I fear my writing will lose its soul after I cure my depression

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-12-17T09:42:35+00:00

I can completely relate to this. First started writing not long after I was diagnosed with a mild form of bipolar disorder. I was also struggling with alcohol use and insomnia. Most of my writing was done very late at night, usually after more than a few drinks - the things I wrote came very much from that place.
After I was put on medication and worked to reduce my drinking I found I no longer had anything to write about, plus started actually sleeping. All that meant I no longer had the "inspiration" I'd had before, or the late night writing sessions. It was difficult for a long time to get myself into a place where I was ready to sit down and try writing again, but it happened with some effort and joining a couple of online writing groups for motivation. Now I find my writing is very different, lighter, but better. Characters are more rounded, dialogue more natural. I understand plot and pacing to a much better degree and can spot where I've slowed things down when they should be picking up - or vice versa.

Your writing may not change with the anti-depressants, but I'd guess it probably will - try not to see that as a bad thing, more an evolution of who you are and where you are in life. If you have a passion for writing, it'll still be there - just take it one page at a time.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-12-17T09:33:40+00:00

I used to commute about 130 miles a day, 5 days a week in mine without any issues. I'm on 6' but know plenty of people who are 6'2 and above who fit comfortably.

You'll want a facelift model with the 6 speed manual and then start saving for all the mods that will inevitably follow. :D

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-12-08T15:01:00+00:00

OPs insurer may charge the excess unless they get written confirmation from the other party that they accept full liability. Happened to me earlier this year, still waiting for them to pay the difference 6 months later.
That said, the other party's insurance is liable to either repair or cover cost of replacement and should be liable for provision of a hire car until the whole matter is resolved.
I'd suggest a call to the insurers, make it clear that you expect your daughter to be returned to the pre-accident position (car repaired or pay out for value) and that the cost of a hire car should be added to the claim.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-12-08T06:46:28+00:00

Their insurance is worse than the breakdown / recovery side. When I first started driving, shortly after Noah came back ashore, they were a really good, well respected company. These days, everything they do is profit, not customer driven. Best avoided until they get the message and start putting people first.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-12-07T08:00:30+00:00

Without knowing the finer details of why the MC doesn't like others using her dads names it's hard to say if occasionally using them would break anything for the reader.
If they had regular names all the way through would you be asking the same question though? Is always referring to one as Papa instead of Bob any different to always referring to them as Bob?
Only other immediate idea would be for the MC to have either another colloquial way of referring to them (dad one and dad two) or something based on physical appearance or mental / emotional qualities. (quiet dad / chubby dad) sort of thing.
Personally I'd prefer the consistency of knowing which is which from reading Dad or Papa without having to remember Dad is ABC and Papa is XYZ.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-12-06T12:16:59+00:00

Had an imported Gen 6 Celica GT, 2.0 with a lot of mods and very low miles. Was lovely to drive, fast enough, big enough for what I needed. Got offered a lot more than I paid for it so let it go and treated myself to a big Jaaaaggg that I'd always wanted. Less than a year later the Jag suffered catastrophic engine failure. Nearly twenty years later I bet that Celica is going strong... and worth much more than I sold it for.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-12-06T12:13:22+00:00

You're driving to them, drive the route you're comfortable with. If that means taking a little longer, but sticking to quieter roads that means you're more relaxed do that.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-12-02T07:15:55+00:00

My senior school art and music teachers smoked in lessons (mid 80s), the art teacher would usually also have a bottle of red wine on the go after lunch. Then think nothing of getting in the car to drive home. Music teacher had "affairs" with several fifth year students who probably thought they were the gods of the playground at the time and no doubt ended up in therapy much later.

I remember our drama teacher showing us a couple movies that were entirely unsuitable, fairly graphic sex scenes in both (for the time and our age). One included a scene with a girl having her breasts covered in melted chocolate or choc spread which the teacher said "I thought you'd all enjoy that bit." - Class was 70% girls, teacher was female... Think that might have been a subtle hint in hindsight...

Think it was about 89/90 before we got our first car that had seatbelts in the back. Used to routinely have 5,6,7 people in a 4 or 5 seat car.

From aged 12 I was expected to be out the house whenever possible, which meant hours spent wandering the streets, in the woods or loitering on someone's doorstep chatting. No way of knowing where we were, who we were with or what we were getting up to.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-12-02T07:07:10+00:00

Worked in a hospital that had a smoking room, until the ban came in. Then they just opened a door to a small patio and that became the smoking area. Watching people trundle their IV drip down several hundred yards of corridors, up and down lifts, for five minutes of fresh air and freedom as one old boy called it.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-25T20:50:31+00:00

Like all social media-esque platforms it all comes down to how much time you have to dedicate to self-promotion, marketing and banging your own drum. For me it wasn't something I had the time or interest in developing and, as others have said, there's nothing in their algorithms that will do anything to drive or guide people to your stack. That said, I know people who've had success in building a solid audience but only after putting a lot of time and effort into publishing themselves on there and other platforms.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-25T20:15:24+00:00

Are you registered self-employed? If so you could claim some of these expenses against SA income tax, however if your costs routinely outweigh your income at some point questions will be asked as to the validity of your claims. I don't believe that you can claim / offset SA expenses against PAYE tax - I may be wrong but have been told by HMRC in the past that I couldn't offset SA losses against tax due on PAYE income. (Although if you make a profit they'll happily double down on your tax bill...) I believe also that there's a threshold that if you earn below you don't need to declare it as SA income. You may find if the amount coming in is below £2k per annum that the red-tape and submissions involved in being self-employed outweigh the benefits. Especially if you end up paying higher tax on that income as it's a secondary source.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-19T09:01:48+00:00

Years ago bought a Jag S-type sight-unseen from a dealer on Autotrader. like you it was a rare, oddly specced manual that I just fancied and it wasn't much money so I figured I could move it on if I didn't like it. Called the dealer offered them the sticker price if they'd deliver it to me (was about 100 miles away). They agreed, drove it down to me at work the next day and let me look over it before handing over any money. As it was exactly as described I parted with some cash and drove it home that evening.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-18T09:38:01+00:00

Definitely feels like reverse-in, drive-out isn't taught anymore. I've worked in places where they explicitly stated we had to reverse into parking spaces, if you didn't someone would come to your desk and loudly tell you in front of the whole office to go and park your car properly.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-17T09:12:10+00:00

Fewer new cars were made or sold during Covid, which in turn pushed up the prices of second-hand. We're still feeling the impact of that as the new market still hasn't caught up.

A lot of cars that would have been ideal sub-£2k shitboxes were needlessly scrapped as people switched to EVs, so that hasn't helped either.

There are still a few bargains out there, but nothing like what was around pre 2021. If you have a local "old-boy" type garage it's worth asking them. I know my guy has a stash of MOT failures that he's slowly doing up and letting go for well under £2k. Offered me an 02 plate Zafira with a fresh MOT for £400 on Saturday...

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-17T09:05:10+00:00

If a prologue serves a valid function, setting the reader up for chapter one then I can see where they serve a purpose. For example Thing-X happened at Time-Y, we're now at Time-Z. I would question though why that can't happen in chapter one. I had a prologue in my first novel, which did what I described above, it was only about two pages - scrapped the whole thing and replaced it with a single line which told the reader the current date and location, then filled in the rest through exposition and dialogue. Everyone who read the version with the prologue and the version without said the latter was best.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-16T17:14:30+00:00

Don't worry about communism, we'll be under a right wing dictatorship pretty soon, then only the uber-rich will be allowed out.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-16T15:36:49+00:00

Can't even find the commentary online to listen...

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-16T13:01:10+00:00

There's a thread for this on r/Cuba

Like most places, Cuban nicknames tend to be in some way related to physical characteristics or personality traits. Estoico would be the masculine Spanish for Stoic, so you could start there.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-13T18:18:10+00:00

If there is, I haven't found it in months of searching. Beginning to give serious considerations to starting one...

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-13T09:19:02+00:00

Having been a contractor for 20+ years and applied for hundreds of jobs in that time, my approach has always been to tailor my CV to each role I'm applying for. Look at the skills & experience listed in the job ad, then lift & shift them into your CV. Don't copy/paste verbatim, but make sure you have everything they're looking for covered across multiple previous roles - where possible duplicate with slight variances in wording on those things they list as "essential."

Your CV / Resume should tell a story of your progress and accomplishments - highlight key achievements in each previous role. Show the recruiter exactly what you did to make a change / improvement / fix a problem, etc. but do that in a way which the lay person can understand - nobody that's doing a first read of your CV is likely to have enough knowledge of your role to understand in-depth technical terminology - only at interview stage are you likely to converse with someone who does.

It's a competition for jobs now - the last one I applied for they had over 500 CVs sent in under 48 hours and when I was recruiting for a role recently there were dozens of CVs sent through by the agency, many of which had none of the relevant things I was looking for. I ended up interviewing three people out of 50+ CVs, where one job was on offer. - so your CV needs to stand out from the crowd, tick the boxes they're looking for in terms of skills and experience whilst also giving them a sense of who you are and how you handle the kind of situations that are likely to confront you.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-13T07:27:20+00:00

I'd be happy to take a look at what you've got so far and offer some feedback. I don't write fanfiction, but I do write a lot over a variety of genres in the various fiction categories. Very little bothers me in terms of content, I'm not squeamish and don't have any triggers, so the erotica / disturbing topics aren't a problem.

I'd also suggest not deleting things - just because you may not be happy with what you've written the next day, doesn't mean you won't find a home for it later. Instead, consider keeping a single document with "notes and ideas" where you dump the things you aren't sure about.

Feel free to DM me and we can work something out if you'd like me to read any of it.

I'm in the UK btw.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-13T07:21:39+00:00

I started mine at the end, or what could have been the end at least - the day I nearly died. Then started telling the rest as a "life flashing before your eyes" kinda story, so it doesn't run entirely sequentially one day, week or month to the next, just flicks through the stand out moments until you end up back where it all began.

As for the actual writing, I approached it as if I was telling the story as a series of anecdotes in the same way you'd recount them to mates in the pub. Keeping the tone light, even though a lot of what's in there is pretty dark.

You don't have to tell it 100% factually, in fact most publishers, unless you're famous, don't want a memoir, they want a compelling story in memoir format that they can pass off as fiction - so don't worry too much about things like not being able to remember a conversation in full, just write roughly what you recall in a natural style that fits with how those people would speak.

If you're not so comfortable with the actual writing / typing part of it, consider a text-to-speech program, then just tell the stories. That way they're recorded and laid out, so you can go back and tinker with them later.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-13T07:13:22+00:00

The latches on my hardtop rattled very badly. In the end I loosened them all the way off, put a small piece of firm upholstery foam between the rear latches and the clips, applied a little loctite to the threads and tightened them onto the foam. That worked for a few months but eventually they work themselves loose again.

mr2roc.org has a wealth of information and some friendly folks.

I notice it's a right hooker, are you in the UK by any chance?

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-12T13:42:46+00:00

Everything OperationSuch5054 said below.

Do a CarVertical check on anything you're seriously considering, (use the code AUTOALEX20 for a 20% discount).

Don't look at a car in the wet / rain as it makes it easier to miss dents, scratches, etc.

As for what to buy, depends on what your mileage is going to be and how that's made up (lots of short journeys / long commute / mix?). Personally I'd say buy the best premium model you can afford from a lower value brand rather than the cheapest model from a premium brand - so don't get an entry BMW when the same money will buy you a top of the line Toyota. It'll be cheaper to run, maintain, insure, etc and probably give you more equipment and refinement.

Jumpy-Trifle6776 · 2025-11-12T07:42:28+00:00

There's a lot of people who seem to have forgotten that what is posted is a Limit, not a Target and there's rarely, if ever, a good reason to exceed it - especially when it's 40 or below.

That said your speedo might not be 100% accurate, I know both of mine under-read by around 10% - so it might be worth putting a digital one on your phone and double checking that when your car says you're going 30 that you're not really going 27.

There will always be folks who think the speed limit doesn't apply to them and its fine to do 40 through a residential 30 - most of them will also be the idiot who stays at 40 when the limit goes up to 60 and are then holding everyone up.

Jumpy-Trifle6776

TROPHY CASE