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The chronicles of a frustrated writer |
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Tim is a charismatic and vigorous man who likes to refer to himself in the third person and narrate his own movement and gestures as stage directions. He is a talented and gifted writer with a promising career ahead, as attested to by numerous creditors. Tim is a man of action, a risk taker, who does not blink at drinking milk past its expiration date nor occasionally sleeping with an open window. Tim was born the son of a poor goat herder in the hills of Northern Phrygia. At the age of 11 he vanquished his mutant sister in a game of hide and seek becoming sole heir to a vast empire of dung hills and the largest earth-friendly landscaping business in the Mediterranean. At the age of twelve while his father was napping he assumed control of his father's empire and led his marauding goats to plunder, pillage, and conquer Greece, Persia, Carthage, the English Highlands, Narnia, and that neighborhood in Beverly Hills where all of those annoying 20 year old teenagers hang out. Rather than just carve a naked swath of razed landscape, Tim the Conqueror, - Tim the Great, or the 'Big T' - built roads, hung telephone lines, and established thousands of McDonalds, Block Buster Videos, and Walmarts. To this day, the people of these violated nations resent him. Tim's plan for global domination was ended early when his Mom called him home for dinner. At the age of 13 Tim was elected Dhali Lama by a lewd congress of presbyters. During his office he imposed a sur tax on free love, outlawed negative intergers, built a bowling alley, and fought for legislation requiring stricter documentation on transcendental meditation. Tim has ridden a train. Tim's greatest ambition is to open a bag of Cheetoh's without it exploding yellow cheese dust all over his white, cotten, fluffy pirate shirt. Fan's wishing to send gifts to Tim are asked not to send sharp objects and when visiting, not to step over the yellow line and to never, he repeats NEVER touch the glass. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ![Merit Badge in Opinion
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I was really impressed with how you expressed your opinion today without offending anyone and without getting defensive...sometimes it's hard to stand tall in your faith, for you I can see that's a great strength.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/genre-Opinion-1150.gif) ![Merit Badge in Birthday
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Happy Birthday to you!! Thank you for being a good friend and I'm very glad you're back!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/general-Birthday-210.gif) ![Merit Badge in Comedy
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Why comedy? Because I think you are a funny guy, and I have an appreciation for people who can make me laugh. It is so difficult, you know *^*Laugh*^*
And, you already had a birthday one!! Happy belated Birthday!!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/genre-Comedy-200.gif) |
| So the first thing I do after I unlock my account is to check out my last few blog entries to see where I left off. It'll be quite easy to pick up on this thread from a year ago since one of my last entries read: "I'm back for good this time." Yup. That's exactly my sentiment. It reminds me of when my father bragged how easy it was for him to quit smoking. "I've done it dozens of times!" Okay. No comment. I'll just take it one day at a time this time. So where have I been the last year. - Unemployed, a little fatter, a little older, some health problems(diabetes and high blood pressure). Now starting last November I've been working as a customer service representative at ETS, which I have found out means: "Even This Sucks." Nothing against my employers. They are good people. It's just a rut of a job for me. But it pays and I can do it fairly well, but not real good. I'm just not a phone person. I am trying, though. I'll get it. But this is good. This gives me motivation to excel where I feel my passion is - No, not the one where I flop around in a giant chicken suit trying to hatch random objects as if it was an egg. No, I mean writing. I believe I have the talent. I just have to have the drive. I guess I needed to be a little hungry. I hope I just didn't jinx myself. Anyway, I'm also trying to reinvent myself by taking up some new hobbies and working out. I joined the local gym that has a theater cardio room. I try to tread, glide and bike for about 100 to 130 minutes five or six nights a week. After a month I'll start doing some strength training as well. I'm at my heaviest at 228 pounds. Already I'm feeling a difference in my stamina and metabolism. On another note I'm starting a writing group with some people I met at work. I'm trying to talk them into this site as I think it would be a good medium to share our ideas and opinions as well as to start networking with other writers. So for Todd, Nicole, and her imaginary friend Mark - SAAA- LUTE! Now would also be a good time to extend an open invitation to any would-writer who stumbles onto my blog to join our writer's group. Just drop me a line if you're interested. I'll try to have some links up the next time, which based on my track record could be as late as next year. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I'm including the following comment which I posted as a response in my previous post, but it explains I've been experiencing the last week. A friend of mine asked: "How can you be tentatively hired?" "Good question, Twink. By 'tentatively hired' I'm saying that my professional status there is a 'definite maybe.' It's all bureaucracy (which is a difficult word to spell) in the American school system. Someone is occasioned to vacate their position. The immediate supervisor forwards the requisition to fill that vacancy up through several dozen tiers of management until it reaches the one desk who's sole responsibility is to fill that one particular position should it ever be required to be filled. He/she posts the job position on the internet posting whose address can only be acquired by Googling "having sex with extraterrestrial chimpanzees while watching Wheel of Fourtune." NB, "Fourtune" needs to be misspelled thus for this to work. After the above-mentioned supervisor has garnered 50 applications or his horoscope tells him to check the mailbox (whatever comes first), he then sets out to interview the said applicants. Now comes the expedient part. The fifth interviewee he meets with on the third Thursday after the fifth full moon of an odd-numbered year - he hires, or rather 'tentatively' hires pending confirmation at the next board meeting by a coven of albino twitches which takes place at the next Maypole ceremony hosted by a celebrity whose name has the letter 'Q' in it." Actually, my confirmation never made it to the maypole ceremony. The position was eliminated in private conference while they were playing "Truth or Dare." So I was more than a little bummed. I was pissed. I was frustrated and disgusted. I kind of laid around the house and moped for the next two days. The person for this department who did the hiring came into the room I was subbing and told me the news. I wasn't that surprised, but then I asked if I at least got the long term gig for that position until the end of the year and he said they were going to let the acting sub take it. I was pissed because not at the sub, but at the computer system. The reason I wasn't subbing there that week was because she just happened to be checking online when it was posted. I was at work in that very class and didn't have access to a computer at the time. Plus I didn't think they would be using a sub to fill in after that week. Okay. So the good news is that after I was done moping I contacted this charter school that I signed on several months earlier. It was kind of serendipitous at the time as I had never heard of that school. But I was at this other school when I met an administrator from the charter school. She had heard good things about me - I think, or maybe it was because I was a male teacher. Anyway, I passed her my resume` and was approved by their board. I was never able to go in before because I was always busy at my current schools. I was kind of giving the old schools preference thinking that it would pay off long term. Well - it didn't, and I'm moving on. The charter school pays better and already has me working for the next two weeks. The kids and the faculty were pretty nice. I really like it there. No regrets in moving on. I just wish I had done it earlier. Still, it's not the same thing as having a full time position until summer, but I can't complain. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| And I wait, still. I have tentatively been hired for this position as an aide for a school system. By tentatively, (the long answer you will find in a reply to the previous post) I mean I am still waiting for confirmation. In the meantime they want me to fill in as a substitute - whenever the current substitute is finished her assignment there - unless of course they figure she's been there long enough to give her the job instead which underscores the term "tentative." ????? And I wait - for this part-time position I applied to at the same school for after-school aide. In a surprising surge of expediency I was approved immediately, back in February. But in trying to be fair the immediate supervisor has found ways to put me off indefinitely, just so people don't confuse the hiring process with that of obtaining qualified and experienced personnel. As it stands now, there have several new aides frequenting this program who barely look they themselves are out of middle school. But they are not nameless. They all share names with at least one senior member of the after-school staff. I'm sure by experience they mean - "having baby-sat siblings or neighbor kids on date night." And I wait - for someone to make the other half of a discussion in the online book club I started a couple of weeks ago. About the only thing we have agreed upon is the book, Emma which few have since read, and even fewer have commented on. I don't mean to be harsh. Everyone else has a life besides blogging and starting rogue book clubs. It's just that in the beginning everyone seemed excited about reading classics and having these academic discussions and so far the loudest voices are the crickets accentuating the silence.  The description line is a joke, now. It reads: "Avid and articulate readers ...."And I wait - |
| Hello again! I know I've been a bad writer and fellow in this writing community. I don't know what happened. I guess I just got sidetracked by life and lazy by choice. Well, I'm making a renewed effort to get back into writing. I have a compilation of poems and short stories ready to publish on IUniverse. I just need to clean them up and perhaps add to the collection. I have also got an online book club going athttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/literary_penguins/ . Check it out!! Currently we're doing Emma. Well, by 'doing' I mean reading and discussing. If you want to 'do' Emma you'll probably want to go to a different web site. Let me know how that works out. Currently I am (sometimes) working as a substitute teacher. However, I just got (tentatively) hired as a full-time class aide for an autistic preschool class. Finally, someone I can talk to!!! Of course the job will be over come summer and there's no guarantee that the position will be back next term due to NJ beloved (sarcasm intended) governor Christie. It's not his fault. He has some hard choices to make and his judgment is impaired due to a lack of a soul. He and his defenders defend him by saying he's had to make some 'hard choices.' It almost makes it sounds like he's cutting school programs for his own kids - oh wait! But he doesn't have any!! It is a comfort to know that our state government is so efficient and lean that the only pork in the budget is our highly fatty education department which caters madly to developing children and youths pampering them with a competitive education for a so-called rapidly developing technological society. No. Our shrewd governor has wisely read the trend of the US economy as moving towards the service industry, and has such insured that leading the way with supplying an ample workforce of "You-Want-Fries-With-That" sayers will be New Jersey. But no. I"m not bitter. |
| Hello All, or Any, or I-can't-get-back-to-sleep; I've been off-line for a long while, now. There wasn't really much for me to do on WDC at the time. Now I'm into the next phase of my writing career. I just purchased a publishing package with I-Universe and am in the process of assembling an anthology of short stories and poetry. I had been researching several other publishers and decided that I-Universe would be the best for me. And Hey! Did I mention I just got a new pc? It's a Gateway laptop. The best feature so far is it's mobility. I was having trouble getting motivated to write in the morning until I tried a change of routine and scenery. (before I used to work in my bedroom). I have since found that I'm less likely to slip off my clothes and curl up and go to sleep if I'm in a public place. And if I do, the staff at Starbuck's is considerate enough to throw a blanket on me and shake me awake. I had a good session today working on my title piece, "Where River and Rock Meet." I think this could be my best story to date. I plan to have a total of 16 stories and about 20 poems for my collection. I'm not going to make it in time for this year's Self-Publishing contest, but I do hope to get it reviewed. Well good luck to everyone else in there endeavors! |
| Things have been going really well on the car and job front. I've had the Passat a week and have discovered more thrills and no ills. Of the cheap thrills - heated seats, power sunroof that tilts as well as slides open, radio controls on steering wheel, built-in garage door remote (now all I need is a garage), and really good acceleration. I applied for the substitute registry at the school I interned when I was majoring in education. I should hear from them in a couple of weeks to report for workshops. I also picked up a couple of nights delivering at a Chinese restaurant, at least until Christmas time or I can start substituting again. On the writing front I haven't had many entries on "Invalid Item"  yet. I still have to work on that comparison chart for the four e-presses. Actually, I started this a few days ago only to witness my ink cartridges going drier and drier with each subsequent page. I went to Best Buy to get replacement cartridges only to find out that my Apollo printer is now an antiquity. Evidently the "2000" was for "2000 BC." The little Flintstone bird that was chiseling out the copies was the last of its kind. I'm going to have to replace it with something this side of the millenium hashmark. I saw a nice one for $300 that works as a scanner and fax machine as well. I might have to wait a bit before I can spring for it. There's already enough on my wish list. So I'm going to have to do the chart the prehistoric way, by long hand.Today I just got a call from XLibris telling me about this two book for one package. It sounded really tempting but I don't have the funds yet to do one. My plan is to finance the publishing with substitute teaching. I figure I need about 10 days for each book. Oh yeah, I already got a couple of requests for my first book from the guys at work. It's good motivation. I'm really looking forward to getting this done. Well, that's it for now. Sorry, there's nothing interesting. |
| Well everything is pretty much settled on the deal for the Passat. As I expected they did try to jack up the price when I came back the next day. I'm not stupid. I know the trick. After taking a new car home for the night they were expecting my resistance to wear down. I told him what I needed my car payments to be. I repeated that this is what I told them yesterday when I left. I then suggested seeing another car knowing that the burden was on them, now. As far as they knew I took it home to deliver pizza all night! Anyway he came back with a much better figure claiming he was "giving me the car." It was still just a bit higher than what I wanted to pay, but I felt I could go that far. Then I waited and waited. When I finally went in to sign the deal I ended up knocking it up a little bit more to get the GAP insurance. It ended up as halfway between our figures which I felt was good. I'll never go back to a dealership other than Saturn. At Saturn the price is set and the dealers aren't trying to increase their commission. I don't like haggling or this manipulation. Just tell me what the price of the car is, or show me a car that falls within my price range. The guy tried to make me feel guilty to say that they worked hard to get this (the first) price. I replied that I was going to be working hard for the next 6 years paying it off and that I'd appreciate getting a deal that fits my budget. I was all up front with these guys and they kept trying to play me every step of the way. That said, I love my car. It's more than I expected to get. It's pre-owned but still looks and runs great (so far). I feel like I'm definitely moved up in class. From another viewpoint it could be argued that I needed to be sold that I deserved more, and that this pushed me to higher sense of esteem. Hmm. I may get back to this topic later on in my entries. In the end I feel good about this car. Now I'm working on my big writing project, - publishing my short stories and poetry. So far I've researched and be contacted by iUniverse, XLibris, Lulu.com, and Outskirts Press. I'm printing out the different materials and will be doing a comparison in my forum "Invalid Item" . |
| I'm so pumped up. I just bought a new car today. Actually, I have still have to do some paperwork, but they let me drive off the lot - so I could go deliver pizza in it! I kid you not. Actually, it's a bit of a story. For the last several months my brother and I have been sharing this Chevy Cavalier we bought off of my sister. We took over the payments since her and her husband were getting a new car. Now Bill and the husband work have been working at the same place for over a year, and so they naturally car pool. Well, since we got the car, Bill was expected to drive to work at least two days per week. At the time I was walking to work but I indicated clearly that if I went in on the car I would go for a better job further away. Well, my better job turned out to be delivering pizza at nights. Now my brother was cool with this. I told him flat right I would take care of all the maintenance and always return it to him with a full tank. Well, then i got more hours and it was proving to be a strain - not on my brother with whom I was sharing the payments with, but with my sister and brother-in-law. It turns out that they really were expecting me to use the car that much and that they were counting on it as a second vehicle - minus the payments. So after things got a bit testy last week, I decided to just go out and get my own car. Now here's the story about that - I show up at the dealer and tell them my credit isn't that good, but I would like to try to get something affordable, within my credit limit, and that would cost about $150 to $250 per month. I was really thinking USED CAR all the way. Well the guy got me to test drive a 2008 Chevy Cobalt 2 door coupe with spoiler. I kept telling him that I think it would be out of my price range but he talked me into trying it. I figured, 'what the hell?' If he could get it in my price range, I'd try it. Then after waiting for like 20 minutes he comes back with a sheet that quoted $400 and $1000 down. He waited for me to get off the floor after doubling over in laughter. He then asked me what 'part' of the figure was not working for me, and I replied: "The money part." I restated my price range and reminded him that I was originally looking for a used car that I could afford within my budget. He came back with two pre-owned cars that he said would fit that price. Now by this time I only had about a half hour before I was due into work. I called my brother to pick me up. At that point they got worried that I was going to leave without any kind of deal at all. So the finance manager promised that I would be driving out with whichever of the two cars that I wanted in 30 minutes. One hour later I was pulling out with a 2003 VW Passat. It has leather upholstery and a sun roof and it looks like new. I have to go back tomorrow for the paperwork. I LOVE the car, but I'm wary they're going to try to jack up the price or demand a huge down payment. By the way. I didn't use it for work anyway. I didn't want anything to happen to it until I was sure I was getting it. I will drive it around a bit more to see how everything runs. I feel that in this situation the high pressure might have worked for me. I was really skeptical I was going to qualify for a car loan or get ripped off in some bad deal. But the prospect of me driving away empty seemed to have got them jumping hoops to make the deal work without much hassle. I also feel at ease going back a day later knowing that I can walk away if I don't like the final line. I love the car, but I know what I'm willing to pay and I'm not budging off of it. On another note, I've been doing some research of e-publishing companies. I've come up with four so far: Lulu, Xlibris, iUniverse, and Outskirts Press. I haven't gotten much traffic on my forum yet. I'm gong to post the information for these four presses and see if I get any comments on any of them. Well, that's it for tonight. I'll update on the car and the publishing information tomorrow. Good night! |
| Hi everyone! <chirp> I just started my first forum. I originally wanted to host the first forum for Tourette's sufferers with an E rating, but some people just couldn't control themselves. So now I opened "Invalid Item" for those interested in, or having experience in E-Publishing. This is part of my research plan to collect information on various e-publishers and the various pros and cons of this enterprise. I imagine there are other writers who may be interested in a similar endeavor, and that they could benefit from it. In other areas of my life - the unholy "Car Deal" between me, my brother, and sister and her idiot-husband is coming to an end. I'm going to see about getting my own car. On a more pleasant note, it seems that some hacker broke into the idiot's "World of War Craft" account and stole all of his armor and gold. Of course I find the irony exceptionally amusing, and no. I had nothing to do with it. If the 'ye who plundered the plunderer' is reading this, let me clink your sword and tip my cup. It done be justice to the scurvy villain- arghhh! |
| Woohoo! I'm on fire. This is two blog entries in a row. Woohoo!! Today I made a major decision on where to go next in my writing career. I'm going to self publish my short stories and poetry through e-publishing. At root is that I feel confident that my material is good enough to make it on bookshelves. The drag has been waiting for a publisher to find a niche or opportunity to take a chance on me. This way I am taking the initiative. I letting it up to the individual reader to decide if my writing it worthy to market. I really feel good about this move already. It's like "I'm done waiting." My career is in my hand. I'm creating my opportunity. God!! This feels so liberating. Okay, this next week I'll be investigating various E-Publishing platforms. I'm open to suggestions. <hint-hint> I'm going to check out a couple of forums and see if I can get some referrals from there. At this point I'm not even sure what I should be looking for in an e-publisher. But I will find out and be sure I'll relay it here. I'm also going to start my professional web page this coming week. I hope to use it as a virtual office, so-to-speak. I also want to ge business cards made up to, eventually. The idea is that the sooner I start calling myself a professional writer, the more and more I'll believe it and start acting it. Woohoo! I'm running with scissors now! |
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"Lazy by choice" - that's awesome. I'm sure many people can relate so I won't harass you about it too much.