Pissed Off Cynics

Hey,

I like Nano, but I despise some of the rah-rahs that go along with it. I have given in to the fact that I am not a shiny happy person. I enjoy my cynicism. Super-positive people kinda creep me out a bit.

Anyone here in the same boat?

Are you my husband!? When did you change your handle honey?!

He is a grumbly cynical pessimist and I am one of those annoyingly OMG THE WHOLE WORLD IS AMAZING!!!! type people. I believe the word he likes to use is curmudgeon, though.

I mean, sure, I have my bad days, but for the most part, I'm pretty glass is half full. But hopefully, this won't be too insufferably rah-rah. But I'm chiming in for my darling curmudgeon with a "hey!"

I am normally a grumbly crab apple, but I don't know, writing is the only thing I have ever been good at, so it is kind of like the one time of year I am able to rise above sub-mediocrity. Rah-rah-rah-ism kind of accidentally seeps out of me. I'll let you know if I loose a bunch of words during the course of the month though, that's usually good for a crab-ass set back.

I love you, and yes, I'm starting to get very irritated with the hoopla surrounding it.

I love writing, and I love the idea of having a month to write a novel, blah-di-blah-di-blah, but the promotional stuff, the talk I've heard from some of recruiting people (in past years) and the... cult-like-ness of some people surrounding NaNo makes me roll my eyes at the least, and scares the crap out of me at the worst.

Super happy people make me think "What are you covering up under the surface" or "Okay, you can afford copious amounts of cocaine... can you chop me out?" :P Or they make me think of Peewee Herman, who, yes, is quite creepy.

I consider myself a pessimist and a cynic. For the most part, optimists see what they want to see, realist see but don't accept, and pessimist expect and refuse to make excuses. I consider optimist to be delusional and/or on mind altering drugs, realist are constantly disappointed, but as a pessimist I expect the worst. So, I am not surprised when the worst happens and can, on a rare occasion, be pleasantly surprised when the it doesn't happen.
I don't mind all the rah rah. I'm just not going to put on the pom poms. I can be encouraging without the plastered on smile. If fact, I am known to be a good listener. Just don't ask me questions if you don't want an honest answer, because that is what you will get. Tact and I are not close acquaintances. I try to follow the rule my mother taught me which is "if you can't say something nice..." I am a fairly quiet person. ;-)

I used to think I was a pessimist but now I reckon it's probably just brain cancer making me act that way.

I don't think I can go so far as to profess to be a dyed in the wool curmudgeon, but I definitely have more of those days than not. Either way, I am FAR from the flighty, bouncy, happy kind of person who freaks out over everything. I honestly don't get the anxiety over this. I don't need pep talks. When you overdo that level of happy every day, it comes across as fake. Sorry.

If I hit 50K, go me. I wouldn't have signed up if I wasn't serious about shooting for that goal, but what is the sense in spazzing over it? I set my personal goal at 60K so there :P If I don't make it... well yeah I'll be disappointed and ticked off, but my life will continue and I'll keep working on what I started. I got off to a slow start, but I am looking forward to some free time when I know I'll be able to concentrate better.

Honestly... one of the biggest reasons I avoided this was because of all the hysterical anxiety everyone seemed to have. It turned me off. Glad I'm not alone in that.

I can be pretty cynical and sarcastic, but I do enjoy life and hope for/expect good things to happen. In the back of my head I always think things can go terribly wrong at any second. I call that realism, though :P

I have difficulty going OTT over it, too. Last year I hit 50,000 words in 2 weeks and my first thought was - "I wonder if I can do 100,000". I guess I'm just a boring old git... :D

Speaking to a colleague yesterday who came to my classroom to hide from the boss and write for an hour. I don't remember the context of the conversation but she said "you're such a nice person."
I stopped her and said "I'm really not a nice person, I just happen to like you."

It was a rare moment of clarity for me.

Count me in to the pissed off cynics camp.

There's a reason I'm not really associating with my regional group...and this is it.

Well, this and they're usually all about the zombies or something.

I am a misanthrope. I really do not like people and perky people tend to annoy the hell out of me.

Cynics and pessimists (of which I am both) get a bad wrap. People often draw attention to it in a negative way which, unsurprisingly, annoys me. The main problem, I find, is that it is often mistaken for unhappiness. I am not an unhappy person. If life appears well, I won't necessarily jump for joy -- but internally there be a banquet in full flow I tell thee.

Anyway, optimists and perkies are just closet cynics in reality. :)

Happy Nanoing.

I can sympathize with people's pains, but not with their pleasure. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.
- Aldous Huxley

Ah, but what good would Ren be without Stimpy.

Cynical = realist
Optimist = delusional

Liking this thread.

I was never happy-clappy even as a teenager so I'm not sure what the youngsters' excuse is. I hate stupid writing tips. Like, OMG, if your story is not working, stick a vampire in there!!!! YAHOO!! (rolls eyes so hard they fall out of head)

I don't like regional forums anyway because the only thing we have in common is, we all live in the same area. To me, that's not enough to provide warm fuzzy feelings of community. Sometimes you want to associate with like-MINDED people (people who actually, like, have a MIND) and not the frathouse down the road.

A great book to read for all of us here, I think, is: The big curmudgeon: 2500 Irreverently outrageous quotations form world-class grumps and cantankerous commentators.

And, no, nobody is paying me to say this, I just liked the book and found myself nodding along quite often.

Ha ha! Despite my cheerful avatar, I clicked on this because I was hoping for a little safe place to rant! I'm getting so annoyed with all these so-called writers nearly peeing their pants about copyright infringement. Jesus, people! You're supposed to be authors of fiction. Act like it. Grow a pair for God's Sake! I just saw someone ask if they could use the titles of real books in a scene where their characters go to a book store and someone told them to use public domain titles. Public domain. I'm not kidding. It is angering me. Why? I have no idea, but I'm seriously pissed off at the wussiness of kids today. They are so afraid of lawyers, they don't even know their own rights as writers of fiction. Sigh. That said, Nano is for the kids...isn't it. But why do we want to frighten them away with boogey men (aka copyright lawyers)? Rant over., Thanks.

I'm going to go out on a limb and rant for moment myself. It drives me nuts that there are so many people who are debating minutae. "What should my vampire character's name be?" or "I can't figure out what my chekov's gun should be."

Just freakin write for Christ's sake. Quit worrying so much and write. You may even *gasp* write something original, instead of writing the same story that every angsty teenage has been writing for the last ten years!

Ugh. Cliche frustrates me to no end.

I like NaNo, I like the camraderie, I cannot STAND the "OMG we're SOOOoooo wacky! Aren't we crazy for doing this?! OMG! SOOOOOooo crazy!" crap.

I went on a whole rant about NaNoers I hate in a blog post, in fact.

I like going to some write-ins. Generally, I'm an introvert. My batteries get recharged spending time alone or maybe with one or two good friends. Large groups enervate me at best and outright piss me off at worst. But some write-ins are good. There's a quiet community of us, just sitting there typing away, sipping coffee. Maybe every once in awhile, someone makes a quick comment and we chat for about three minutes, then it's back to work.

Then there are the write-ins that might as well be Tupperware parties, with drawings and stupid games and someone standing up and yelling "For the next 20 minutes, word sprint! Have a rabid wombat crash the scene you're writing right now!" OH, the hilarity! Yeah, shut the hell up before I ninja-throw my laptop at you. I'm trying to WRITE over here.

I think I'll start naming the Write-Ins I host like they're created by Zoolander. "Write-Ins for Writers Who Just Want to Write and Stuff", that's what they'll be called.