I, but not an autobiography.
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Aug 9, 2013 19:26
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Maybe Benny should make a Kickstarter to fund writing a book about his experiences working as a cart pusher while living at home and hiding his adult comics from his parents.  Benny don't do this, I am kidding.
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Aug 9, 2013 19:28
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Speaking of which, how are things going at home Benny? Are you getting along better with your family?
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Aug 9, 2013 19:32
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I'm gonna have Xenocides take a look at one of my academic projects before I post it on here. In the meanwhile, I'm gonna go ahead and edit a post on my blog and post it here. Morby posted:Speaking of which, how are things going at home Benny? Are you getting along better with your family? Oh and fun story: I dunno if I had posted this but for the longest time I would hear people call out my name out of nowhere. How did my parents explain it? Guilty conscience 
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Aug 9, 2013 19:55
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Uh yeah, now that you're taking psychiatric drugs I'm sure they will tell you "thanks but no thanks."
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Aug 9, 2013 20:11
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Sounds like your parents totally hosed you on the mental health front. On the upshot, now you know for sure there's a mental health front so you can attack the issue head on.
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Aug 9, 2013 20:11
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cname posted:People are bending over backwards to give you advice, none of which you address. gently caress you. Well the thread did finally get him to address his mental health issues. I'd say that's advice he's taken. Seriously though Benny, don't go selling your plasma to anyone. Somebody else mentioned sperm donation, but that's also a path you don't want to go down.
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Aug 9, 2013 20:35
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If he's unemployed then $3000/year for 2-3 hours a week isn't bad.
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Aug 9, 2013 20:37
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I take cymbalta, and the red cross takes my regular donations, and begs for platelets, for what it's worth.
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Aug 9, 2013 20:51
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Pfirti86 posted:Well the thread did finally get him to address his mental health issues. I'd say that's advice he's taken. Dude, don't be an rear end in a top hat, they pay people to donate plasma because there's a loving need for it. He has something someone is willing to pay for, and he could use the money. quote:What is the difference between donating blood and plasma?
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Aug 9, 2013 20:53
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Pfirti86 posted:Somebody else mentioned sperm donation, but that's also a path you don't want to go down. They tend to screen pretty rigorously for sperm donors anyway. A history of mental illness would probably disqualify him as a candidate.
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Aug 9, 2013 21:06
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It's not about morals, ethics, money, etc. It's about the fact that Benny is beyond horrible at setting priorities and sticking to them. Donating bodily fluids should not be considered a priority for someone who doesn't even have bills to pay. Benny, what are your priorities, right now? Do you really want us to critique your movie blog posts, or are you just agreeing to post them, because a few people told you to? What will you accomplish by having your blog posts critiqued? I get that you wanna get better at writing, but is that really the most important thing right now? Don't you wanna get a full time job, first and foremost? That's why I'm telling you to post your cover letter and resume. I seriously think having your cover letter and resume critiqued and edited would be a far better use of your time, at this exact moment, in your life. Your blog posts can wait, along with the plasma center, jizz lab, blood bag, etc. Two options.... 1) Post your blog and have people give you feedback. Dick around with your little hobby and continue to live with your parents as an unemployed post-graduate. Don't bother setting any priorities, because things aren't going to change, any time soon. 2) Post your resume and cover letter. People will mock you, berate you, then tell you how you can perfect it. Once you go through a few rounds of editing/reviewing, you'll have something you can actually be proud to send out to potential employers. Something which could lead to full time employment and independence! It's that simple. Option 1 says "I wanna keep dicking around and loving away time on the internet." Option 2 says "I've had enough of this bullshit and just wanna find a way to make my situation better." I think your tricking yourself into thinking that having your movie blog posts reviewed by other goons = doing work. That's not reality! That's your psychotic brain, repeating the phrase "best selling author." Let me make this clear... Anything to do with writing is simply a hobby for you. Nobody is going to pay you, any time soon. You focusing on writing is the exact same thing as me focusing on tennis. Both are healthy activities, but neither equates to "work" in a real-world sense. cname fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Aug 9, 2013 |
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Aug 9, 2013 21:11
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cname posted:2) Post your resume and cover letter. People will mock you, berate you, then tell you how you can perfect it. Once you go through a few rounds of editing/reviewing, you'll have something you can actually be proud to send out to potential employers. Something which could lead to full time employment and independence! Didn't he pay for one of the Goon-ran 'professional' resume-to-job type services? I could have swore that was a thing some months ago, but maybe he was talked down from it. Benny? Did you or no?
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Aug 9, 2013 21:20
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That drat Satyr posted:Didn't he pay for one of the Goon-ran 'professional' resume-to-job type services? I could have swore that was a thing some months ago, but maybe he was talked down from it. Benny? Did you or no? I don't even care. I just want him to post it, so he can get the ball rolling. For all we know, that resume could be long-gone. I really just wanna see if it's geared towards a specific industry vs a timeline of his work history. Edit: Benny, don't reply to either of our posts. Just post your resume and/or cover letter. That or continue to fool around with people who wanna laugh at your movie reviews. cname fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Aug 9, 2013 |
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Aug 9, 2013 21:22
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