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How did you turn your life around? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Al O'Pecia
- Start date
Mister CIA
Footballguy
I know what I want, but I just don't know how to go about getting it.
I want to write the greatest story ever told, but I know I can't write it alone. Is there such a thing as a writer's club? I've got lots of vivid, loosely woven vignettes floating around in my mind that I want to share with other would-be storytellers - like a chile pepper that wants to make a pot of chili; an epic storytelling style that would lend itself to video, like a Netflix series.
I want to write the greatest story ever told, but I know I can't write it alone. Is there such a thing as a writer's club? I've got lots of vivid, loosely woven vignettes floating around in my mind that I want to share with other would-be storytellers - like a chile pepper that wants to make a pot of chili; an epic storytelling style that would lend itself to video, like a Netflix series.
Wooderson
Fight The Power
Abraham
Footballguy
Start by writing any story, even one that sucks. The next one will be better. Repeat.
Read a lot. Read different writers and let the words - not just the story - sink in. Read Old Man and the Sea and then read Blood Meridian, two wildly different styles. Read A Million Tiny Pieces and Infinite Jest. Repeat
Writing and storytelling is a skill that can be developed just like anything else
Kafka
Footballguy
I don't quite agree...storytelling is an art that cannot be developed, you have it or you don't... Then again, I was never a teller of stories, so I would not know.
ProstheticRGK
Footballguy
I used to want to be a writer. In 5th grade, I wrote a short story about these hunters that went out to Alaska to find this great, white moose that was the stuff of legends. Unfortunately, the assignment was to write a first person poem about what it was like to be a certain object. I got a B. But my teacher read my story out loud, because she said it was really good. All my friends loved the story. When we played "Kill the Guy" at recess, they all started chanting "Moose" whenever I had the tennis ball. Even Cindy McCartney looked at me with a newfound admiration. I was bound and determined to be a writer.
When I got out of the Army, I decided I would be the next Charles Bukowski. I already had a tolerance for a number of beers and whiskey that would cripple most people, and I still wanted to be a writer. I'd start drinking at 11 am, usually, right after getting up. And I would sit and write some of the worst, most self-indulgent treacle ever hammered out on a pretentious old-school Underwood typewriter. I have some good stories from those days, but not the ones I wrote. I gave up after a year and decided to go to college. I knew I'd never be Bukowski, or Hemingway or Shakespeare.
The one recurring theme, though, that I remember reading in interviews and biographies and autobiographies of famous authors (whether I thought they were any good or not) was that they wrote every day. Religiously. Set time aside and wrote, like they had no choice.
When I got out of the Army, I decided I would be the next Charles Bukowski. I already had a tolerance for a number of beers and whiskey that would cripple most people, and I still wanted to be a writer. I'd start drinking at 11 am, usually, right after getting up. And I would sit and write some of the worst, most self-indulgent treacle ever hammered out on a pretentious old-school Underwood typewriter. I have some good stories from those days, but not the ones I wrote. I gave up after a year and decided to go to college. I knew I'd never be Bukowski, or Hemingway or Shakespeare.
The one recurring theme, though, that I remember reading in interviews and biographies and autobiographies of famous authors (whether I thought they were any good or not) was that they wrote every day. Religiously. Set time aside and wrote, like they had no choice.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Art means rebelling against society and rejecting conformity.
That is a hard, difficult path as a practical matter.
That is a hard, difficult path as a practical matter.
IC FBGCav
Footballguy
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
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Abraham
Footballguy
Not everyone can be Janes Joyce, but you can certainly improve and become competent through practice and study. Not Everyone can be Freddie Mercury, but everyone can learn to sing. Not everyone can be tiger woods, but everyone can learn to play golf. Writing is the same.
bentley
Footballguy
Agree. Anything can be developed through deliberate practice. Even things that aren't at all natural.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Where are you people getting this? There is art and there is Art.
Is it a hobby or a career?
You think Jerry Rice woke up as Jerry freakin Rice? He sacrificed *Everything*.
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bentley
Footballguy
McGarnicle
Footballguy
I'll never forget that night I was blowing guys under an overpass for crack money and I met a Catholic priest. Why he was there is unimportant -- he taught me about the Lord.
Abraham
Footballguy
Exactly. Some people have natural inclination at things but even that isn't enough. By your own admission jerry rice had to work really hard to be jerry rice. But that doesn't mean everyone else can't learn to catch a football.
IC FBGCav
Footballguy
Art is not about thinking like others but others interpeting what you create.
Limp Ditka
Footballguy
Mister CIA
Footballguy
IC FBGCav
Footballguy
Judge Smails
Footballguy
This is very good advice. You get satisfaction and confidence from completing tasks, and you feel worthless when you know you have stuff to do it and don't get it done. The sense of movement and achievement is key.wdcrob said:
I've done several things over time to get me out of a rut. Usually it's an investment to get me motivated (attend a Success conference) or improve a skill (speaking more comfortably in front of groups). But at the end of the day it was just getting older and more comfortable in my own skin. I now know I am good enough, and worry less about what others think. Actually, others have always thought highly of me from a business standpoint, but I was the one with doubts. Didn't truly believe in myself. Now I do. Or it could have been fear of failure driving me. But in any event I know procrastination weighs heavily on one's mind. Get stuff done.
Doctor Detroit
Please remove your headgear
Al O'Pecia
Footballguy
No, not an alcoholic, but I've wasted too many evenings having some pops when I could have been getting stuff done. Then I feel more sluggish the next day. I haven't had any sluggish days recently, and I've been more productive in my evenings. People saying to just get stuff done are right. Using my nights to accomplish tasks that I had been putting me off has me feeing better. Baby steps.
Al O'Pecia
Footballguy
Lots of great advice in here, guys. I found a lot of it inspirational, and I'm definitely going to incorporate it in my life. Thanks for sharing the personal stories, and thanks for taking the time to help a brother out.
Chadstroma
Footballguy
Chadstroma
Footballguy
cstu
Footballguy
Paulymaggs
Footballguy
Think long and hard about the negative people/things in your life that hold you back.
RUTHLESSLY get rid of this negativity.
End result = Positivity.
RUTHLESSLY get rid of this negativity.
End result = Positivity.
Ministry of Pain
Footballguy
I just wanted to know what makes people tick. And what was wrong with enrolling into full classes of early 20s girlies?Al O'Pecia said:
SDJohnny
Footballguy
Personally -stopped lying to myself and everyone else. Got out of crappy marriage. Admitted I was an addict, went to 12 step meetings, and therapy. Made new friends, stopped keeping secrets. Let everything fall apart so I could build it up again a better way. Started to appreciate small things in life, live in the moment, focus on what I can do each day step by step, not get overwhelmed by thinking I have to achieve every goal all at once.
Al O'Pecia
Footballguy
Good point.
I can tell from your posts that you have a natural curiosity as to why people think the way they do.
Good for you. It's commendable that you were willing to make a career change and pursue a field you're more passionate about.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
- Turn off tv, radio and internet.
- Read, read, read.
- Exercise.
- Church/temple/pray/meditate (your pick).
- Honesty with yourself and others even if hurts.
- Wdcrob said it, be an active, consistently productive person, even fun stuff should be accomplishing something. If you build little piles of accomplishment you feel better. It's the dissonance between loss of time and desire which causes frustration and disappointment, reverse that trend.
- Read, read, read.
- Exercise.
- Church/temple/pray/meditate (your pick).
- Honesty with yourself and others even if hurts.
- Wdcrob said it, be an active, consistently productive person, even fun stuff should be accomplishing something. If you build little piles of accomplishment you feel better. It's the dissonance between loss of time and desire which causes frustration and disappointment, reverse that trend.
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SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Sorry I got caught up in a stupid philosophical point which had nothing to do with the thread. Apologies.
So more tips:
- Don't be dogmatic and worry or get hung up on stupid philosophical points with other people you .care about or really anyone.
- Risibility.
- Don't blame others.
- Don't feel sorry for yourself.
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Abraham
Footballguy
My experience and that of many others here has a common thread: honesty. My life fell apart when trying to juggle and solve all the lies became too much to handle. It wasn't until I got honest about things - my happiness, goals, relationships, how I wanted to spend my time - that things started looking up.
msommer
Footballguy
Absolutely
ETA: Not everything was/is 100% applicable. But most of it was at least peripherically helpful. And getting the confidence up during the course was invaluable
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Binky The Doormat
Footballguy
Omg - the friction alone should have killed that guy years ago.
He's gotta be down to a nub and using prosthetics.
Mr. Know-It-All
Footballguy
Couple things -
1. Find a job you love, not necessarily the one that promises to pay the most. If you are really good at something you love, you might find what you bring to the table will bring more than you thought it could. I chased money and title for 15 years - sometime in my mid-30s I said screw it and looked for a job that I loved and oddly when I quit caring about money and title that is when those things found me instead of me searching for them.
2. Don't seek happiness from someone else - you are responsible for your own happiness. If your happiness is self-determined it is amazing the stress it takes off of the other relationships in your life. If you are in a toxic relationship that kills your ability to be happy with yourself, get out of it.
1. Find a job you love, not necessarily the one that promises to pay the most. If you are really good at something you love, you might find what you bring to the table will bring more than you thought it could. I chased money and title for 15 years - sometime in my mid-30s I said screw it and looked for a job that I loved and oddly when I quit caring about money and title that is when those things found me instead of me searching for them.
2. Don't seek happiness from someone else - you are responsible for your own happiness. If your happiness is self-determined it is amazing the stress it takes off of the other relationships in your life. If you are in a toxic relationship that kills your ability to be happy with yourself, get out of it.
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