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The good morning, good night thread

Started by Ed, October 22, 2007, 03:49:05 AM

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Geoff_N


Ed

Yep, indeed.

I have that TFI Friday feeling again. It's been a hard week, and I think next week is likely to be just as hard. I'm cautiously optimistic that things may be a bit easier after that, but I may well have to eat my words. Sounds like one of my oppos is thinking about getting a job elsewhere, closer to home, more money, etc., so that would make life very difficult until I can find a replacement.
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

Rev. Austin

Quote from: Pharosian on September 02, 2010, 09:53:32 AM

Maybe some American readers take bugger and bloody literally. But some of us know what the words mean in the British context and like the flavor of the "foreign" words. I think it would be weird to read a story set in the UK where the characters talk about taking the elevator or having a few drinks at the local bar.  :idiot:

The same advice given to authors about trusting readers to have a brain and not spell everything out should apply to editors: give readers a bit more credit for being able to deal with a few unfamiliar phrases.

Maybe you could tell my current editors that?  OOOO MEOW!  Stop it Wayne!  :grin:

I think next time I send them (the current editors) anything I'll play it safe and keep the story in the US so there's no danger of their idiotic readers struggling with a word like 'telly'.  OOO MEOW x 2!  hahaha oh all right I really am spent now  :bleh:

Enough of all that.  We've currently got an Open Exhibition at work at the moment and I've been taking entries so I can have a proper look at them - turns out there are a lot of landscape painters in North Lincolnshire.  A LOT.  And some very, very deluded people.  I know art is subjective but I've seen some absolute shit these last few days, no doubt about it.
facebook.com/waynegoodchildishaunted
Stay in touch! I don't mean that in a pervy way.

Ed

Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

Caz

Just received a copy of 'The Friends Of Eddie Coyle' in this morning's post. Nice one, Geoff. :afro:
Some may say slaughtered is too strong a word...but I like the sound of it.

Ed

Early night tonight -- my wife is doing a parachute jump tomorrow morning at Dunkeswell. She's absolutely bricking it, and would have chickened out if it wasn't for the woman organising the whole thing sobbing her heart out because people were messing her around. She said, "At least I know I can count on you." She didn't know my missus had only gone there to tell her she wasn't doing it any more. Of course, then she felt like she couldn't let the side down, so she's definitely doing it.

Of course, I've been teasing her mercilessly. That's my job, after all. I've told her I'm taking a headstone with me just in case, because there's little point in digging her out if the chute fails to open. I'll just peel the instructor off her and fill in the hole. She's taken out £100k of life insurance, so the kids are already making out their Christmas lists with a rather disturbing degree of glee :scratch:
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

Bec

That sounds exciting, Ed. Is she doing a static line jump or tandem freefall? I did a couple of static line jumps in Hampshire years ago - great fun. I was ruddy hopeless at steering, but never mind. My son's persuaded me to do a tandem jump next year, so I should land on target this time, haha. Hope you're going to take pics tomorrow.

Ed

She's doing a tandem jump from a plane -- one similar to the one that crashed on take off this morning, in New Zealand, killing 9 people who were about to do a parachute jump, ironically.
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

Pharosian

Quote from: Ed on September 04, 2010, 04:52:26 PM
Of course, I've been teasing her mercilessly. That's my job, after all. I've told her I'm taking a headstone with me just in case, because there's little point in digging her out if the chute fails to open. I'll just peel the instructor off her and fill in the hole.

:2funny:   LMAO!!!  :2funny:

Robert Essig

Interesting little side topic about American editors Americanizing British slang.  I'm an American editor and I leave all British stories the way they are.  I have to agree that it would seem to insult the intelligence of the American audiance to assume we would automatically take the word bloody and bugger literally when used as slang , or not know what a lift is, or crisps, or a pub, or knickers...the list could go on.

When I began editing Through the Eyes of the Undead I started to change the spelling of words like colour and favour, but found it more trouble than it was worth.  I don't see what the big deal is. 
Robert's blog

Look for my debut novel THROUGH THE IN BETWEEN, HELL AWAITS in 2012 from Grand Mal Press.

desertwomble

Quote from: Robert Essig on September 04, 2010, 09:53:26 PM
Interesting little side topic about American editors Americanizing British slang. 

I can't Adam and Eve it that some Yank editors decide on their todd to change the words what we write.

That's well out of order!

DW :cheesy:
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www.paulfreeman.weebly.com
 
Read my most recent winning Global Short Story Competition entry:
http://www.inscribemedia.co.uk/assets/october-ebook.pdf

Ed

#2126
I tend to agree with you, Robert, but I was surprised by just how many grunts at the Borderlands Bootcamp marked up my story with corrections for every 'u' that looked out of place to them. One or two even put in their comments that I should have run the story through a spellcheck before submitting :grin:

They clearly didn't know there was a difference between English and Amerenglish spellings. I expect the same percentage of Brits don't know either.
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

delboy

#2127
Quotebecause there's little point in digging her out if the chute fails to open

A girl I know had this happen to her on a parachute jump in the US. She survived.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/07/14/i-fell-4-000-feet-and-survived-115875-20643299/

She's an outstanding fiddle player, too!

Derek
"If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don't send it to me. Don't show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They're not going to publish it."

Robert B. Parker

Pharosian

What an incredible story! Truth really IS stranger than fiction. If you wrote that in a novel and the victim only had a broken nose and a few cracked ribs, I doubt the readers would buy it...  :scratch:

Ed

Wow. That will go down in history as one of the most tedious days of my life. We got there (an hour's drive away) at 8am, whereupon we were kept waiting for a while before being told the weather wasn't good enough for the jump to go ahead just yet. Give it an hour, they say. Meanwhile, overpriced refreshments will be served. Kids gorge themselves on sugary fizz, Dairylea dunkers and chocolate.

Another hour passes.

Getting the mushroom treatment now. Have another (1) cup of tea and (1) sandwich, pay seven quid (WTF?). Wait some more. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wife sketchy as hell because she's scared. Wait. Wait. Wait. Finally takes off at two in the afternoon, but she's so fried by this time she doesn't listen when they tell her what colour chute she's going to be under, so she finally jumps out of the damn plane and I don't know who to watch. She felt nauseous all the way down and even barfed a little. Swore she'd never been so shit scared in all her life, would never do it again as long as she lived, then we drove home with the kids full of sugar and overtired, and the missus overwrought. She spent the whole evening feeling dizzy and nauseous.

Urgh... never again. :idiot:
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]