((((((((((( Broken )))))))))))))))
Failure is a situation that you allow to happen.
Dreams are situations that you MAKE happen.
Hope that doesn't sound harsh, just something that was taught to me a long time ago. Hope you understand and get from it as I did.
Warmie
Getting worse
Moderators: Sunlily92, windsong, BlueGobi, Moderators, Astrid
-
shatteredhopes
- Posts: 664
- Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:39 am
- Location: U.S.
No matter how much sense we make or how much we try to tell you there is hope for you and a writing career, you are going to argue with us because your logic is defined by your depression. You have convinced yourself that you can't so nothing we can say can convince you CAN. You have to decide for yourself...do you really want to write? If you do you can and will. Those who do make a living from fiction writing had the one thing you seem to lack: determination. You write beautifully just in your posts. I haven't seen your fiction but I do believe it probably shows enormous potential that with time, maturity, more life experience, and practice, you can make it...had I kept at it long ago I probably could have made it, and I'm an average writer! But no, I threw in the towel, just like it sounds like you are planning to do. Why throw away something you love because it isn't working out now?
Two struggling young people wanted to make it in Hollywood, so they decided to write a script taken from a college paper one of them wrote. They wrote a sceenplay full of things like car chases that Hollywood should just love (focusing on the commercialism)...apparently it was really really crappy. But there was something small worth keeping and expanding upon. So they went through rewrite and rewrite who knows how many times. If you had seen that first screenplay, you would have told them to hang it up, forget it, you can't write. But after substantial evolution, the screenplay was made into a movie "Good Will Hunting" and Ben Affleck and Matt Dameon won the academy award for the screenplay. That was the point I was making about commercialism.
Take one of your short stories that your professors or publishers tell you isn't good...find anything about it they said was good...take to heart their criticisms and rework it. Let it sit awhile and season in your mind. Rework again. Then again and again and again letting it rest weeks in between editing and writing sessions. Then resubmit it.
Keep at it. Perserverance is the only thing that is going to pay off. If you want to write you can. Maybe you won't be on the NY Times best seller list, but you can do what you love. Then again, one day you may win the Nobel Prize for literature. Stop placing so much pressure on yourself...you are too young and obviously too depressed so you are taking all the negative to heart and ignoring all the positives and arguing with anything we say that might give you hope.
Therapy doesn't change truth, no. But who says you are correct that you cannot be a writer? Why do you presume that is an absolute truth just because you are struggling now? Therapy can help you deal with the depression, and with the right medication, and once you manage the depression better, hopefully your writing will improve too.
Feeling brave? Post one of your short stories in the art section on this site and let us give you feedback. We understand depression and many of us are well read. Most professors for all their knowledge teach because they can't do...that was the case with my creative writing professor who readily admitted that fact.
Respectifully, I tell you try to stop arguing with us, instead try listening to us. Really listening.
As someone said in another post, I am the one who has failed as a writer if you found reinforcement for giving up in what I said in my previous post. I was trying to keep it real...the world doesn't have to end just because you aren't making a killing in the market from writing fiction. You very well may have what it takes to succeed as a writer. But you can't expect it to come while you are still in school, young, and depressed. Maybe it will come for you soon, but more likely, you are going to have to develop a little tougher skin (I know that's hard) to face rejection and constructive criticism without giving up entirely... instead let it push you to try harder and adapt and grow as a writer. You may have to take some other writing job to survive at a newspaper or pr department or something, and work on what you want to do in your off time. That doesn't mean you can't...John Grisham practiced law until he gained success as a writer of crime/legal stories.
What do you want to write? Sci-fi? Romance Novels? Serious Literature? Pop Fiction? What? Is there a way you could work in a field that would enhance your knowledge/abilities for writing that type of fiction? Make contacts? Networking can really enhance your prospects of getting published. Also, consider self-publishing...author of The Celestine Prophecy and others have had major success with that route. But my wild guess is, you just aren't ready...not that you aren't capable...you probably have raw talent but you just aren't seasoned enough yet...evolved enough in your writing yet....haven't fully found your own distinctive voice.
So keep at it. Get consistent help for the depression and learn to manage it better. And things will likely all work out for you.
Two struggling young people wanted to make it in Hollywood, so they decided to write a script taken from a college paper one of them wrote. They wrote a sceenplay full of things like car chases that Hollywood should just love (focusing on the commercialism)...apparently it was really really crappy. But there was something small worth keeping and expanding upon. So they went through rewrite and rewrite who knows how many times. If you had seen that first screenplay, you would have told them to hang it up, forget it, you can't write. But after substantial evolution, the screenplay was made into a movie "Good Will Hunting" and Ben Affleck and Matt Dameon won the academy award for the screenplay. That was the point I was making about commercialism.
Take one of your short stories that your professors or publishers tell you isn't good...find anything about it they said was good...take to heart their criticisms and rework it. Let it sit awhile and season in your mind. Rework again. Then again and again and again letting it rest weeks in between editing and writing sessions. Then resubmit it.
Keep at it. Perserverance is the only thing that is going to pay off. If you want to write you can. Maybe you won't be on the NY Times best seller list, but you can do what you love. Then again, one day you may win the Nobel Prize for literature. Stop placing so much pressure on yourself...you are too young and obviously too depressed so you are taking all the negative to heart and ignoring all the positives and arguing with anything we say that might give you hope.
Therapy doesn't change truth, no. But who says you are correct that you cannot be a writer? Why do you presume that is an absolute truth just because you are struggling now? Therapy can help you deal with the depression, and with the right medication, and once you manage the depression better, hopefully your writing will improve too.
Feeling brave? Post one of your short stories in the art section on this site and let us give you feedback. We understand depression and many of us are well read. Most professors for all their knowledge teach because they can't do...that was the case with my creative writing professor who readily admitted that fact.
Respectifully, I tell you try to stop arguing with us, instead try listening to us. Really listening.
As someone said in another post, I am the one who has failed as a writer if you found reinforcement for giving up in what I said in my previous post. I was trying to keep it real...the world doesn't have to end just because you aren't making a killing in the market from writing fiction. You very well may have what it takes to succeed as a writer. But you can't expect it to come while you are still in school, young, and depressed. Maybe it will come for you soon, but more likely, you are going to have to develop a little tougher skin (I know that's hard) to face rejection and constructive criticism without giving up entirely... instead let it push you to try harder and adapt and grow as a writer. You may have to take some other writing job to survive at a newspaper or pr department or something, and work on what you want to do in your off time. That doesn't mean you can't...John Grisham practiced law until he gained success as a writer of crime/legal stories.
What do you want to write? Sci-fi? Romance Novels? Serious Literature? Pop Fiction? What? Is there a way you could work in a field that would enhance your knowledge/abilities for writing that type of fiction? Make contacts? Networking can really enhance your prospects of getting published. Also, consider self-publishing...author of The Celestine Prophecy and others have had major success with that route. But my wild guess is, you just aren't ready...not that you aren't capable...you probably have raw talent but you just aren't seasoned enough yet...evolved enough in your writing yet....haven't fully found your own distinctive voice.
So keep at it. Get consistent help for the depression and learn to manage it better. And things will likely all work out for you.
-
Warmsoul/Jeanie13
- Posts: 29195
- Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2006 8:46 pm
- Contact:
shatteredhopes wrote:No matter how much sense we make or how much we try to tell you there is hope for you and a writing career, you are going to argue with us because your logic is defined by your depression. You have convinced yourself that you can't so nothing we can say can convince you CAN. You have to decide for yourself...do you really want to write? If you do you can and will. Those who do make a living from fiction writing had the one thing you seem to lack: determination. You write beautifully just in your posts. I haven't seen your fiction but I do believe it probably shows enormous potential that with time, maturity, more life experience, and practice, you can make it...had I kept at it long ago I probably could have made it, and I'm an average writer! But no, I threw in the towel, just like it sounds like you are planning to do. Why throw away something you love because it isn't working out now?
Two struggling young people wanted to make it in Hollywood, so they decided to write a script taken from a college paper one of them wrote. They wrote a sceenplay full of things like car chases that Hollywood should just love (focusing on the commercialism)...apparently it was really really crappy. But there was something small worth keeping and expanding upon. So they went through rewrite and rewrite who knows how many times. If you had seen that first screenplay, you would have told them to hang it up, forget it, you can't write. But after substantial evolution, the screenplay was made into a movie "Good Will Hunting" and Ben Affleck and Matt Dameon won the academy award for the screenplay. That was the point I was making about commercialism.
Take one of your short stories that your professors or publishers tell you isn't good...find anything about it they said was good...take to heart their criticisms and rework it. Let it sit awhile and season in your mind. Rework again. Then again and again and again letting it rest weeks in between editing and writing sessions. Then resubmit it.
Keep at it. Perserverance is the only thing that is going to pay off. If you want to write you can. Maybe you won't be on the NY Times best seller list, but you can do what you love. Then again, one day you may win the Nobel Prize for literature. Stop placing so much pressure on yourself...you are too young and obviously too depressed so you are taking all the negative to heart and ignoring all the positives and arguing with anything we say that might give you hope.
Therapy doesn't change truth, no. But who says you are correct that you cannot be a writer? Why do you presume that is an absolute truth just because you are struggling now? Therapy can help you deal with the depression, and with the right medication, and once you manage the depression better, hopefully your writing will improve too.
Feeling brave? Post one of your short stories in the art section on this site and let us give you feedback. We understand depression and many of us are well read. Most professors for all their knowledge teach because they can't do...that was the case with my creative writing professor who readily admitted that fact.
Respectifully, I tell you try to stop arguing with us, instead try listening to us. Really listening.
As someone said in another post, I am the one who has failed as a writer if you found reinforcement for giving up in what I said in my previous post. I was trying to keep it real...the world doesn't have to end just because you aren't making a killing in the market from writing fiction. You very well may have what it takes to succeed as a writer. But you can't expect it to come while you are still in school, young, and depressed. Maybe it will come for you soon, but more likely, you are going to have to develop a little tougher skin (I know that's hard) to face rejection and constructive criticism without giving up entirely... instead let it push you to try harder and adapt and grow as a writer. You may have to take some other writing job to survive at a newspaper or pr department or something, and work on what you want to do in your off time. That doesn't mean you can't...John Grisham practiced law until he gained success as a writer of crime/legal stories.
What do you want to write? Sci-fi? Romance Novels? Serious Literature? Pop Fiction? What? Is there a way you could work in a field that would enhance your knowledge/abilities for writing that type of fiction? Make contacts? Networking can really enhance your prospects of getting published. Also, consider self-publishing...author of The Celestine Prophecy and others have had major success with that route. But my wild guess is, you just aren't ready...not that you aren't capable...you probably have raw talent but you just aren't seasoned enough yet...evolved enough in your writing yet....haven't fully found your own distinctive voice.
So keep at it. Get consistent help for the depression and learn to manage it better. And things will likely all work out for you.
Apples and oranges again. I'm not Matt Damon.
And honestly I'm wondering if Hemingway had the right idea at the end.
-
Warmsoul/Jeanie13
- Posts: 29195
- Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2006 8:46 pm
- Contact:
Warmsoul/Jeanie13 wrote:((((((((((((( BrokenPen ))))))))))))))))
You are you, someone we care about.
Warmie
I'm not sure how convincing of an argument that is. At this point the only thing that can convince me otherwise is if an agent or a publisher calls me and says that my book is going to be published. If that happens I may have a reason until then I have a lot of counter reasons to this so-called "gift" called life.
-
Warmsoul/Jeanie13
- Posts: 29195
- Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2006 8:46 pm
- Contact:
((((((((((((( BrokenPen ))))))))))))))))
It isn't an argument. It is a statement, with truth. I could say lots of things, all you have probably heard before. Using me an example now, OK?
I doubt myself, I take to heart harsh things said to me, I know I don't have a lot to give. I won't boast about myself. I am just me. What I see in others are just my feelings. I see YOU as someone that has come into my life for a reason, if I can be here for you, give you gentle hugs and words to help you see the goodness in you, your talent, then good. But this is what I see with you.
Doubting ourselves is one of the easiest things we do, to believe in who we are and what we CAN do is the battle. Just know we are here for you, whether that is a good thing, is up to you, but here we are.
((((((((((((( BrokenPen )))))))))))))))) you never know what tomorrow may bring your way.
Warmie
It isn't an argument. It is a statement, with truth. I could say lots of things, all you have probably heard before. Using me an example now, OK?
I doubt myself, I take to heart harsh things said to me, I know I don't have a lot to give. I won't boast about myself. I am just me. What I see in others are just my feelings. I see YOU as someone that has come into my life for a reason, if I can be here for you, give you gentle hugs and words to help you see the goodness in you, your talent, then good. But this is what I see with you.
Doubting ourselves is one of the easiest things we do, to believe in who we are and what we CAN do is the battle. Just know we are here for you, whether that is a good thing, is up to you, but here we are.
((((((((((((( BrokenPen )))))))))))))))) you never know what tomorrow may bring your way.
Warmie
Warmsoul/Jeanie13 wrote:((((((((((((( BrokenPen ))))))))))))))))
It isn't an argument. It is a statement, with truth. I could say lots of things, all you have probably heard before. Using me an example now, OK?
I doubt myself, I take to heart harsh things said to me, I know I don't have a lot to give. I won't boast about myself. I am just me. What I see in others are just my feelings. I see YOU as someone that has come into my life for a reason, if I can be here for you, give you gentle hugs and words to help you see the goodness in you, your talent, then good. But this is what I see with you.
Doubting ourselves is one of the easiest things we do, to believe in who we are and what we CAN do is the battle. Just know we are here for you, whether that is a good thing, is up to you, but here we are.
((((((((((((( BrokenPen )))))))))))))))) you never know what tomorrow may bring your way.
Warmie
Unfortunately Warmie, some of us are just zeros.
-
Warmsoul/Jeanie13
- Posts: 29195
- Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2006 8:46 pm
- Contact:
-
shatteredhopes
- Posts: 664
- Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:39 am
- Location: U.S.
If you are this seriously contemplating suicide, you should call a crisis line or go to an emergency department for temporary hospital admission. Your logic is completely distorted by your depression, and so I would not trust your "counter reasons" right now.
How can you expect to succeed at anything when you are this depressed and hopeless? Surely that attitude is reflected in your writing, and distorted thinking will surely lead to failure.
So maybe you failed every single writing class you took, never once received a single positive comment on any aspect of anything you ever wrote from a classmate, professor, publisher or agent...it doesn't have to be the end of the world. There are still reasons to go on living, like helping your fellow man who is suffering. In my experience any higher power there is out there doesn't respond well to ultimatums...that if a publisher calls you will have a reason to live. I know what I am talking about, my dreams died, yet I still go on. Its hard yes and there are many times I want to end it yes, but you can still find another meaning in life beyond some narrow dream of what would consitute success. I suggest you read Victor Frankyl's "Man's Search for Meaning"...the psychiatrist who survived a concentration camp and talks about what kept people going and finding meaning in the worst of life.
So some impoverished abandoned child with HIV in Africa is a zero because he's not publishing great fiction? Or do you believe in fundamental human rights? Gratitude doesn't cure depression but helps cope in my experience. Maybe make a list of what you have to be grateful for, like you can see, walk, hear, that you have the opportunity to get a higher education, food, etc.
Instead of trying to find one single angle or aspect of things we and others say that you can zero in on to reinforce your negative attitude, try honestly looking at the positive. That's what I mean by distored thinking of depression, we negate the positive and magnify the negative. Try re-reading what people have posted to you here and on your other threads with an open mind...just try listening.
No you aren't Matt Dameon, does that mean you can't learn from that example? See the point I was making?
Honestly, I think a small part of you wants to live otherwise you wouldn't be here arguing with all of us. And I reiterate my earlier point, you can't expect success to come while you are young, in school, and depressed. You have a whole lifetime to acheive your dreams. But I don't think you will until you adjust your thinking by getting some real, consistent help for the depression. Change your world outlook, and you will change your writing and your life.
Good luck to you. I hope you don't give up. It would be a shame to throw away so much potential to do so much good in the world for a temporary problem and disappointment.
How can you expect to succeed at anything when you are this depressed and hopeless? Surely that attitude is reflected in your writing, and distorted thinking will surely lead to failure.
So maybe you failed every single writing class you took, never once received a single positive comment on any aspect of anything you ever wrote from a classmate, professor, publisher or agent...it doesn't have to be the end of the world. There are still reasons to go on living, like helping your fellow man who is suffering. In my experience any higher power there is out there doesn't respond well to ultimatums...that if a publisher calls you will have a reason to live. I know what I am talking about, my dreams died, yet I still go on. Its hard yes and there are many times I want to end it yes, but you can still find another meaning in life beyond some narrow dream of what would consitute success. I suggest you read Victor Frankyl's "Man's Search for Meaning"...the psychiatrist who survived a concentration camp and talks about what kept people going and finding meaning in the worst of life.
So some impoverished abandoned child with HIV in Africa is a zero because he's not publishing great fiction? Or do you believe in fundamental human rights? Gratitude doesn't cure depression but helps cope in my experience. Maybe make a list of what you have to be grateful for, like you can see, walk, hear, that you have the opportunity to get a higher education, food, etc.
Instead of trying to find one single angle or aspect of things we and others say that you can zero in on to reinforce your negative attitude, try honestly looking at the positive. That's what I mean by distored thinking of depression, we negate the positive and magnify the negative. Try re-reading what people have posted to you here and on your other threads with an open mind...just try listening.
No you aren't Matt Dameon, does that mean you can't learn from that example? See the point I was making?
Honestly, I think a small part of you wants to live otherwise you wouldn't be here arguing with all of us. And I reiterate my earlier point, you can't expect success to come while you are young, in school, and depressed. You have a whole lifetime to acheive your dreams. But I don't think you will until you adjust your thinking by getting some real, consistent help for the depression. Change your world outlook, and you will change your writing and your life.
Good luck to you. I hope you don't give up. It would be a shame to throw away so much potential to do so much good in the world for a temporary problem and disappointment.
shatteredhopes wrote:If you are this seriously contemplating suicide, you should call a crisis line or go to an emergency department for temporary hospital admission. Your logic is completely distorted by your depression, and so I would not trust your "counter reasons" right now.
Good luck to you. I hope you don't give up. It would be a shame to throw away so much potential to do so much good in the world for a temporary problem and disappointment.
Heh, yeah. A whole lifetime of disappointment.
Though you want to know the real reason why I haven't been able to go through with suicide? Because I'm too much of a coward.
-
Warmsoul/Jeanie13
- Posts: 29195
- Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2006 8:46 pm
- Contact:
Return to “Living with Depression and other Related Health Concerns”
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 58 guests