Can’t make it to game, 2 tickets. If anyone wants to go just let me know and I can send through Ballpark.
EDIT: Hey everyone, thanks for responding. I checked timestamps on comments and DMs and sent to the earliest responder. Hope we have a win tomorrow, go Reds!
Pics aren’t the best in the world, but this sandwich turned out really good. Lightly toasted rosemary focaccia with pesto, prosciutto, burrata, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes, shaved white onion, and fresh tomatoes marinated in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Finished with lemon zest, a squeeze of lemon juice, sea salt, black pepper, and a drizzle of the sun-dried tomato oil.
Messy as hell, but every bite worked. A great summer sandwich.
A few months ago I gave detailed feedback to a writer who had posted here. I read multiple drafts, wrote page-long notes, discussed structure, theme, character, pacing, and continued the conversation through DMs after the original thread was locked. At first, they seemed genuinely eager to improve. That’s great.
But over time the conversations changed. Less “What did you think?” and more “What should happen next?”. Every message was pages of their plans and questions, and all just became another story problem for me to solve for them; “How should Act 3 work? What should the aliens do? Should I rewrite everything after page 40? What’s the natural continuation? How do I fix this character? What scenes should come next?”.
Eventually I realized the discussion wasn’t really about feedback anymore. It had become an attempt to outsource authorship.
The final straw wasn’t even the screenplay questions. After I stopped responding for a while, he tracked down my profile, found unrelated comments I’d made elsewhere, and publicly jumped in to correct me over a minor point. Then he went right back to sending walls of text about his script.
At this point I very politely told him I couldn’t keep doing developmental-level reads and that he needed to start solving some of these story problems himself through rewriting and experimentation. His response was essentially, “I’m not asking you to write it for me,” followed by another massive message asking how to solve pacing issues, whether entire sections should be rewritten, where the story should go next, and whether certain plotlines would work. I just went ahead and blocked him.
Readers can tell you where they’re confused, where they’re bored, where they’re engaged, and where the story loses focus. What readers cannot do is write the story for you.
If someone gives you thoughtful feedback, appreciate it. Learn from it, ask those clarifying questions if they are open to it. But don’t slowly turn them into your unpaid developmental editor, story consultant, therapist, and co-writer.
Not sure how I’m just now seeing this but…it still hurts…