Welcome to my weird world!

Aaaargh! Too busy!

"Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others"
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Why is it that everything always comes at the same time? It's like the all-pervasive law of mankind: if we've got lots of time, we've got nothing to do. As soon as we have deadlines and plenty to get done, a million and one other things will come along to try and push you off-track!

The way things are at the moment, I certainly have very little time to think of my own life, let alone anyone else's. However, I think that Jackson Brown is wrong: I want to be able to criticise. As long as what I am giving is constructive criticism, then surely that is time well spent?

If I was so busy 'improving' my own life, I would never have time to come on here and read and review. In fact, if you ask me, that in itself would automatically invalidate his comments. A major part of my life plan is to improve my writing. Nothing does that so well as receiving constructive criticism from others. If I do not give any reviews, how can I expect any in return... Ha! Point made.

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Speaking of reviews, I read a great one today: it actually brought a tear to my eye. Silly, I know, but it's so nice to hear something really, really positive about your work once in a while! I am very good at beating myself up (aren't we all at times?!), and not so good at recognising a job well done. I am therefore going to take part of that review and put it here so that I am reminded of it every time that I look back through my blog.

You evoke such drama and beauty from the surrounds of Ghigha that I could almost taste it - a true example of 'showing' rather than 'telling'

Beautiful imagery, fantastic decriptive narrative and good use of English literary devices (personification of time, simile etc.,) A perfect example of well constructed writing

The piece flowed at such an organic pace that I didn't notice it flag anywhere. Inspired writing and I have saved you as a favourite authors on the strength of this alone.

God bless Acme! Acme

I joined this site to look for constructive criticism, but I sometimes forget that blatent admiration can give just as much of a boost. If I received praise like this in every review, it wouldn't help to improve my work any. However, receiving this once in a while certainly helps my confidence and, yes, it does make me feel pretty good!

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Having said that we all need reviews to develop, there are a couple of pieces that 'need' looked at:

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This is not my work, but Terandiel very kindly reviewed the piece below, and is needing this piece reviewed by the 24th. It is an assignment that must be handed in.

Malcolm and the Marzipan  (E) How our family business came into being #1307656 by Hezza

This is the story of how my family business started. At the moment we are working incredibly hard to get our new product off the ground. Part of that is the website, and I wrote this piece as an 'interesting' part of our history. There is a more conventional 'about us' page on the site also. Any reviews will be very much appreciated, because it has to be good. We really need things to go well for a while!

On that note, I'm away home for tea. It is getting on for 8:30pm and I've not left the office yet - I have both the website copy and at least the bones of a seminar to write by Thursday/Friday of this week!

Incidentally, I have just uploaded my first interactive story - please contribute a chapter!

I will leave you with a quote that I really hope comes true for us:

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it"
Henry David Thoreau