slappyjenkins

Vegangelica, I have been pouring over your thread here. Gonna take a while! I knew that you were intellectual, just not to what degree!

It's interesting that some of your last posts (poetry and songs) here have been about breakups and making it on your own and loving someone that is destined never to be or never to last.

I trust your opinion explicitly so would you critique this poem for me? I also left this in Kelli's introduction thread to see if she would critique it.

This poem is the spontaneous production of realizing that the girl I was seeing was simply someone that I could never be with. The relationship had a lot of the elements you speak about(with OCD and high demands and slight things turning into wars). And it was such a powerful environment that I found myself in that this poem forced its way out. It really is one of those things that came streaming out of me all in one line, one sitting and birthed itself on the paper. We broke up the next week.

---
paths that never meet

Winding winding winding
at times so close
but destined never to meet

There is a path made for you
And one made for me

Around and over and back and still
winding through the trees
and winding through the hills

Two seperate lives
going their seperate ways

Sharing only memories
If only for today

I think our paths meet
on the road up ahead
But they are once again
diverging instead

Maybe this is all we'll ever be
two seperate paths
that never quite meet
----
edit: this had a powerful effect on her because we were TOGETHER when I wrote this and I showed it to her and I think it was the clearest indication that our relationship simply was not what we thought it was, it wasn't even a lie, it simply was nothing, two seperate people with problems that would have never gotten it together....tragic huh....

Anyway my friend, you keep your head up always. You have impressed me greatly just from your thoughtful responses and your kind soul.

slappyjenkins

Oh my gosh Vegan you've inspired me to post some of my poetry on here. I don't know how you do it! It's scary to me! I'm worried someone is going to say man are you stupid or what? I have problems with spelling and anglish in general anyway. I hate grammar.

I've been looking through this massive thread at your work. You stay busy don't you????

VEGANGELICA

slappy, I'd be happy to critique your poetry. I'll wait 'til later, though, when I've had more sleep...and also maybe you'll have decided by then to risk it and make your own thread! EDIT: I see you already did!

I understand what you mean about poems forcing themselves to the surface, such as when you realized you and your girlfriend should continue on separate paths and you wrote about your feelings to show them to her.

You said you feel the idea of posting your poetry publicly is scary to you, and you wonder what gives me the nerve to post what I write.

I find that posting here inspires me to write more often and more carefully, and it also gives me ideas on what to write in the future, so posting has been beneficial for me. I like trying to think of things to post that might cause a response, and so posting encourages me to experiment. These benefits of "going public" offset any fears I might have.

Also, by the time I post something, I am always fairly contented with what I wrote (and I have checked the spelling! ), and so I don't worry about negative comments too much because the person I am really trying to please is myself. If I'm satisfied with my writing, then I can handle other people's dislike of it.

Most people who comment give constructive criticism, which is helpful. And if someone hates what I have written and uses it as a reason to feel I am stupid, then that would also be useful to know...because that would mean I must have hit *some* sort of nerve! If I want to write lyrics or music that people like (and sometimes I do), then I need to find out what they hate as well as what they enjoy. (And if I want to write something that people hate, that information is also useful. )

More generally, I don't base much of my sense of self-worth on other people. And I remember that life is short. In 10,000 years, none of this will matter. So, I write what I want. I appreciate when people take their time to respond in any sort of fashion, because time is precious. So, thank you for responding and for sharing from your own life!

I'd say about posting more of your own poems, go for it, slappyjenkins. I'd enjoy reading more of your life distilled into words. I feel our thoughts and experiences are precious, and I love it when people post parts of themselves in their threads. I've seen how much you enjoy writing. You are bursting with thoughts and feelings. Your enthusiasm inspires *me*. Ideally, that's what a forum like this does: it encourages people to improve their craft (however they wish to) and have fun doing so.

I find that writing is fun to do even if I am the only person who will ever view the result...but we are social beings and I think we are really motivated by connecting in some way with other people. If sharing your poetry online gives you even just a small feeling of connection with others, then I feel it is worth the risk that comes with self-exposure.

__________________

slappyjenkins

^^I have been looking over your work. And again thank you for the time you took to look over my poems. I treasure that input so very much. I wish I could get that across to you in the way it deserves. All I can say is ......thank you.

OMG spelling...I am the worst spellerer ever. And I hate grammar with a vicious passion. If grammar was a real person we'd be circling each other in an ancient colosseum fighting to the death. And I'd be like 'To who do you want me to notify upon your inevitable demise????' And he'd be like 'It's to whom you ass.' ..'Aw, you motherf***!' And spelling would be in the stands, 'Kick his ass!'...'You shut up spelling! You're next!'

I had to free myself of those worries long ago. I figure there are proof readers and enough spell correction that I can concentrate on my writing and let the creation come into the world. Now if you read my 'as of yet' published work and there's a line that says, 'And in the end he realized that it was Good's hand that directed his life.' Then you can blame spell checker for that!!!

And about sharing...shoot I want to be remembered for something and possibly make some cash along the way... SHALLOW ain't it? I hate to admit that in myself, but I've come to a point where I worry about what mark I'll leave on this world and I also have some expensive tastes that I need to indulge...her name is Candie...hehehe...just kidding, Candie isn't that expensive. Just kidding, there is no Candie, I made her up. Hey, I'm a writer you can't believe anything I say! I tend to make things up!

BUT as I was saying, I am going to return the favor and critique some of your peotry. I think I have to look through and take a one at a time approach. There's so much to look at!

Thank you my friend, I hope your day was lovely!

slappyjenkins

“Free” Lyrics by Erica

I’m waiting, hoping you’ll shed the cross you bear.
I’m wishing, yearning you’ll treat yourself with care.
Take from your lovely mouth that cigarette.
Put down your glass. I don’t want to lose you yet. all of these first lines are so very powerful. I remember saying those exact words ' I don't want to lose you yet.' so many times.'

I’m waiting, hoping you’ll treasure that you live.
I’m wishing, yearning you’ll take the love I give.
Let your pain out when you feel it’s no use.
Don’t turn it inward in self-abuse. Can't put my finger on it, but this series of lines doesn't seem to speak to me as much as the first. Still great lines, just can't tell what's wrong.

Stand wingless with me. I guess this was supposed to be 'naked' and you had to change it? The re-wording is meant to say 'sober up, don't be high?' just guessing. It's a bit awkward only because when I first see that stand wingless with me, it takes a second for my mind to process this to make sense to me
Let yourself be free.

I’m waiting, hoping you’ll come to the door.
I’m wishing you’ll see life offers you more.
Breathe out those burdens. Inhale the sunset sky.
Walk the horizon line. Find a natural high. again, very powerful, as people with substance abuse often become shut-ins...they no longer go out or have happiness with life

Stand wingless with me.
Let yourself be free.

I’m waiting, hoping you’ll take the gift I bring.
It’s free and it’s yours. I don’t want anything.
When life drags you down, please give yourself a choice.
I’ll listen. We’ll shoot the breeze. Just use your voice. this is very genuine and heartlfelt, a sign of true friendship and caring,

Stand wingless with me.
Let yourself be free.

Well here is my first critique for you. This really got to me. About 3 months ago I had a close friend die who had substance abuse problems for years. She got drunk and fell down her back steps and broke her neck.

She is finally not suffering anymore. She's not a slave to her addiction anymore. Sometimes the sadness is overwhelming.

It is such a fine line to walk when dealing with someone who is battling a mental disease or substance abuse. For me, I finally told her, you need to get control over this or I can't be around you. She said she didn't want to lose me as a friend, but she never slowed down drinking. It got to a point where she would get up and open a beer. Within 5 minutes of being awake! And spend the entire day getting drunk. I guess I feel guilt...I feel like I should have been more forceful or more persistant. I just don't know what else I could have done, and now I'll never get the chance. She's gone.

slappyjenkins

I was going to do a line by line critique again of some lyrics you had posted on here. But I could see that once again I would be making comments or asking questions so I'll just ask the questions right here about "Brilliant Tragedy".

I recently made the mistake of posting in the religious threads here. WHEWWWW...I don't know if everyone here is simply anti-religion or don't have the tools/maturity to cope with this subject, but beware getting into one of those discussions, it INSTANTLY turns ugly.

And here I am trying to get you into one of those discussions sort of....I like everything you said in Brilliant Tragedy. It is a very logical and common sense observation of the reality we live in...it is most likely true that we were put here to live and to die and that's about it...so the most important thing becomes how we view our life, if we are able to still find the love and courage to go ahead and live it while we're alive. I enjoyed it!

The question is, and the answer is probably overly self-evident, do you believe in any 'creator' or anything spiritual or above us? I promise I'm not calling you out. I am honestly curious. I believe art in all its forms(painting, drawing, writing, acting, speaking, singing, composing) is one of the most intimate things you can share about yourself...the only thing as intimate in my opinion is your true feeling on yourself and your place in the universe and your thoughts on God. I'll go ahead and say it, I believe in God, but I despise organized religion. The reason I believe in God is I feel a design in everything around me. And no I don't mean my house and car and my clothes. I feel a design to the universe. Not neccessarily a PURPOSE, but surely a design. And trust me I don't do the converting thing...I'm cool with whatever you have to say...it's not my duty to sway you one way or the other.

And also your feelings about eating meat(I saw from a few of the lyrics/poetry here)...I'm a meat eater, please don't hit me! *ducks* And again I promise promise I'm not calling you out on that, but I've noticed things about the natural world I'd like to get your opinion on. I have had a love affair with animals all my life....stop laughing, not that kind of love affair....I've had pets of course and I've even helped hurt animals get better and released them back into the wild. We had a duck fly over our backyard, well two ducks together, and a HAWK swooped in and tagged them both midflight, craziest, coolest but saddest thing I'd ever seen. The one duck got away but the other landed in our back yard. And the hawk was standing over the duck with his wings full spread and I think he was about to peck or claw him to death but I shooed him away. I didn't think a hawk would be scary but I was actually afraid...I was like this hawk is going to kill me AND the duck and feast on both of us. Well his/her poor wing was broken and we put a splint on it and it healed up just fine. The duck was getting used to us when we took the splint off so it was sad to see him go. He flew away maybe 3 days later after the splint was off so we must have done something right.(Yes, we named him Mr.Quackers) We always hoped that he found his mate. By the way...I loved that duck, I really did, but oh my god was he mean and he S#!T all over the yard. We got him a yard pool and he pooped in that too. I loved how he would dip his head under the water like was at the lake and then look at us like, man this pool is only 2 foot deep you cheap #@@#%@^.

Anyway that lovely little story leads me to this discussion that I would love to have with you. With how you feel about eating meat....how do you view animals eating/hunting/harming other animals in nature? Because we've all seen the nature channel and how tigers and lions use hunting patterns and tactics to bring down big game. And I've personally seen any number of cats I've had go outside and chase down chipmunks, squirells, birds, and lizards. All of my dogs at one point have bagged small animals, from birds to possums and I'd find them chewing their guts out or chewing on bones. And don't you love getting that 'present' from your dog or cat...that little bird or lizard that they caught and wanted to show off to you...OMG...I had a cat who was a superb mouser and he layed a dead mouse on my chest while I was sleeping!!! I felt this little drop on my chest and woke up and he was there and I started petting him and felt it there on my chest....I said 'Aw Chester I'm so proud of you.' But I was thinking, what the hell cat, dropping dead stuff on me while I'm sleeping.

I guess I was wondering if you ever ponder those things and how do they affect your writing on that subject?

I do admit that is the main reason I feel little to no remorse in eating meat. I've grown up around animals and every single pet I've had would naturally hunt other animals to eat them. (We even had a minature pot-bellied pig that would root for chipmunks. That pig would eat anything from bugs to rodents. Never saw him eat a bird though I think he would if given the chance.)

I guess I didn't line by line critique Brilliant Tragedy because I'm trying to figure out how to critique in a more constructive manner. I don't want to do another...'oh well this line is good, but I don't like this line, and I love this part' because I'm sure you are not getting much out of that.

VEGANGELICA

You're welcome for my time and my input on your poems. I'm glad to know it was helpful. I do feel time is precious, and my favorite way to double its length and value is to share it with someone else.

Slappy, you're not as bad of a spellerer as you think. I think your spelling is very god.

Your brave fight with your foe, Grammar, whom you circle and antagonize with your "to who's" as Spelling looks on, reminds me of a song I wrote called "Common Ground," which amuses me now when I imagine it to be about you: http://www.musicbanter.com/song-writ...tml#post780516.

I don't think wanting to be remembered for something and possibly make some cash along with way is shallow. I agree with this quote by Mark Sullivan: "To find a career to which you are adapted by nature, and then to work hard at it, is about as near to a formula for success and happiness as the world provides. One of the fortunate aspects of this formula is that, granted the right career has been found, the hard work takes care of itself. Then hard work is not hard work at all."

Even if writing isn't a career, having your work valued enough to make some money would be very satisfying and useful, in case Candie shows up.

Knowing that you want to make money from your writing does change some of my recommendations for you, though.

I think you might best achieve your goal of earning money through writing if you were to connect with someone (such as a reputable literary agent Fiction Factor - What is a Literary Agent? ) in the writing world to help you promote your work to the appropriate publisher and audience. Self-published poetry *may* reach a sizeable audience, if you are lucky, but I think many fine writers simply never get much notice because the world is flooded with poetry and poets wanting attention.

Since readers have limited time and funds, you need your work to come to their attention in a dramatic way to lure them to want to buy it.

I think for publishing to be successful, a writer requires a critical mass of people who are saying, "Hey! His stuff is good!" to cause others to want to read it. This is the reason that editors, literary agents, publishing companies, and promotion are so important. People are social animals and their perception of what is "good" and of "value" is often influenced by what other people (appear to) think of the work. Self-publishing is like a lone wolf howling in the wild. People may or may not listen. Now if you have a whole pack of wolves behind you howling, you'll likely garner more attention.

Here's a good example of why I feel promotion is so valuable. You've seen those videos of expert violinists playing beautifully in subway stations for free? Below is a video of Joshua Bell playing in a subway station. People walk on by, apparently unmoved and unappreciative, not knowing they're listening to one of the world's top-notch violinists. The same violinist, the night before, was able to fill a huge theater with tickets selling for $100 a pop.

charles hugh smith-Crowds Ignore World Renowned Violinist: What Does This Say?

Joshua Bell (violin virtuoso) "self-publishes" his violin-playing in a subway station.
Doesn't go well. Draws a tiny audience. Gets just a little bit of money.


Stop and Hear the Music - YouTube


Another thought I had about your goal of making money is that as you prepare to publish, I think you should edit your work ruthlessly. Throw out beloved poems that mean something to you but don't move other people.

This is one reason a public forum can be helpful: it gives you a chance to see which of your works gain positive attention. I think you have to balance that harsh critique of your own work against your desire to express your full humanity. Once you are famous, some people will be interested in *everything* about you...but until then, they will read your writing because it provides them with something (probably entertainment).

Finally, about wanting to be remembered: I understand what you mean, but I feel people tend to think about themselves much more than they think about anyone else (unless they are in love) and so even those who are "remembered" don't figure much in the everyday life of those who remember them. For example, I admire and remember Einstein, but I hardly ever think about him.

Your mentioning this issue reminds me of the time I was remembered that mattered most to me. I worked for several years at a domestic violence shelter, and one evening I danced in the living room to amuse and entertain a little girl who was staying at the shelter with her mom. A couple years later, the mother and I happened to meet by accident in public. She told me that her little girl still remembered the shelter because of that "nice, pretty woman who danced for her so beautifully."

I thought to myself, what a lovely way to be remembered: a child goes to a domestic violence shelter and of all the horrible things she might have remembered about that time, instead she has a happy memory of someone dancing for her...and that someone was me.

If any poem or song I wrote benefited another person like my dancing did for that little girl, then this would be wonderful and humbling. A real privilege that some aspect of myself affected a person's private life positively. Knowing that I had affected people's lives for the better would be the best part of being famous.

The second best part of being famous would be the revenge factor: I could go up to people who dissed me in high school or dismissed my worth at other times in life, and I could say, "Ha ha!" <-- How's THAT for shallow!

I'm very sorry your friend died so needlessly and so avoidably...avoidably, if only she hadn't been addicted to alcohol. The problem is that she wasn't in control. Her addiction was.

Slappyjenkins, I feel there is nothing you could have done to stop your friend from feeding her addiction unless she was ready to stop herself...which probably requires first hitting rock bottom (losing job, family, friends, and health), if the addicted person doesn't die first.

I'm also sorry you were put in that horrible position of wanting to help your friend when staying close to her might have meant you were enabling her to drink (by making it easier for her not to face the consequences), and you would have had to suffer through watching her descent, which could be unbearable.

I'm thinking now of a depressing movie, "Leaving Las Vegas," that deals with that issue of leaving vs. staying with an alcoholic friend who lives only to drink. Another very good movie about alcoholism is "Days of Wine and Roses." I recommend this movie if you haven't seen it yet, Slappy, because it shows someone having to make that hard choice you did.

I can understand your feeling of guilt, especially since your friend said that she didn't want to lose you...but you did a beautiful thing, which was tell her your honest feelings (you couldn't be around her if she was drinking). Accepting someone's drinking is *not* going to make that person get better. Also, not being able to be around her when she was drinking didn't mean you didn't care about her.

I've very sorry that she died and that you lost your friend.

* * *

Thank you so much for your critique of my song lyrics for "Free"!

I agree with you about the second stanza not being as strong as the others. Like I mentioned in your thread, I think perhaps this is due to that stanza's lack of imagery.

Your response to my use of the metaphor "wingless" interested me. Metaphors *do* require an extra step of thought to make the connection between the words and their meaning. This is one reason that I have avoided obvious metaphors in most of my songs: I want the songs to be immediately understandable. Sometimes I think that lack of depth makes them too dull.

I did choose "stand wingless with me" to refer to my wish that the friend would no longer be high. I also picked "wingless" because "wings" is slang for heroin. ("Stand naked with me" had already been used in someone else's song. It turns out I liked "wingless" better anyway.) I tried to saturate the song with drug slang and references to appease my love of literary depth but still leave the meaning of the lyrics clear: "(great) bear (fentanyl), glass (alcohol & heroin), breathe, inhale, line (cocaine), drag, use."

Thank you again for your critique! I will get to your final post later.

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slappyjenkins

OHHHHHH I did not know the slang on heroin! Of course anyone who knows that will instantly get it, I just did not have that knowledge.

Again, your suggestions and sharing little pieces of your life are so very much appreciated. You are truly honored and blessed that the little girl holds such a perfect and loving memory of you. How rewarding is it that your selfless gesture was returned to you with such special benefits!!

I love everything about this story.

And about self-publishing. I totally agree. Advertisment and having the right professional fight for your exposure is undeniably on those possible keys of success. The example of Joshua Bell is a little flawed. I'm sure this was a one-off and for a very limited time? And I agree if you don't tell anyone Joshua Bell is going to be in the subway at this time to perform then who would ever know? So it IS a perfect example of how useful advertisement is. But I've been in sales forever and we have this concept that drives the entire career of any salesman...building clientele...its the poor man's advertisement. What you do over time is promoted by word of mouth or by your excellent service you obtain repeat customers that will show loyalty to you and from that point will also go out and spread secondary yet positive publicity about you. We all have that in our day to day lives, if I told you right now I am about to put new cabinets in my kitchen there would probably be an instant reaction in your mind, 'Oh I know a guy! He's super cheap and he did our cabinets to perfection and it cost us HALF what anyone else quoted.'

Well with self-publishing it is almost the EXACT process. You can blog about your upcoming work as a form of free advertisement, but I've seen endless comments on the lack of blogs as an advertisement medium in self-published e-books. But the main concept is building your clientele over time.

Also since reading your post I have been trying in vain to find this one link that has an example of being proactive about self-publishing. I can't even remember the author's name now, but he told his story about having an agent that was carrying three of his books. He said he had given over thousands of dollars to this agent for his service, and the agent basically sat on those 3 books for 2 years and had not sold a single copy. The author gets rid of the agent and formats the books as e-books. He blogged and self-promoted, put the books up for sale at .99 cents a copy as e-books, but the books were slow going for the first few months and then all of a sudden they exploded. He claims to have made a million dollars so far off those 3 books alone. I think by now he has several works being published. I don't know why I can't remember his name but I'll look for the link and post it later.

Self-publishing is most attractive to me right now because I can post my own work at very low cost and don't have to go through an agent or publishing house which is a very expensive process. And in the case with the previous author I mentioned, he knew his agent was not enthusiastic about promoting the 3 books. The agent had other authors and was clearly putting priority on them. I don't want to deal with any of that. I don't have thousands of dollars to take on a gamble. If I keep this in my hands then I know what level of participation and urgency that I am going to put into it.

And if it doesn't work I can always get with an agent later. Certaintly not discrediting your advice at all, because your suggestion is spot on as always. But I do want to take the self-publishing route to begin with. I'll look over the link to Literary Agents, thanks so much for that! Can I ask if you are published? Or have lyrics floating around out there? If its in this thread somewhere, forgive me I'll have to keep reading through the thread.

Yeah it was sad about my friend. And her mother calls me from time to time and I feel that guilt all over again. I've even told her mother that I thought I did all I could and yet I still feel like I let her down and now she's gone. Her mother has says almost exactly what you did, 'There's nothing you could have done. She wasn't herself anymore and she could not control her addiction.'

And I know anyone reading this will think well why didn't the mother do something like force her into rehab or even have her committed to protect her from herself. Her mother DID try that...she went to the sheriff's office and to a doctor and asked for help...this was the response she got in all cases...'You cannot commit a person or force them into rehab or into any kind of program if they have not hurt themselves or hurt someone else.' So even if the person is clearly destroying themselves, if they haven't done anything to harm themselves or anyone else, then they can just sit there drunk all day and out of their minds, a ticking time bomb, until they fall down the stairs and die.

We should communicate in PM or make our own thread or communicate in my thread. I do NOT want to take away from your thread in any way. You have shared a lot of high quality material here and it deserves to be critiqued.

But thank you so much for sharing and giving.

Hey maybe we could start our own publishing company???

If you have some tens of thousands of dollars I have this big piggy bank full of coins. If I cash those out I'm sure I would have nearly a hundred dollars. And we could be partners. Right down the middle, 50/50....hehehehe....

I hope your day was wonderful!

Newkie

I'm not a great analyst so my feedback will be pretty feeble, but you have some really great lines there that typify the experience of being involved with someone with personality or even just serious mood disorders. I know that's how I felt a lot of the time when I was in that situation.

Always a problem when you yourself suffer from common issues like self esteem and anxiety, discussing it with them seems so trivial so you avoid it. When you confide in them and everything's going well it's not so bad, you know they've dealt with worse and they can still help you, even if they can't exactly help themselves. But as soon it turns sour they can really seem like they want to destroy you. I wasn't in that bad a spot though, the girl I was with knew about her issues, acceptance or discovery weren't really her issues, she/we just couldn't deal with them.

VEGANGELICA

No worries about communicating here in my thread as we're doing, as long as *you're* okay with it. Earlier this year I was posting pictures to show the similarity between Eddie Van Halen's smile and a terrier's happy grin ...so compared to that, your and my discussion about publishing is right on topic!

Besides, I use this thread as a source of inspiration for my writing and not just to post lyrics or poems. Mostly I'm here to have fun. And you know what? You're fun, Slappy!

About self-publishing:

I hear your reasons for going that route, especially since your sales background gives you confidence about using word of computer to spread awareness of your self-published works.

However, when you mentioned the high costs of getting an agent, I wanted to let you know that (I think) a good, reputable agent will not charge you anything and instead will just take a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of a manuscript to a publishing company. So I'm thinking that getting a literary agent shouldn't be expensive to get an agent if or when you seek one.

I *also* just read that poets typically don't go to a literary agent to publish a book of poetry, which I didn't realize or remember. Instead, the typical route for publishing poetry books is to send the manuscript yourself to small presses (after successfully publishing individual poems in literary journals to show the poems have selling power):

You asked if I have had anything published. I have, but not much. While I was in college and soon after, during my biggest writing years, I did get some poetry published in small poetry journals. I also had a poem and short story selected for a writer organization's anthology book, which was a fun process.

After college I had to decide what to do for a career. I loved and had studied both science and arts (I remember loving a class about lyrical poetry). I decided to pursue science (biology) in graduate school and for work, because I love living things and life and wanted to *do* something to learn more about them and not just write about or paint them. Then I was so busy that I simply didn't have time or mental energy to write creatively.

My love of creative writing has been reasserting itself during the last six years, however. (I was inspired by a former teacher to write again.) I'm glad, because writing feels like the return of a beloved childhood friend.

About alcoholism treatment facilities:

I had deleted from my previous post (to make it shorter) the very same information you found out from your friend's mom--you can't force an adult to go to a treatment center unless she is at immediate risk of killing herself or someone else. Even if someone goes to rehab, she or he is probably likely to relapse and need to go back several times and after all that still may not be able to stop drinking. I wanted you to know that, unfortunately, there was probably very little that could be done for your friend.

I once asked a loved one who is alcoholic (but sober for the last 15 years) what could have stopped him from his years of active drinking. He said the answer was deceptively simple: he should have never taken that first drink (back when he was 18). If young people could see their future due to alcohol-consumption...lost jobs, broken families, destroyed friendships, and poor health...maybe fewer would take that first drink.

I *did* have a good day! I hope you did, too. Selling things, maybe. (I hope you aren't having real-life GlenGarry Glen Ross experiences!)

Hey, if your publishing plan works, then you can supplement your piggy-bank assets and we can make our publishing company a true 50:50 enterprise.

* * * * *

Newkie, thank you for your feedback! I'm very glad to learn that you felt those lines matched your experience. I was hoping people would relate.

When you write that the person with a personality or mood disorder can really seem to want to destroy you, that reminds me chillingly of my memories.

Thank you for sharing.

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