Great way to wake up in the morning.

[icarus]

I should have pretended I was still asleep.

At 5:45 this morning, I'm wakened from a dead sleep by wildernessguru swearing and slamming down the phone. He's up at 4:15 in the morning.

Blinking sleepily, I make the mistake of asking what's going on... and get the benefit of a 10-minute verbal blitzkrieg that eventually yields two gems of information: he picked up a voicemail from our insurance agent and, said insurance agent is worming out of contacting the lady who rear-ended us.

My conclusions:

1) Do not wake up just to be dumped on by angry boyfriends. That extra half hour of sleep should give him enough time to cool off.

2) Insurance should not be mandatory. It's making the insurance companies lazy about taking care of their customers because they're going to collect anyway.

3) There's no point in getting anything more than basic liability.

Looking for a cheery distraction as he snarled and chewed the floor, I picked up my email. Someone who'd had questions about the How To Write A Battle Scene sent me an unsolicited battle scene he wrote.

Never send unsolicited work. Especially after the person you're sending it to was just dragged out of a dead sleep by an angry boyfriend. Wait, you had no way of knowing that? That's right! That's why you ask first -- do you mind if I send you blah-blah-blah? Most people will say yes (I would) but then when they're having a crap morning they know exactly what they're opening. Only the really inexperienced writers do this.

After reading his piece, I'm feeling like my essays are useless. Nothing in my essay could help him because he was still working on basics like setting and characterization. The article was written with slash writers in mind; people who knew how to build a story, who already had characters and sensory detail, but needed to go that extra step to create a convincing and complex battle sequence.

*pounds head on table* I was so pleased he'd read it, too. Now I feel like a doctor writing illegal scripts.

Mornings like these I wish I drank coffee.

Comments

[scarah2.livejournal.com]

Mmmm coffee.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

If I drank it, I would have dunked myself in it like a donut this morning.

Proof that everything is conditional: just a few hours later after a pleasant couple of hours in class, I'm as happy as a clam. Talk about how unreliable moods are, yet how often do I make decisions or say things a certain way because of my mood?

Icarus

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

No your essays are not useless in general, just to the unprepared mind (his).

BTW, I'd add Lidell Hart's book Strategy to your reading list. It was invaluable to me back in high school when I was a war gamer.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I gave him an assignment: he is to write a story situated in a WWII submarine, at the downturn of the war (I'm thinking German U Boat but it's his call), from the perspective of someone of low rank -- i.e., who doesn't know what's going on.

He won't do it, but if he did it would force him to write about what the soldier does, and if we're very lucky, what he thinks and feels.

Icarus

[cofax7]

I'd never seen that essay, it's very good! Go you! ::memories::

Oh, and good luck with the insurance.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Hey. There's a lot in this essay that I forgot.

Reading it again I think that essay needs some editing and polishing up, though it's not bad given I wrote it over lunch hour.

There's a story behind it. I told WG that I was going to write a battle scene in one of my HP fics and he told me "no way you can pull it off." Wow, I was pissed.

So I spent ten months of research (on one story, no kidding) just to prove him wrong.

Icarus

[wildebeth.livejournal.com]

Maybe include a disclaimer in the beginning? We do that with our user guides for a fairly complicated software package at work. In the introduction, we have a list of what you should know or be familiar with before you start reading the guide. *shrug* Most of it is implied for our target audience, but there are always people who think they can understand and apply whatever they read.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent suggestion. I need to edit it a bit anyways.

Icarus