I'm Fuming!

[bk_forever]

Okay, how long have I been posting stuff over on Teaspoon? 31 short fics, 293 drabbles, never had anything rejected.

Until yesterday.



Yesterday I decided it was about time I started putting the rest of the Nosy-Verse stories on the site - I'd only got around to putting the first couple and the more recent ones there, four of the earlier ones still hadn't been posted and I'd gained a new reader who was asking if there were more. Seemed like the right time so I posted 'How To Live With A Neurotic Alien'.

I know the rules there, they expect an acceptable standard of writing - spelling, grammar, punctuation, all up to a reasonable standard. Well, hope I don't sound boastful, but I always considered I was above average in that respect. Sure, I'm not always entirely spot-on when it comes to punctuation, not certain of the rules regarding colons and semi-colons, and I overuse commas at times, but hey, that's not too bad, right? And at least I know how to use apostrophes. Certainly, I think I meet the 'acceptable standard' criteria - they do say they don't expect perfection. After all, these are fanfics, not great works of literature.

But my fic got rejected by a mod who apparently isn't going to accept anything that isn't 100% correct, punctuation-wise. I got called on half a dozen minor errors. Okay, yes, I had a missing quotation mark, and two others that got accidentally left in during re-writes. At least I USE quotation marks, and it should be perfectly clear that I know where they belong, considering I use them correctly throughout the entire 4026 word story apart from those three instances. And yes, I wasn't completely clear on the rules of commas versus full stops when a speech by someone is broken into sections to include their actions. Big deal. How many people can quote chapter and verse on that rule anyway? How many people even know there IS a rule for that? It's nit-picking, tiny things that 99.9% or readers would either not notice, or not even realise were wrong. I spent an hour re-editing to fit this person's perfectionist standards before re-submitting it, and if it gets rejected again, I will NOT be happy.  >=(

I feel sorry for everyone who tries to post there and is perhaps less familiar with the rules of punctuation and grammar, or isn't too good at spelling. If they get the same moderator I did, it could well put them off writing for life!

To this person, 'acceptable standards' apparently means every fic must meet their stringent personal standards and be perfect in all respects. I think they need to check their dictionary.



Rant over, feel free to ignore this post, I wrote it to make myself feel better, but it doesn't seem to have worked.

Comments

[lexxiescott]

Music is important though. I'm on my way out to get some new research books for my novels. I'm really surprised Mum is being so easy going about my buying books all of a sudden. I think she knows I'm writing full-time to make myself focus on not having a job.

Doorbells need to die slow and painful deaths. We had a cool one when I was a kid. Four pipes that chimed in a little song. My dad finally took it down because he got sick of my brother and me playing with it all the time. We loved the thing though. I didn't even *hear* the doorbell yesterday because I had my door shut and music on. Luckily the dog barked. It was my new CD from Japan. All ballads but one song. Oh well, the kid has a great voice.

[bk_forever]

It's true, music is necessary and it's helped improve my mood lately =)

Hearing the doorbell is annoying, but NOT hearing it is so much worse. Glad the dogs alerted you!

[lexxiescott]

maybe I should put on some music today. I'm in a down and grouchy mood for some reason. Just want to stay in bed and read.

[bk_forever]

I've gone from one extreme to the other - I've had music on almost constantly today - k.d. lang, Garth Brooks, Clint Black, Suzy Bogguss, my two new Dwight Yoakum CDs... I still feel like crap physically, but the music has been great =)

Plus I got a lie in this morning!

Now I need to get to bed.

I've spent this evening getting started with cataloguing my CDs so I don't buy duplicates. Barely scratched the surface yet, maybe done 40 or so, probably less than a quarter of what I've got and then there are mum's to do.

Hope you feel better soon, but relaxing and reading is no bad thing. We all need a day off sometimes.

[lexxiescott]

Whatever works. Maybe our lives need soundtracks and that's why we get so down. Our music is missing.

Lie ins are good. Sleep is always good. :)

I'm doing a bit better today, but still off. Just planning to take it easy over the next few days, maybe read up on some hauntings in London to start outlining my next novel. There are worse ways to spend a day.

Hope you start feeling better here soon too.

[bk_forever]

I think I'm a bit better, listening to GB again =)

Got someone coming to give a quote on some work on the house. Not that we want it doing right, bloody door to door people, but on the other hand we could do with the drainpipes and guttering replacing and it's only a quote, so... I'm good at saying no, hopefully they'll get the message quickly enough.

I'll have to get some bids in on CDs before the guy gets here though. There's this person selling off his collection because he's converted everything to MP3 on his computer (I hope he's made back-ups) and he's got tons of great CDs listed. I'm probably spending too much, lol! John Michael Montgomery is next, then Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt, an Oak Ridge Boys greatest hits package (Love Richard Sturban's bass voice), couple of Trisha Yearwoods in there too...

Enjoy your research! I'll try to write drabbles today I think. I've done 6 so far for the Caffeine prompt. Might even post 2 one day if I can get another written!

[lexxiescott]

Yay for feeling a bit better. :) Hope the trend has continued for you.

Hope that went well. Gutters are annoying, but necessary. We, remarkably enough, don't have them on our house down here. Mum and I don't understand it and no one was able to explain it to us.

Sounds like a lot of great CDs. I'm with you though, backups are so important in the digital age. I don't have one for my CDs, which I probably should, but I've got the most important ones still in physical form, so I'm not too worried about it.

Would you believe I found a story of a ghost chicken?? It's going to get a mention in the story. *grins* I love odd little things like that, and given I'm writing about research, I can throw things like that in.

Wow, that's awesome. Then again, caffeine is so important to Torchwood that there's a lot that can be done with it. :)

[bk_forever]

Well, we can't afford the work anyway, the quote was over £3000 o_O

Still not great, but a bit better. GB is helping =)

I have 7 caffeine drabbles altogether, so I might post two tomorrow. Wrote another one yesterday, plus my first Dee/Ryo FAKE drabble. Those two are starting to demand my attention, but Torchwood is still my primary fandom.

Ghost Chicken? Seriously? That is so weird! Imagine being haunted by a chicken! LMAO!

[lexxiescott]

Wow, that's expensive.

Glad you're feeling better. GB is good for that, yep. :) He almost always makes me smile.

I think it's kinda cool that you've got another fandom asking for you to write in it. My primary fandom is CSI: Miami, I've got the most stories in that one out of any I write in, but I just love playing in other fandoms too.

Uh huh, ghost chicken. It's at Pond Square Highgate. Apparently an experiment in early refrigeration didn't end up the way they wanted it to and the chicken is still around. It'll be fun to mention in passing at any rate. *grins*

[bk_forever]

That must be one seriously pissed off chicken!

Yeah, you can't help smiling when GB is going crazy on stage, my face ended up aching I was grinning so hard!

It's interesting writing for a different fandom. I'm a bit tentative at the moment. It's a small fandom anyway and it's practically dead in the water these days. Being new to the characters means I'm trying to find their voices though one of the more established FAKE writers, who's responsible for me discovering the fandom in the first place, says I nailed them first time out. we'll see how I go on. I've written a second drabble, but the freaky thing is, both drabbles have come out at exactly 100 words first try! I've only done that 4 times with Torchwood drabbles out of over 400, now I've done it 3 times in a week! O.O

[lexxiescott]

I know, right? The things you come up against when looking into the paranormal.

GB and his band together make me smile. I'll admit to a real fondness for his fiddler, Jimmy. Guy is talented and cute at the same time. :)

That's really rather remarkable. It's like my demon novel coming out to a rough word count of 60606. That kinda freaked me out.

[bk_forever]

Well, at least there were some zeros in there to buffer those sixes, lol!

He is really talented, I love good fiddle (one reason for my love of Alison Krauss - that and she has perfect pitch). I love the opening of Much Too Young!

[lexxiescott]

Yeah, but it was still enough to freak me out. lol.

A good fiddler is so awesome. My friend, Woody Paul, from Riders in the Sky was recently inducted into the fiddlers' hall of fame. You can always tell when it's Woody playing, he has a really unique style to him.

[bk_forever]

I really must listen to the Riders, see if any of their music's available on CD over here at an affordable price. Do you know Mark O'connor? He plays guitar too, but he's one of those musical prodigies, lol. been around a long time now, but he's very good. His CDs are too pricy though, same with people like Dan Crary, John Starling, the Seldom Scene, Tony Rice... Small label stuff. It's frustrating, not being able to afford the £15 plus price tags for one CD.

[lexxiescott]

Oh, you should. It's not easy to find videos of them on YouTube, or at least that's been my finding, but here's a few links for you.

Wah-Hoo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7dP0aUXFtk

Too Slim is the bass player, Ranger Doug guitar, Woody Paul fiddle, and Joey is accordion. He's been playing professionally since he was 13. They call Joey the Cowpolka King. :) Woody is the king of the cowboy fiddlers, and Doug is the Idol of American Youth. Slim usually ends up with a random something they're just using that year.

Woody's Round-up (from Toy Story 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RabCYSDLOo


On the Opry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXUK7j7EQX8

Fun bit of trivia, too. The hat band Woody is wearing in the Opry video was made for him by my friend in the Cyberpal fan club. She's the president and does a lot of craft things.


I do know Mark O'Connor, but only via the Riders. He's on a couple of their albums as a guest artist back in the 80s.

They're always going to get us on bigger name CD prices. It sucks. >.

[bk_forever]

Thanks for the links, I'll check them out soon as I can =)

Yeah. i used to be able to get the Sugar Hill records and some other smaller labels over here on impor at a fair price, but the CDs are astronomical. I was looking at Butch Hancock and the Flatlanders, but that was no go. I was lucky with the Jimmie Dale Gilmore one I got, it was a second hand auction lot, so I got it cheap! Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to justify the price. New copies are not cheap.

[lexxiescott]

I think you'll enjoy them. :) Those guys are not only wonder singers, but so sweet too. I could go on and on and on about them.

The singers in Japan really get you. They'll put out a regular CD and then they'll do a deluxe CD with a DVD of the music video and there will be one different song on there, so if you want the full set of songs, you have to get both CDs. *headdesk* I was so happy this last time when Yuuta didn't do that.

I think it's to combat digital rips and illegal downloads. Just drives me crazy with prices.

[bk_forever]

I have heard Riders in the Sky before, just not for many years. I checked on ebay and most of their CDs available over here are again over £15 each *winces* There are a few around the £10 mark, but it's still a lot for a CD - well, it is for me anyway. I enjoyed the songs you linked me to - the first one I clicked, there was Marty Stuart *grins* Love him too =)

My Guy Clark CD arrived today, so I'm listening to that, so great to listen to all my favourites again - I've always loved Like A Coat From The Cold, I want to use that as inspiration for my bingo coat-fic, when I get around to writing it.

Ack! It's pelting rain and hail here today, disgusting *shudders* Driving against my window. Today is colder than anything we've had lately, like winter's making a brief reappearance. At least, I hope it's brief - this time last year we got over a foot of snow dumped on us!

So annoying when they do that. Before I had a CD player, when records were still being released, sometimes the record version would have less tracks than the CD version, like they were trying to pesuade people to get CD players and buy the CD instead. Grrr! Mind you, I won a CD and a CD storage unit in competitions before I bought a CD player, lol! Fate was against me.

[lexxiescott]

I wonder if you heard them before they had Joey with them full time? That was right around 1990 or so. Ouch, that is a lot for a CD. They were on one of Marty's shows in that first video. I love Wah-Hoo, it's one of the songs that always makes me smile, so I had to share.

We had another winter storm run through the country, so it might be coming to pay you guys a visit. I don't know what's up with winter these days. It sucks. I'll keep my fingers crossed that it is just a short visit and it's not going to hang around for a long time.

Yep, they always seem to want to go for the higher money option. *sighs* It took me years to switch over to CD. Of course, now, I'm pretty much totally digital, so that keeps the cost down by five to seven dollars a CD. It adds up quickly, I'll say that much.

[bk_forever]

I know I'm spending way too much on CDs at the moment, but I feel like they're what I need. A bunch arrived this morning. First one I played was Jimmie Dale Gilmore, it's one of the best albums I've heard. I loved his voice since the first time I heard him. I've bought another that's cost me nearly £5, but he is SO worth it to me.

Listened To Garth's 'In The Life Of Chris Gaines' CD last night. I've had it for years but never played it, but it was actually pretty good and there were several tracks I really liked.

I don't know. I heard tracks by the Riders on radio, probably in the 90s sometime, but it may have been late 80s. I have NO idea what the lineup was at the time. We used to have a couple of weekly country music shows on the radio, so i got to hear loads of different artists and bands, some I liked, some I wasn't so keen on, some (like John Anderson) grew on me. we don't seem to have anything like that on the radio these days, sadly. THE DJ who took over Radio 2's country show playyed a lot of non-country stuff as well, so I lost interest. It was never the same after David Allen and Wally Whyton were gone.

[lexxiescott]

You need what you need to get through each day. I totally know how that can go, trust me. When it's things like CDs or movies that you can use over and over again, the money is always worth it in the end. :)

I like that one, track 8 is my favorite and I've used it for school projects a few times. I'm curious to see what Garth's new music is going to sound like.

Well, the only thing I can say for sure is that there was no new music in 1992. Doug lost his voice for the whole year, they still don't know why, so he was able to manage concerts because the others could do most of the singing, but they didn't release anything onto album. My guess is probably a couple of things with Joey, given the time frame, but not much.

Radio is like TV, going downhill very, very quickly. It's why CDs are such a bonus. :)

[bk_forever]

Garth's CDs are still selling well on ebay, especially the most recent ones. I'm so glad he's making a comeback. I think I regained my interest in music just at the right time to get warmed up in preparation! Wonder when we'll hear some of the new stuff...

You're right, it's not the way it used to be. I'm getting nostalgic for the 80s and 90s. Things seemed more fun back then, TV shows and great music. Not that there isn't still good stuff to be found, but... Maybe things just look better in hindsight.

[lexxiescott]

Garth is always popular no matter what. :) I am, too. He did the right thing taking a break like he did though, so it's hard to miss him when he's been raising his kids and being the primary care-giver for them. I'm hoping new stuff by middle of summer. We'll see what happens as the year goes on, I guess.


I think you're right and things do look better when you look back on them. I'm always thrilled when I find a show from then on DVD because it's one more show I can watch when I do have the TV on and not have to worry about crap programming. Then again, I've taken to watching the Travel Channel, and they're pretty much known for mostly crap programs. Ghost Adventures is a noted exception to that one. *grins*

[bk_forever]

Then again, sometimes re-watching old favourites is a let down and they're not as good as you remember. Sometimes they are though, so it's worth the risk!

Listening to Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed pickin' guitars. I always wanted to play guitar like Chet, but I have mo musical talent and my fingers are too short
=(

[lexxiescott]

That's so true. There's one show I keep hoping they'll put out on DVD, but it hasn't happened yet. Then again, I don't know if it's as good as I'm remembering, so I don't know if I should be hoping for it to come out. *sighs*

Chet Atkins is a wonderful guitar player. Have you heard Steve Wariner play? He's in the same style. I'm not as big on the songs he does for himself, but as a writer for other singers, I adore him. He wrote "Long neck bottle" for Garth. I think he plays on it, too.