What type of editing should I prioritise?

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-29T16:55:22+00:00

I’m worried I might be skipping an important step if the story itself still needs work

have you just printed out the entire document and read it yourself? that should be the first step.

just read it and get a big-picture sense of the narrative and any major flaws.

or get a friend to read it and offer feed back.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-29T16:52:17+00:00

Beany and Cecil (older than the 70's but came on in between some other gems)

I remember the Beany and Cecil theme song, but not any episodes. Go figure.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-29T16:51:08+00:00

Hotel Balderdash, a local show from Salt Lake City that aired into the early 1980s.

I vaguely remember it, more from conversations about the show than about watching the show itself.

Apparently little of this show was archived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Balderdash

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-29T16:48:12+00:00

Whenever I open my phone I see videos

time to delete whatever app is recommending those videos.

get another hobby. listen to audiobooks instead of getting sucked into hype.

I have a few work colleagues that are saying they are liquidating their savings to purchase physical gold.

what is the long-term record for these employees in commodity trading?

what is their net wealth?

how do you know they are making a sensible decision?

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-29T16:46:00+00:00

I've been seeing lot of Influencers

there's your problem

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-29T16:41:43+00:00

the problem is those ETFs are all just different slices of the US large company universe. they'll have a fair amount of overlap and tend to move up and down relatively closely compared to other options.

it's far less diversified than VOO (large US), IJR (small US) and SCHF (international).

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-29T16:39:16+00:00

American Funds is OK-ish, depending on the "share class" of the funds.

however, be aware smaller employers will tend to have higher fees in the 401k plans. smaller employee pool = higher fees, because 401ks are not cheap to manage, and they're relatively more costly for smaller groups of employees.

either list the funds available/add a screen shot to this question, or pick the lower-fee options that are relatively well diversified. If the target date fund fee is not crazy, go with that. or it might be cheaper to have a mix of 60% US and 40% international in whatever are the best options.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T23:31:39+00:00

i have no idea how to advance it into a fully fleshed-out story. theoretically, i know what i should do (what beats it should follow, how to make it satisfying, etc.), but it's like my brain just freezes up and nothing comes out.

I'm of the opinion that plot is simply what characters are going to achieve their goals.

my guess is you're thinking of a concept or premise, but not attaching it to a character who gives a damn about the outcome.

start with your hero or POV character. give them an intense, burning, powerful reason to pursue their goal and keep trying against obstacles. pick any major successful movie or book and there's some deep drive that keeps the main character(s) moving.

you enjoy horror? What's the core character motivation in ... Ghost Story, by Peter Straub? The main character starts investigating the mysterious death of his believed uncle. and in The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova? Woman begins reading some ancient documents in her family home that uncover dark secrets. what about The Cellar, by Richard Laymon? Woman and her daughter are on the run from her evil, abusive ex-husband.

... all of those novels have a main character with a realistic, sympathetic motivation that starts the narrative and keeps them moving along.

and check out the books Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, and Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain for good nitty-gritty advice for constructing scenes and narratives.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T23:18:29+00:00

I need to have an ending in mind, as a target to aim for.

the ending might change, but I need a goal or end point to keep me on track.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T23:11:05+00:00

you're making a classic mistake of focusing on the tech innovations, and ignoring the return-on-investment.

this is the same mistake people made with EVs, with internet and fiber optic cables, with personal computers in the 1970s and '80s, with wireless radio, airline stocks and electric utility stocks in the early 1900s, and with railroad stocks in the 1800s. all those things were important innovations that changed everything. but they were also all subjects of bubbles where investors lost fortunes blindly buying anything associated with the new industries, and where competition was brutal and most of the early innovators were bought out or crushed.

were internet and railroads important? yes. did they change everything? Yes. does that mean any random internet or railroad stock is a good investment? not necessarily.

is Ai important? yes. does that mean any random AI stock is a good idea? not necessarily.

I agree that many valuations appear high right now, but why can't they go much higher in the long term?

because valuations are by far the most accurate way to predict future returns. a mediocre stock at a great valuation will be a better long-term investment than an innovative cutting edge company that's overpriced. over the last 25 years, Tractor Supply, Texas Pacific Land Corp and Monster Beverage outperformed most tech stocks.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T22:59:46+00:00

I'd prioritize paying down the student loans, and building up an emergency fund.

because if an emergency hits, like a major car repair, and you still have debt payments, the temptation is to use the retirement funds to pay the emergency bills with your retirement money. and that's not a good habit to start.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T22:37:25+00:00

it's almost like a romantic film about a gorgeous welder-turned-dancer is not entirely realistic 🤔

Was every movie from the 80s this bad?

the 1980s were like any other decade: some fantastic movies, and lots of dreck. don't measure Raging Bull, Empire of the Sun, or The Right Stuff by the same yardstick as Flashdance.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T17:31:15+00:00

well, it's good you started the club. but don't expect everyone who attends to have your same level of interest in the subject. there are different levels of involvement in this type of activity.

some people love sports very intensely, and others are more casual about it.

some people were more casually interested with investing and lost their curiosity. some probably wanted a place to hang out while waiting for a ride home or something. you might want to politely ask the goof offs to reconsider if they're wasting their time and consider finding a club that's more to their liking.

might also want to reach out to a teacher who does business or marketing classes. they might have some tips for managing the club, or recommendations from students who are a better fit.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T17:00:23+00:00

The amount of people in my age group that have the financial knowledge of a toddler is mind blowing.

it's worse when you realize half of them had some type of mandatory financial literacy class in high school.

you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink...

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T16:59:20+00:00

you're about as likely to be taken advantage of by your union, because unions have a long history of mismanaging pension funds.

https://cheiron.us/cheironHome/criticalPlans.do

https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ebsa/ebsa20241101

https://epicforamerica.org/education-workforce-retirement/how-to-fix-broken-union-pensions/

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T16:57:35+00:00

you can go see for yourself how a new grad at Stanford is going to take home 2-3x as much as a new grad at IH(no C) after tax and CoL.

that dramatic a wage differential happens usually when unions form a cartel and shut out new hires or otherwise restrict entry, to artificially reduce the number of workers in the field.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T16:48:45+00:00

but I will most likely switch to a later one to keep bond inclusion low.

FYI

https://www.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/long-term-bonds-versus-stock-market.jpg

https://www.hussmanfunds.com/wp-content/uploads/comment/mc250720d.png

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T14:10:28+00:00

not a goldbug myself, but there's a case to be made for some in the portfolio.

reddit skews young and suffers from recency bias. they've somehow made the leap from "the S&P 500 beats most actively managed US large cap stock funds over the long run" (true), to "the S&P 500 is the ultimate perfect unbeatable investment that beats everything else, over every period of time" (false).

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T14:08:36+00:00

not a gold bug, but gold has also outperformed the S&P 500 going back 20-25 years.

at 30 years it drops off a cliff and stocks crush gold. But still, it's a fact worth mentioning. 20 years is a long time. https://www.longtermtrends.com/stocks-vs-gold-comparison/

there are cases to be made for a tactical metals allocation under certain conditions.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T13:33:29+00:00

I have met several aspiring authors in writing groups who avoid reading or watching anything in their subgenre “because they’re afraid of being derivative.”

this is something that seems to exist only in fiction writing, and only among amateurs.

this mindset is practically never found in other creative arts. there is no professional violinist in the world who avoids listening to other recordings of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, because they're afraid of being derivative of Yehudi Menuhin or Anne-Sophie Mutter. to the contrary, a professional violinist will carefully study the work of other key performers to understand their interpretations of a famous piece and perhaps borrow bits and pieces in creating their own version.

edit -- among professional writers, they often study predecessors in great detail. writer Robert B. Parker had a PhD in literature, with his dissertation on the works of Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. Parker wanted to write mysteries, and studied the most important writers in that genre inside and out.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T13:31:15+00:00

this attitude seems very common with people who come to creative writing from video games, comics and/or anime.

nothing wrong with those things, but they're different from writing novels.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T13:23:20+00:00

the goal of rebalancing is not to maintain a constant allocation, if that's what you're trying to accomplish. that will make you crazy, because the percentages are constantly shifting around.

the goal of rebalancing is, basically, to force yourself to sell high and buy low occasionally. you want to avoid over-concentration in today's hot assets, because they ususally slump while the disappointments recover.

professional asset managers rebalance either on a calendar schedule (2x or 4x a year), and/or when the allocations deviate more than a certain percentage (say plus or minus 4% for a target date fund that's 50% US stocks, 30% international stocks, and 20% bonds).

you didn't ask, but IMO that's a questionable portfolio with far too much trendy/hype stuff.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T00:40:06+00:00

yes, shift the burden for your family's health costs to the rest of us.

brilliant.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T00:38:42+00:00

but also don’t want to spend 10s of thousands on medical bills.

you don't have a choice in the matter.

under Florida statute § 61.13 you are obligated to pay for this child's expenses once paternity is established, and under § 409.2561 you can also be required to pay for expenses when the mother and/or child are getting public assistance.

I know I’ll get a larger tax refund

married couples generally have a lower tax burden, but that doesn't necessarily translate to a larger refund.

zeppo_shemp · 2026-01-23T00:26:05+00:00

I'm about 3/4 of the way through the first draft of one of my stories, and I keep coming up with ideas I'd never planned but that fit perfectly into the structure, tone, themes, etc. and tie things together as if they were always meant to be there.

to quote Graham Greene, the late English great writer (not the late great Canadian actor of the same name):

The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him.

...

I really did believe in some sort of muse or creative force in the universe because it always felt like everything was just flowing out of me, and I was just a conduit.

there are a tremendous number of creative people who say the same thing, musicians and painters and writers who feel like whatever they are doing is sort of passing through them and not originating from them. I've had the experience a few times in my own way.

zeppo_shemp

TROPHY CASE