
I am not ashamed to stand in front of the world and say, that I live with mental illness. I

📢 Write every day, and win disappointingly mediocre prizes!
Do you struggle to write every day? Come join an accountability team and compete for the prize of most consistent writers!
Here's how it works:
1️⃣ Reply to this message seeking an accountability partner, or reply to another user's request. Each team must consist of exactly two members.
2️⃣ This coming week, keep track of the number of days you have spent at least fifteen minutes working on your book, blog, or other writing project. The number of successful days is your score.
3️⃣ Add your score together with your partner's. The maximum number of points a team can earn is 14.
4️⃣ Next week on Sunday, a new announcement will be posted. One member of your team must reply with the team's score. Be honest. If you lie, your pants will spontaneously burst into flames.
5️⃣ The team with the highest score will be declared the winner! In the event of a tie, the winning team will be chosen randomly. Remember, the goal is not to write a million words. Rather, the goal is consistency—writing
“If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius.” ―Michelangelo Buonarroti
"The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon." -- Robert Cormier
"You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it."
You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.
-- Octavia E. Butler
"You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page." --Jodi Picoult
What's the purpose of the megathread? I'm so confused what's going on with this community...
Easy reading is hard writing
The easy-looking, and the simple things in all art matters are more difficult than the complex and intricate. It is a rule that easy reading is hard writing, and to construct anything that the mind takes in without effort, and without being puzzled by it, is a triumph of art.
-- Charles Allston Collins, 1860
I am not ashamed to stand in front of the world and say, that I live with mental illness. I
My life is, by every objective measurement, very very good.
And in spite of all of that, I struggle every day with my self esteem, my self worth, and my value not only as an actor and writer, but as a human being.
That’s because I live with Depression and Anxiety, the tag team champions of the World Wrestling With Mental Illness Federation.
From “terribly disgusting” to one of the greatest novels of all time
In 1876, Leo Tolstoy lamented to a friend that the book he was writing had become “sickening to me,” “unbearably repulsive,” “terribly disgusting and nasty,” and “a bore, insipid as a bitter radish.”
After nearly two years without making any progress, a concert sparked an intense surge of inspiration. Tolstoy wept as the music surged. Reinvigorated, Tolstoy returned to writing, viewing his characters with newfound empathy.
After two uninterrupted weeks of writing, Tolstoy completed what would become his most influential -- "Anna Karenina".
Do something today that your future self will thank you for!
The best compliment a children's author could receive
People replying "not a shower thought!" creep me out. Like... how do you know what I do in the shower??
"I can’t help but feel a pang of inadequacy when I see the accomplishments of my old classmates."
When my wife asked to write a guest post on my blog, I was ecstatic! Not only is she one of the smartest and most talented people I have…
Every choice should have both positive and negative consequences
Write every day, and win a trip to the closest restroom!
Do you struggle to write every day? Come join an accountability team and compete for the prize of most consistent writers!
Last week's contestants: please reply with your score. Everyone else, keep reading!
Here's how it works:
1️⃣ Reply to this message seeking an accountability partner, or reply to another user's request. Each team must consist of exactly two members.
2️⃣ This coming week, keep track of the number of days you have spent at least fifteen minutes working on your book, blog, or other writing project. The number of successful days is your score.
3️⃣ Add your score together with your partner's. The maximum number of points a team can earn is 14.
4️⃣ Next week on Sunday, a new announcement will be posted. One member of your team must reply with the team's score. Be honest. If you lie, your pants will spontaneously burst into flames.
5️⃣ The team with the highest score will be declared the winner! In the event of a tie, the winning team will be chosen randomly.
"I hate that word -- 'lucky.' It cheapens a lot of hard work" --Peter Dinklage
Mark Twain's brilliant letter to Hellen Keller about the myth of originality
The soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism.
All ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral caliber and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.
When a great orator makes a great speech, you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men—but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington’s battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. **It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph
"The first draft is just you telling yourself the story" --Terry Pratchett
"I think new writers are too worried that it has all been said before. Sure it has, but not by you." --Asha Dornfest
What are you upset about? $0/hr is a generous salary.
Permanently Deleted
I write a blog on Medium.
You need to have a ton of content to make any amount of money. After writing 200 articles, I started making a consistent $100/month. Not quitting my day job any time soon, but I have a lot of downtime at work, so it's a productive way to pass the time.
Oh, and the $100/month is pretty consistent. I took a month off from writing, and they still sent me money for the read time on my old articles. The pay is low... but my boss wouldn't send me a small stipend if I decided not to show up for a month. So, I really can't complain.
These are people who want to be mods of communities. If you don't understand the basics of how this platform works, you probably need to spend more time as a regular user before becoming a moderator.
Bosses hate this one. The things they'll do for a full office...
When you order something with 2-day delivery, it not only needs to be in stock... but it needs to be in a warehouse in your city. This requirement means there needs to be a surplus.
They don't know where the orders will come in, so they make enough to send them to every warehouse in the country. But if all of them got sold, the supply would drive the price down. So, they wait until a certain number gets sold (say... a few hundred) and then destroy the rest.
It's sickening that this is even a thing. But that's the world we live in.
Thanks for the feedback -- I'm really excited about starting this community, and I think I overdid it on the promotion 😬
"Bilingual" is really hard to define.
I live in Taiwan (English is my native language), and have studied Chinese to be passably fluent. I can trick people into thinking I can follow advanced conversations, interjecting comments here or there (even though I'm mostly lost -- just picking out the tidbits I do understand and commenting on them).
But am I bilingual? At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. What matters the most is whether your level is "good enough" to do what you want! In my case, I just want to be able to go to the store, buy things, and hang out with friends. I can read the newspaper, but I'll never be able to read/write business contracts -- but that's not a goal of mine.
There are so many different shades of bilingual. Don't worry about it... and just be as good as you need to reach your goals!
Welcome aboard! I really hope this commumity provides the support you need. Keep writing!
Does this mean I need to start by getting writer's block?
I don't think that's a sock. I have a feeling that's something like a fleshlight (a sex toy). It's not supposed to go on your foot...
With great power comes great responsibility
I don't cry when I chop onions. If I'm chopping dozens of them, everyone needs to get out of the kitchen because the air will get potent (but I won't notice).
Weird, I must have messed something up when uploading my images. I merged everything into one -- I hope you can see it this time! (Oh, and thanks for letting me know about the problem!)
Never tried it... but I should!!
Ooh, sounds amazing!
Peanut butter and cheese.
Peanut butter and pickles.
Peanut butter and raw onion slices.
Peanut butter and tuna fish.
I've tried peanut butter combined with the strangest pairings I can imagine. They've all been excellent.
I'm from lemmy.world and I saw this :)
Going to college.
I grew up in a cult, and I seem to have suppressed most of my childhood. Of course, I have bits and pieces -- like little flashbacks from my childhood days -- but I don't really have a coherent childhood story. From college onwards is when my life story makes sense to me.
I'm pretty sure that's a quote from Confucius.