dating yourself?

[patientlee]

Seriously? You didn't finish the bottle?

My youngest is big on seriously too.

I did. I just didn't want any flies to get in it in the meantime. We were camping. Seriously.

 

[patientlee]

Will you be eating also, that would be like a fantasy or something.

I don't even know what you're talking about. Go get me another beer and stop trying to cheer me up.

 

[Doopey]

 

[StrangeLife]

At my house it's "seriously?"

We had a "you know what I'm saying" phase, where that phrase seemed to completely replace the period.

It helped when I began using "groovy" and "gnarly" in the presence of their friends as revenge....

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I've run into a few women I knew 25 years ago when I was 40 and they were 20-somethings who ridiculed me for being ancient. Well theyre now 50-somethings and do not welcome the reunion. And the hotties I dated in the 60s like reunions least of all. Their faces and necks remind me of old candles.

I don't write youngsters in my stories, so the costumes and slang and morays aren't anything I deal with.

Kids haven't changed much over time.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

No, no, I'm not talking about taking yourself out for dinner and a movie and hoping for a bit of a tickle afterward ...


Today I felt old. Not only because I have arthritis in my back and it hurts ...



I was at a get-together for kindergarten parents at one of the little girl's house. It was all moms, but there is one single dad who likes to make it to these little outings, and I applaud him in his willingness to hang out with all the ladies. He grew up in this neighborhood, and mentioned that he graduated from the local high school in ... 2003!!! What?

It made me feel so old! I graduated from high school in 1990!

And it made me think about writing ... are there things you aspire to keep out of your stories, or to put in them, to keep yourself from sounding dated?

I mean, we're all on the internet, so we've got enough of a grasp of technology to not sound like a dinosaur when writing, and I like to think I'm kind of young and keep up with technology, music, books, that young people are into ... but I have to admit there are definitely things out there that the young people are into that I know nothing about.

Does anyone do research to keep their younger characters sounding authentic? How do we keep up as writers who continue to age? Do you find yourself writing about older characters the older you get?

Anyone have directions to the Fountain of Youth?

Hahaha...1990...I had not only been out of high school for twenty years, I had complete four years of Military service, been back to school to learn about them newfangled things called computers, and had been working with them a decade already.

 

[lovecraft68]

Back in the 70's when I lived in the hood it was "solid!" usually spoken by someone with an Afro too big to fit in the door and a big plastic pick stuck in it.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I probably date myself in my writing. I never use hip hop references, my characters don't tweet, they don't have tumbler, and they don't use text speak. I have teenage children; I know what kids are into, but I don't ape their speech or behaviors.

 

[Blind_Justice]

I have considered myself tech-savvy, but ever since that smartphone explosion, I feel lost. No day without a new social media app, most of them missing at least one vowel (like flickr, rdio or whatever), and no day without an idiot tripping over my cane because his tablet PC was impeding his vision. I am blind, people are supposed to evade me, not the other way round.

 

[Saxon_Hart]

I had to fix a few places where I had a character say "Psyche!" every time he was fuckin with someone.
You graduated in 90? I worked with a kid, his birthday was the day I graduated high school...May 22, 1988.

 

[userid_unknown]

I was kinda hoping this thread was about self love.....
*sigh

 

[patientlee]

Who's heard of Yik Yak? It's purpose is to text anonymously within a 5 mile radius. Anything you post goes to everybody in that area with YY installed. It's the perfect app for cyber bullying, calling in fake bomb threats, and a host of other non-beneficial-to-society activities.

We had assemblies to discuss it with the kids today at school.

Just one more thing...

 

[Saxon_Hart]

Who's heard of Yik Yak? It's purpose is to text anonymously within a 5 mile radius. Anything you post goes to everybody in that area with YY installed. It's the perfect app for cyber bullying, calling in fake bomb threats, and a host of other non-beneficial-to-society activities.

We had assemblies to discuss it with the kids today at school.

Just one more thing...

In my day we had to carve our bomb threats on stone and drag the to the venue.

 

[Blind_Justice]

We had assemblies to discuss it with the kids today at school.

Just one more thing...

When I was in school, only one kid had a cell, one of those huge, bricky things. Everybody else thought crap like that would never catch on. Oh boy, were they wrong.

Patient: why not a blanket "no cell" rule? Last thing I heard of American schools, you were close to airport levels of paranoia, what with gun searches and the like

(plays the "ignorant foreignrr card)

 

[RejectReality]

I try to stay away from music references of late, but otherwise, I can silently pick the brains of all the class of 2013 that is all around me on breaks at work every day.

Between that and Cheezburger memes, I can keep up well enough to flavor the younger characters.

I do need to remember to move them away from texting to chat apps, though. Seems the carriers are in a price war over data plans, making using the apps far cheaper than sending texts.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I try to stay away from music references of late, but otherwise, I can silently pick the brains of all the class of 2013 that is all around me on breaks at work every day.

Between that and Cheezburger memes, I can keep up well enough to flavor the younger characters.

I do need to remember to move them away from texting to chat apps, though. Seems the carriers are in a price war over data plans, making using the apps far cheaper than sending texts.

It should be the other way around -- app usage counts against data plans, whereas most plans have unlimited texting

 

[sr71plt]

Is there an English translation for all of this?

 

[Swilly]

Is there an English translation for all of this?

Yes. Don't get old!

 

[SamScribble]

Yes. Don't get old!

And if it's too late to take that particular exit ...?

 

[JKendallDane]

I like to toss a "dated" reference into a story every once in a while just to see if it gets a reaction. For example, I have a stroker to be released in the next few weeks where I managed to work in The Beach Boys, The BeeGees, and Lady Gaga all in the same two paragraphs when setting up the scene of a modern day prom.

I've actually used "you made me explode like Mount St. Helens" and wondered if that bit of imagery was lost on anyone born after the fact.

Luckily...so far anyway...I have managed to NOT mention slipping an eight track into the under-the-dash player when music in a car was mentioned.

 

[AirRichard101]

This is far out, man!

 

[Hypoxia]

I mostly write period pieces. I quit being an up-to-date tech wiz about 15 years ago, and I don't pretend to know or care about the details of current first-world events and trends. I'm now collaborating on a contemporary story -- my younger co-writer handles current language and gadgetry. Not my realm of expertise. Like Dirty Harry said, a person's gotta know their limitations.

 

[Handley_Page]

Seriously. This banana cream isn't great. The chocolate is ok. The beer is decent though.

Seriously.

Really ?
You got decent English Bitter ?

 

[patientlee]

When I was in school, only one kid had a cell, one of those huge, bricky things. Everybody else thought crap like that would never catch on. Oh boy, were they wrong.

Patient: why not a blanket "no cell" rule? Last thing I heard of American schools, you were close to airport levels of paranoia, what with gun searches and the like

(plays the "ignorant foreignrr card)

Nope. Our school goes with the idea that if we let them use their phones, that we can teach them to use them responsibly. I support it. Before we changed the policy, I spent more time policing the phones than I did teaching.

They actually use them in my classroom to do work- flash cards, etc. they also submit all of their work electronically by snapping a pic of their work.

 

[patientlee]

Really ?
You got decent English Bitter ?

IPA. Sam Adams, of all things. We usually go with microbrews, but they didn't have any of our usuals in the cooler, and I had a baaad day.

I've never had an English bitter. I like a very hoppy IPA.