# Why is it 4am and what am I doing here?



## Cunningstuff (Jan 1, 2019)

I do hope that I have a better title than hello! No offense to hello's and hi's, they are certainly the worthy titles for this thread. Not really interested in running on and about myself, I would rather my words speak for themselves...so to speak. I do however, want to participate, so I will do a little bit of historical verbal regurgitation.

I am old enough at 50, to know I am an idiot. I prefer a casual approach to writing, and I do think up to a certain point, rules of _proper_ english are simply places for people who have to little creativity to argue about what they think you should have done. I am not, nor will I ever be a proper or technical writer.

Expect science as a fantasy. Expect that I know nothing more than any other. Expect I may be frustrating, haltingly so, and oblivious to a lot of things. Expect that I will also be highly contradictory in most of my ideas. In reality, I am an atheist who worships the moon and reads tarot.

Feel free to say hello or whatever you like, oblique or rediculous answers are also considered. 

-Stuff

*A special thank you to the organizers and volunteers who run this site. I found all starting information clear, rules obvious and the 10 post limit an excellent way to remove a good portion of the bored and dispirited from attaining entry!*


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## Gumby (Jan 1, 2019)

Hi Cunningstuff and welcome! 50 is a great age to start writing. You've lived long enough to have a wealth of experience to draw on.


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## Cunningstuff (Jan 2, 2019)

Well thankie, experiences I have, but wisdom, she took a left back at Albuquerque. Thank yah though!


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## TuesdayEve (Jan 2, 2019)

Hello Cunningstuff,
I’m a late bloomer as well, though recently I’ve written
very little. Poetry was my surprize genre at 63 and 
quite soon after I found this place. There are many here
who are generous with their time and knowledge and 
willing to share their experience to further your 
evolution. So feel free to expore and enjoy. Welcome.


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## Cunningstuff (Jan 31, 2019)

TuesdayEve said:


> Hello Cunningstuff,
> I’m a late bloomer as well, though recently I’ve written
> very little. Poetry was my surprize genre at 63 and
> quite soon after I found this place. There are many here
> ...



Inspiring! I will be posting today. It is science fiction, but I gotta start with my idea right?


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## Tim (Jan 31, 2019)

"I am old enough at 50, to know I am an idiot."

What an odd thing to say.


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## escorial (Jan 31, 2019)

Graveyards full of people who wanted to be 51


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## Tim (Jan 31, 2019)

Some of those people would even be happy with a smokers cough.


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## Kevin (Jan 31, 2019)

If you're never wrong long enough they let you be president. You have to have some money and a big mouth, too. A gigantic one, the biggest ever. At 51 I once ate New York City. And Texas. Yes, Texas too, I ate all of it. It was delicious.


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## Gumby (Jan 31, 2019)

Cunningstuff said:


> Well thankie, experiences I have, but wisdom, she took a left back at Albuquerque. Thank yah though!



Lol! I've had that happen too many times, myself. In those instances, I just change the pronunciation from _wisdom_ to _we'sdumb_.


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## Myk3y (Jan 31, 2019)

Tim said:


> Some of those people would even be happy with a smokers cough.



It’s not the cough that carries you off - it’s the coffin they carry you off in...

I gave up smoking about a week before Christmas.

It’s happened before - I’m a seasoned giver-upper.


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## Anita M Shaw (Jan 31, 2019)

Hi there! At 68, my family doesn't consider me an idiot for the odd things I may do or say, nor do they accept my age as culprit, which I try to blame sometimes. However, they've described my mind as a highway with off ramps galore and off ramps off the off ramps and some of those clogged with traffic and accidents . . . Not sure what that actually makes me, but, hey, welcome to our writerly club with all of our quirks and idiosyncrasies!
.


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## Cunningstuff (Feb 1, 2019)

Myk3y said:


> It’s not the cough that carries you off - it’s the coffin they carry you off in...
> 
> I gave up smoking about a week before Christmas.
> 
> It’s happened before - I’m a seasoned giver-upper.



DON'T GIVE UP GIVING UP - I gave up about ten years ago. I do not smoke at all anymore except with my ex wife, true story.


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## Myk3y (Feb 2, 2019)

I've never given up giving up, but I have found better reasons to smoke than not.

I'm not an addictive personality, I can dabble and stop without much issue. Even when smoking regularly, if I ran out or was in a situation where smoking wasn't an option (like 50 hours of airline travel) it never really worried me, whereas some of my friends get positively cranky if they miss out for an hour.

I'll continue being stopped until something better comes along.

I have a vape, but I'd rather not smoke at all than use those things.


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## Cunningstuff (Feb 2, 2019)

Myk3y said:


> I've never given up giving up, but I have found better reasons to smoke than not.
> 
> I'm not an addictive personality, I can dabble and stop without much issue. Even when smoking regularly, if I ran out or was in a situation where smoking wasn't an option (like 50 hours of airline travel) it never really worried me, whereas some of my friends get positively cranky if they miss out for an hour.
> 
> ...



I am avoiding the vape. I am also not an addictive personality ... ummm per se. I have been called that and worse, but yah know the only person who matters is thine own self.


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## Kaioh (Feb 3, 2019)

Cunningstuff said:


> I am old enough at 50, to know I am an idiot.


I'm not 50 but I've never related to a quote more lol~
It's nice to meet you Cunningstuff hope you like it here!


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## JustRob (Feb 10, 2019)

Hi CS, I have some catching up to do, but I've been spending some time building my vintage computer in the 1960s and have returned briefly as it's Sunday and my mind doesn't wander through time on Sundays. Instead I spend this time being sociable with my angel (wife). She's doing something on her iPad at the moment (maybe for WF as she's also a member) so I've popped in to see what's been happening here recently. Time is a tricky dimension to play with. For example the explanation why it may appear to be 4am (or thereabouts) to you currently is that you are in Australia while we are in the UK.

I have looked briefly (I read very fast though.) at your thread "Every Dog has his Day" and may well comment eventually (time permitting), so I thought that I ought to introduce myself in case you haven't been reading WF as a non-member and noticed my activities previously.

My angel (BlondeAverageReader) and I mainly read as beta readers rather than write here, so my comments tend to be subjective as a reader. Nevertheless at the age of 66 I did write a, possibly science fiction, novel back in 2011 for no evident reason, my only effort ever at writing fiction. Clearly I am not an addictive type then, but this is understandable when such an activity seemed to me to be hazardous to my health. I discovered that my story about people able to acquire information from the future was apparently inspired by events in my own future, so of course I felt that I had to give up writing fiction. If you think about it, I am now in my mid seventies and if I ever got writer's block it might indicate that I no longer had any future! I'd rather not know that. It is clear that writers struggle with such bouts of block but for me it would create truly morbid feelings. Of course possibly I haven't actually stopped writing fiction even now and this is all just BS, but that's WF and indeed life for you.

I myself was in my early twenties when I realised that I was an idiot, so I killed off my persona and created a new one ... who promptly made being an idiot, or rather an ignoramus, into a profession. In other words I learned how to use ignorance as a tool to persuade people to explain things to me, an essential skill when one is designing computer systems for them and need to understand how they think and what they need, as opposed to what they ask for. An idiot doesn't learn but an ignoramus who isn't an idiot knows that he must and does, so people are more willing to tell him things. On that basis I welcome you to WF and the world of writing as a potential ignoramus much like me, but trust that you are not really an idiot.


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