Being as I need to leave the country soon, customs requires me to have a passport that didn't expire in 2009. It also helps to not have a 10 year old picture of yourself looking like a generic child in a Carbini hoodie.
After paying an unlubricated anal molestation fee, I was promised my identity, with picture pre-Deliverance would take ten working days. To their squeal-like-a-pig-boy credit, they did it in 9 days. And then I noticed. It's not waterproof. Your picture, which was previously and wisely laminated, is now completely open to the elements. Now I need to go to the effort of airtight bagging my passport, for it will surely melt at the lightest drop of precipitation. Better yet would be if it did get wet while I was out of the country, they might not let me leave. Hooray for steps backward. I hear the government has plans to make new cars with a stone cylinder for front wheels and get gambling addicts to drive them.
And, even better than the dive into the twenties (I'm not even sure they didn't laminate as early as that), if your passport gets smeared, then you need to pay for a new one. A brand new, £95 passport, which is equally smearable. Well played, customs, well played. Should I ever have my family murdered and find the guy who did it, I'll send him to you to get a passport, it's much worse than what prison would do to him.
Thursday 20 October 2011
Wednesday 19 October 2011
Freshers Freshers everywhere and no PC's in the LINC
They're an army. I was one once, but I retired, or rather got promoted. And I swear they're getting more stupid (edited: stupider). Freshers. Even the name is stupid. Most freshers are fine; I'm an unjustifiably elitist douche (edited: douché), but I have not had the greatest experience of the "new breed".
In the LINC,(and because I have forgot the real acronym it is now)the Learning Information Networking Centre, you can go to print work if the library computer (edited: computers) is in use. Which it invariably is as there are usually over a thousand students just walking around campus. At the LINC, in the half hour window I had to print off an essay, I found myself stood in a roomfull of occupied computers. No, that isn't right, it was a roomful of occupied or broken computers. Obviously, those computers were being put to good use, students utilising the only available computers in university to - wait for it - read the comment section for youtube videos. Granted by "students" I meant "skinhead guy in green shirt with too much Lynx on", but even one person, wasting a computer, not even watching the video, with the sound off, reading the comments is enough. It's not like the rest of the room were busy, half the people were on Facebook, which is something I've done myself, and the rest were actually doing work. Youtube comment sections? We should just gather the mob now and lynch him. Waste of space.
Anyway, let's move on to the basis for my broad sweeping statements. After finally securing a computer that actually worked and didn't just advertise L:39 Radio, I printed off my essay, and was sat next to the computer, and so was able to bat the sports student's hand away from my work and collect it. Next I printed my bibliography. Oh wait, no, I didn't, because the sports student was still stood there waiting for her work. Mine did not print. I opened up the print queue, the most useful improvement I've seen Edgehill implement this year, and looked at the queue. There, right above my 87kb bibliography was what I assumed to be her file. The .pdf file. The 230mb pdf file. How the fuck do you get a 230mb .pdf file that's 18 pages long? That makes no sense. And the worst thing was, she'd sent it to the printer, via the network, 10 minutes ago, and it was halfway through.
After sharing an exasperated glance with the technician who was changing the paper, I cancelled my print and changed the printer, collected it and walked back in the room to see the mob I had called for to lynch the youtuber forming around the printer. I still had the printer queue open, 140/230mb, 11 items queued behind it. Well played, fresher, well played. You summed it up best when you asked "what have I done?". You done fucked up everything.
And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed impossible... 230mb .pdf file? They're made to save space - I have a 257kb .pdf file... and that's 60 pages. All I can guess is that every page contained a high res picture. Or every page was just a black page. Even if it is high def:
1. Why are you printing pictures?
2. Why are your pictures on a .pdf file?
3. Where the fuck did you find that .pdf file?
4. Why are you printing this? What course possibly needs you to print 18 pages of pictures? Oh wait, I can answer that one - sports.
5. Why, oh for the love of God why, would you bother to print them in black and white on standard printer paper on a laserjet if they're HD?
6. How did you get into university?
7. How have you lived so close to electrical appliances and not died yet?
And the reason I assumed she was a fresher was because if she made it into second year I weep for mankind.
In the LINC,(and because I have forgot the real acronym it is now)the Learning Information Networking Centre, you can go to print work if the library computer (edited: computers) is in use. Which it invariably is as there are usually over a thousand students just walking around campus. At the LINC, in the half hour window I had to print off an essay, I found myself stood in a roomfull of occupied computers. No, that isn't right, it was a roomful of occupied or broken computers. Obviously, those computers were being put to good use, students utilising the only available computers in university to - wait for it - read the comment section for youtube videos. Granted by "students" I meant "skinhead guy in green shirt with too much Lynx on", but even one person, wasting a computer, not even watching the video, with the sound off, reading the comments is enough. It's not like the rest of the room were busy, half the people were on Facebook, which is something I've done myself, and the rest were actually doing work. Youtube comment sections? We should just gather the mob now and lynch him. Waste of space.
Anyway, let's move on to the basis for my broad sweeping statements. After finally securing a computer that actually worked and didn't just advertise L:39 Radio, I printed off my essay, and was sat next to the computer, and so was able to bat the sports student's hand away from my work and collect it. Next I printed my bibliography. Oh wait, no, I didn't, because the sports student was still stood there waiting for her work. Mine did not print. I opened up the print queue, the most useful improvement I've seen Edgehill implement this year, and looked at the queue. There, right above my 87kb bibliography was what I assumed to be her file. The .pdf file. The 230mb pdf file. How the fuck do you get a 230mb .pdf file that's 18 pages long? That makes no sense. And the worst thing was, she'd sent it to the printer, via the network, 10 minutes ago, and it was halfway through.
After sharing an exasperated glance with the technician who was changing the paper, I cancelled my print and changed the printer, collected it and walked back in the room to see the mob I had called for to lynch the youtuber forming around the printer. I still had the printer queue open, 140/230mb, 11 items queued behind it. Well played, fresher, well played. You summed it up best when you asked "what have I done?". You done fucked up everything.
And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed impossible... 230mb .pdf file? They're made to save space - I have a 257kb .pdf file... and that's 60 pages. All I can guess is that every page contained a high res picture. Or every page was just a black page. Even if it is high def:
1. Why are you printing pictures?
2. Why are your pictures on a .pdf file?
3. Where the fuck did you find that .pdf file?
4. Why are you printing this? What course possibly needs you to print 18 pages of pictures? Oh wait, I can answer that one - sports.
5. Why, oh for the love of God why, would you bother to print them in black and white on standard printer paper on a laserjet if they're HD?
6. How did you get into university?
7. How have you lived so close to electrical appliances and not died yet?
And the reason I assumed she was a fresher was because if she made it into second year I weep for mankind.
Monday 17 October 2011
On Writing
When I'm not trying to make a joke, when I'm trying to make a point or generally giving my opinion in blog posts, I sometimes feel like I'm wearing skintight clothes (yeah, enjoy that image). What I'm trying to say (whilst filling your head with the unholy image of manbreasts in a leotard) is that I'm self-conscious about my writing. Even now, I assume that somebody reading is thinking "well you should be self-conscious, you assuming, pretentious twat", which is fair enough. This is a blog, blogs are made of pretension and assumptions.
They're musings, from the mind, such as my current idea to make my own dishwasher using bleach, a laminated cardboard box and the shower head. This idea is flawless. Not only will there be food residue remaining, at some point I will imbibe a lethal level of bleach. Some would argue I should use more conventional dish-cleaning products, such as washing-up liquid. To those people I say this: Marie Curie was flossing with uranium and look how that turned out. I am destined to be a posthumous pioneer of the Homemade Ordinary Bleach Wash-a-matron (or HOBWAM), and they shall toast to my glory, as they raise bowls with bits of old meat and poisonous cleaning products still stuck to them.
Not sure how I got onto this really, it seems I was driving (metaphorically) and decided to (metaphorically) drive off a cliff. It's how the mind is. Without absolute stupidity the world would be a very boring place (and really, when you think about it, the HOBWAM could be a great way of instigating natural selection). Go team Darwin!
They're musings, from the mind, such as my current idea to make my own dishwasher using bleach, a laminated cardboard box and the shower head. This idea is flawless. Not only will there be food residue remaining, at some point I will imbibe a lethal level of bleach. Some would argue I should use more conventional dish-cleaning products, such as washing-up liquid. To those people I say this: Marie Curie was flossing with uranium and look how that turned out. I am destined to be a posthumous pioneer of the Homemade Ordinary Bleach Wash-a-matron (or HOBWAM), and they shall toast to my glory, as they raise bowls with bits of old meat and poisonous cleaning products still stuck to them.
Not sure how I got onto this really, it seems I was driving (metaphorically) and decided to (metaphorically) drive off a cliff. It's how the mind is. Without absolute stupidity the world would be a very boring place (and really, when you think about it, the HOBWAM could be a great way of instigating natural selection). Go team Darwin!
Who we are
For long periods of time (mostly on my walk to and from University) I ponder upon how we view each other. What is it in humanity that creates judgement from the smallest of characteristics?
If I meet somebody and tell them I play Star Trek online, they immediately have an impression of me in their head. If a month later they find out I participate in kickboxing, I become the geek who does a bit of training on the side. If, however, I lead with the kickboxing, and said about the shameful online gaming a month later, it's a completely different image. It's a more positive image - socially you're a few rungs further up the ladder despite doing the same thing.
For the record I don't play StarTrek online (though I hear it's fun) and technically I don't kickbox, but it was hypothetical. I do find it difficult to not judge people based on their activities, depending on the activities. Cosplay is one of those things. I don't have anything against it, I just find the motives behind dressing up as an anime character, pretending to be that character, slightly odd. It's probably very fun, I just can't help but judge people who professionally cosplay, or constantly cosplay, because to me it gives the message they're unhappy with their personalities and so must emulate the personality of their favourite anime character. Of course there will be people doing it for better reasons - vanity, carefree fun, but I always see the worst in it, as do most people, I assume.
But what is that? Why can't I just think "oh, that's nice, what else do you do?" What is it that attaches that stigma in the same way I consider people who don't use proper english to be of a lesser intelligence. It's pure elitism. Maybe it's ingrained in me, maybe I'm just a dick, it's irrelevant - I'm really trying to ignore the fact "u lyk 2 b on tym 4 skool", and sometimes it works. Other times I wonder if your dictionary was ran over by a Snowmobile and half of the vowels were obliterated. This is the weird thing though, I don't judge people based on sexuality, gender, race, height or weight, but if you can't spell, or you dress up as Yu-Gi-Oh on a regular basis, I can't help but harbour some prejudice, and I hate that I do so.
If I meet somebody and tell them I play Star Trek online, they immediately have an impression of me in their head. If a month later they find out I participate in kickboxing, I become the geek who does a bit of training on the side. If, however, I lead with the kickboxing, and said about the shameful online gaming a month later, it's a completely different image. It's a more positive image - socially you're a few rungs further up the ladder despite doing the same thing.
For the record I don't play StarTrek online (though I hear it's fun) and technically I don't kickbox, but it was hypothetical. I do find it difficult to not judge people based on their activities, depending on the activities. Cosplay is one of those things. I don't have anything against it, I just find the motives behind dressing up as an anime character, pretending to be that character, slightly odd. It's probably very fun, I just can't help but judge people who professionally cosplay, or constantly cosplay, because to me it gives the message they're unhappy with their personalities and so must emulate the personality of their favourite anime character. Of course there will be people doing it for better reasons - vanity, carefree fun, but I always see the worst in it, as do most people, I assume.
But what is that? Why can't I just think "oh, that's nice, what else do you do?" What is it that attaches that stigma in the same way I consider people who don't use proper english to be of a lesser intelligence. It's pure elitism. Maybe it's ingrained in me, maybe I'm just a dick, it's irrelevant - I'm really trying to ignore the fact "u lyk 2 b on tym 4 skool", and sometimes it works. Other times I wonder if your dictionary was ran over by a Snowmobile and half of the vowels were obliterated. This is the weird thing though, I don't judge people based on sexuality, gender, race, height or weight, but if you can't spell, or you dress up as Yu-Gi-Oh on a regular basis, I can't help but harbour some prejudice, and I hate that I do so.
Politics and Perception
And with that ominously pretentious title a new blog post begins. Perception is everything. I often say that [abstract noun] is everything, and not to break rank, I'll continue with that. Continuity is everything.
I'm going to be very specific here, and talk about the police. People complain about the right wing media showing biased news, then proceed to treat the police as if they're all fascist robots, based on what they've seen of the police as shown by the media. It's a circle. I have a cousin in the police, and he certainly doesn't have a steel plate for a ribcage, he's a down to earth, reasonable guy. I'm not saying that police brutality doesn't exist - I've seen the police charging into stationary rioters in London, just that it's a minority, (or at least I percieve it to be a minority) and when people (yes, the police are people) all get tarred with the same brush, isn't that prejudice the exact same thing the police are accused of possessing? Yes they make mistakes, somebody shoots a black person on a subway, in the head, but is that one person representative of the whole country's law and order. Maybe I'm wrong here, maybe I'll change my mind when I experience it first hand, but from my perspective, in my comfy little bubble, there is no black and white.
Of course there's mostly black when you look at the government. David Cameron and his covenant are the real bad guys here. They're the bastards who are building a brick wall around the classes, those damn mobile class walls - let's change that, let's make sure the poor know their place. I even have a friend who advocates the tory party's budget cuts. He thinks it's the only way to climb out of the well of debt. He's probably right, but it's like saying the only way to solve overpopulation is to kill all the jews and blacks: it might solve overpopulation but that's one BNP manifesto Hitler signed and sealed himself. The greater good is rarely without evil.
I'm going to be very specific here, and talk about the police. People complain about the right wing media showing biased news, then proceed to treat the police as if they're all fascist robots, based on what they've seen of the police as shown by the media. It's a circle. I have a cousin in the police, and he certainly doesn't have a steel plate for a ribcage, he's a down to earth, reasonable guy. I'm not saying that police brutality doesn't exist - I've seen the police charging into stationary rioters in London, just that it's a minority, (or at least I percieve it to be a minority) and when people (yes, the police are people) all get tarred with the same brush, isn't that prejudice the exact same thing the police are accused of possessing? Yes they make mistakes, somebody shoots a black person on a subway, in the head, but is that one person representative of the whole country's law and order. Maybe I'm wrong here, maybe I'll change my mind when I experience it first hand, but from my perspective, in my comfy little bubble, there is no black and white.
Of course there's mostly black when you look at the government. David Cameron and his covenant are the real bad guys here. They're the bastards who are building a brick wall around the classes, those damn mobile class walls - let's change that, let's make sure the poor know their place. I even have a friend who advocates the tory party's budget cuts. He thinks it's the only way to climb out of the well of debt. He's probably right, but it's like saying the only way to solve overpopulation is to kill all the jews and blacks: it might solve overpopulation but that's one BNP manifesto Hitler signed and sealed himself. The greater good is rarely without evil.
Saturday 15 October 2011
Scope's Goals
Is it wrong to run for a charity because their name coincides with your Gamertag? I have argued not, and suspect that it lies within a moral grey order, which pits motives against donations. And a free t-shirt... that has my name on it. But with so many charities, the money is still going to charity, and there are so many to choose from. People choose because they have lost family to cancer, because they saw a donkey on an advert, because they're still smoking and fear the future. I'm going to run for Scope.
The London ballot process is notoriously difficult to slide through, with 1 in 5 (made up fact) being successful. There is even a rule that if you are declined 5 years in a row you will be automatically entered next year. This year, my first year to apply for the marathon lottery has been successful, and in april I will run the 26.2 miles and complete the London Marathon. Huzzah!
It's one of my "things to do before you die", sitting alongside "Skydive" and "Walk the Pennines". For obvious reasons I'm saving Skydiving until last (because, despite how safe it turns out to be, my parachute was packed by the bad guy from a contrived soap opera). Adding writing a novel next month and maintaining 100% attendance, I'm somehow being productive this year. I just need my Dad to get better...
Fun fact: I have, to increase my chances of passing the ballot, pledged a time of 3:30 for the marathon, that's 9 minute miles. I have been wished luck from behind grins every time I have mentioned this. Suddenly I want to run.
The London ballot process is notoriously difficult to slide through, with 1 in 5 (made up fact) being successful. There is even a rule that if you are declined 5 years in a row you will be automatically entered next year. This year, my first year to apply for the marathon lottery has been successful, and in april I will run the 26.2 miles and complete the London Marathon. Huzzah!
It's one of my "things to do before you die", sitting alongside "Skydive" and "Walk the Pennines". For obvious reasons I'm saving Skydiving until last (because, despite how safe it turns out to be, my parachute was packed by the bad guy from a contrived soap opera). Adding writing a novel next month and maintaining 100% attendance, I'm somehow being productive this year. I just need my Dad to get better...
Fun fact: I have, to increase my chances of passing the ballot, pledged a time of 3:30 for the marathon, that's 9 minute miles. I have been wished luck from behind grins every time I have mentioned this. Suddenly I want to run.
Friday 14 October 2011
Mist Hovers Around the Peaks
Amidst the ever-mounting compulsory reading I have for my course, which of course I can't complain about as I picked creative writing, I have decided to consider the possibility of writing for the National Novel Writing Month. It's a huge task, as I have a mound of coursework to do and reading to read and procrastinating to- you get the picture. It involves writing a novella, a short, 50k word story, within november, as the name implies, and I'm oddly excited about the prospect of it, although some have bet I do nothing.
Today I am very tired, I had very little sleep, and it seems like there is a cloud on my head, fogging up everything, covering it in a grey blanket. At times I employ wit, at others I sit staring into space trying to think what is wrong. It's probably my Dad, but I don't think it is. I'm hoping tomorrow that it will all be cleared, perhaps a journey to the gym and my energy will be over 9000 in no time. I had two lectures today, continuing my 100% attendance. Again, this is a record, 100% for the first 3 weeks. There is something depressing about that.
My fiction class was cancelled, and, in lieu of stumbling home and doing nothing, I chose to join the other class, which was about publishing, and had a nice feeling of fulfilment when it was over. I have had to think today about how I want to be published. The e-book is taking over, and many fear this, many fear the online medium, but as the average person reads 3 books per year, there's hardly a booming market for lovely smelling literature.
I would like to write two or three novels and some short stories. I like the idea of a stageplay, but the form on the page is so alien to me I feel incapable of being comfortable enough to enjoy writing a script. Maybe, hopefully, that will change.
Tomorrow, aside from the gym I intend to do work, to plough into that train in my mini cooper and hope to survive the impact. Or even make a connection.
Today I am very tired, I had very little sleep, and it seems like there is a cloud on my head, fogging up everything, covering it in a grey blanket. At times I employ wit, at others I sit staring into space trying to think what is wrong. It's probably my Dad, but I don't think it is. I'm hoping tomorrow that it will all be cleared, perhaps a journey to the gym and my energy will be over 9000 in no time. I had two lectures today, continuing my 100% attendance. Again, this is a record, 100% for the first 3 weeks. There is something depressing about that.
My fiction class was cancelled, and, in lieu of stumbling home and doing nothing, I chose to join the other class, which was about publishing, and had a nice feeling of fulfilment when it was over. I have had to think today about how I want to be published. The e-book is taking over, and many fear this, many fear the online medium, but as the average person reads 3 books per year, there's hardly a booming market for lovely smelling literature.
I would like to write two or three novels and some short stories. I like the idea of a stageplay, but the form on the page is so alien to me I feel incapable of being comfortable enough to enjoy writing a script. Maybe, hopefully, that will change.
Tomorrow, aside from the gym I intend to do work, to plough into that train in my mini cooper and hope to survive the impact. Or even make a connection.
Tone
Tone plays a vital part in conversation, you can call your chinese friend "Jackie Chan", but in most other contexts it would be racist. This is obvious. It's fundamental. That nickname for a friend should have no hateful undertones, and that should be apparent.
That in mind, people don't seem to understand tone. It's really obvious, or at least you'd think it was. But it isn't. There are some people who really don't understand tone, and that worries me. I have straightface told somebody that I accidentally burned down a factory and killed 15 people, and I said it so casually that you'd assume it was a joke (particularly with the "16 if you could the unborn baby in the pregnant woman" line as an afterthought) but in this case, it was not so. I mean, at what point do you truly believe that an individual you are familiar with could non-chalantly drop some news that he burned 16 people to death? Surely on some level you must realise the tone, and understand that it doesn't quite fit.
And another person, who, on Facebook, saw her ex-boyfriend had joined a group playfully (or bitterly, depending on your outlook) titled "wanting to machine gun down your ex", and thought 'That is most certainly a death threat'. Yes, that facebook group with a few thousand people in it, that public facebook group, is a death threat. I mean, the police were even contacted, and assumably they said that the situation was retarded, and some people needed to stop wasting their time. But it didn't stop there, lectures were transferred from, contact with tutors. Over a facebook group. It's very egocentric to assume it's about one particular ex - he had a few ex's, and better yet the murder weapon, a machine-gun, yes, what an easily acquired piece of kit, they sell those on street corners and in vending machines. I don't see how that tone translates, somebody said it was ridiculous, somebody was scolded for not taking that facebook group death-threat seriously.
Then there's trolling. A serious tone, but easily detectable over long periods of time. I sat in a lecture writing "Women are only good for cleaning and childbirth" and baited a lovely girl I was sat next to. For the next two hours I filled that page with the most hateful, masogynistic crap I could think of, and at the end nearly was shiv'd (an actual death threat, which was hilarious). It's all ironed out now (which is why she's a lovely girl, and not "the woman who is filing formal complaints") and under the circumstances, the tone was perfect.
Seriously, and this only applies to a handful of people I know in real life, who don't read this blog anyway, so as to whom I am addressing here I am unsure, but seriously, just think for a second. Just one. Because I'm tired of sighing.
That in mind, people don't seem to understand tone. It's really obvious, or at least you'd think it was. But it isn't. There are some people who really don't understand tone, and that worries me. I have straightface told somebody that I accidentally burned down a factory and killed 15 people, and I said it so casually that you'd assume it was a joke (particularly with the "16 if you could the unborn baby in the pregnant woman" line as an afterthought) but in this case, it was not so. I mean, at what point do you truly believe that an individual you are familiar with could non-chalantly drop some news that he burned 16 people to death? Surely on some level you must realise the tone, and understand that it doesn't quite fit.
And another person, who, on Facebook, saw her ex-boyfriend had joined a group playfully (or bitterly, depending on your outlook) titled "wanting to machine gun down your ex", and thought 'That is most certainly a death threat'. Yes, that facebook group with a few thousand people in it, that public facebook group, is a death threat. I mean, the police were even contacted, and assumably they said that the situation was retarded, and some people needed to stop wasting their time. But it didn't stop there, lectures were transferred from, contact with tutors. Over a facebook group. It's very egocentric to assume it's about one particular ex - he had a few ex's, and better yet the murder weapon, a machine-gun, yes, what an easily acquired piece of kit, they sell those on street corners and in vending machines. I don't see how that tone translates, somebody said it was ridiculous, somebody was scolded for not taking that facebook group death-threat seriously.
Then there's trolling. A serious tone, but easily detectable over long periods of time. I sat in a lecture writing "Women are only good for cleaning and childbirth" and baited a lovely girl I was sat next to. For the next two hours I filled that page with the most hateful, masogynistic crap I could think of, and at the end nearly was shiv'd (an actual death threat, which was hilarious). It's all ironed out now (which is why she's a lovely girl, and not "the woman who is filing formal complaints") and under the circumstances, the tone was perfect.
Seriously, and this only applies to a handful of people I know in real life, who don't read this blog anyway, so as to whom I am addressing here I am unsure, but seriously, just think for a second. Just one. Because I'm tired of sighing.
Sunday 9 October 2011
Why I Will Never Post Book Excerpts
There are two main reasons why I won't post parts of my book. Don't get me wrong, there's no pretension that I am of any skill whatsoever, but even a beggar won't strip for free.
Number One: I am irrationally paranoid. This doesn't just apply to the reason I won't post, it's a pretty general trait. In this case, it means that I worry my awkward and contrived prose will be seized by some plagiarist ninjas, who constantly scour the web for the next Twilight (if they do find the next Twilight, I can only hope it is poisonous and the author and everybody who praise it are found dead, choked to death on their own over-romantic ecstacy.)
Number Two: My book is my baby. My poor, malformed, ill-concieved baby, and I love it, but I'd rather keep it in the house, behind closed doors and locked windows, because I don't want the local neighbourhood kids to lead it into the woods and stone it to death. It's a fear much bigger than number one, because I can live with somebody stealing my child (and consequently locking it in a basement) , but if they hate it, that's a whole different matter.
There are many other reasons, but I think those are the main two. I can't count "because I procrastinate so much" as a reason because one day I might actually come round to writing it. Or maybe I'll visit a blog and find a misshapen baby to steal.
Number One: I am irrationally paranoid. This doesn't just apply to the reason I won't post, it's a pretty general trait. In this case, it means that I worry my awkward and contrived prose will be seized by some plagiarist ninjas, who constantly scour the web for the next Twilight (if they do find the next Twilight, I can only hope it is poisonous and the author and everybody who praise it are found dead, choked to death on their own over-romantic ecstacy.)
Number Two: My book is my baby. My poor, malformed, ill-concieved baby, and I love it, but I'd rather keep it in the house, behind closed doors and locked windows, because I don't want the local neighbourhood kids to lead it into the woods and stone it to death. It's a fear much bigger than number one, because I can live with somebody stealing my child (and consequently locking it in a basement) , but if they hate it, that's a whole different matter.
There are many other reasons, but I think those are the main two. I can't count "because I procrastinate so much" as a reason because one day I might actually come round to writing it. Or maybe I'll visit a blog and find a misshapen baby to steal.
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