Today, my teenage son gave me the completed manuscript of the novel he's been working on for 4 years. Surprised and excited that he showed so much dedication to something, I volunteered to read it. I'm only on page 16 and it's absolute drivel, with grammar that makes my eyes bleed. Only 281 pages to go. FML
Collection
Wild Nights Out
Last call, bad decisions and 3 a.m. texts you'll regret until noon. Cheers.
Today, I finally asked some friends to read the beginning of a novel that I'd been slaving away at. One of them said it was the literary equivalent of aquarium gravel. Another asked if I'd been sniffing boot polish while writing it. FML
Today, I'm grading final projects for a junior level college class. A student finally turned in their work, after months of encouragement and coaxing. Half of it was plain wrong, the rest had so many spelling and grammatical mistakes, it appeared to be written by a drunk autocorrect program. FML
Today, my boss asked me to read through a document. I gave my feedback, saying it seemed like it had been written by an 8-year-old. Turns out it was in fact written by him. FML
Today, my 18-year-old son got his first tattoo. I would have loved it, if it wasn't a text on his hand with a glaring spelling mistake in it. FML
Today, I submitted my 5000 word assignment. When I got home, my mother asked if I'd checked it through one more time like she always warned me to do. I hadn't, therefore hadn't noticed the paragraph on page 11 that she'd written, telling me to pay attention to the small details. FML
Today, I had my teacher look over my essay before turning it in. He said it was extremely well-written, so I handed it in. When I got it back, the feedback he left said it was one of the worst essays he'd ever read. FML
Today, I uploaded the first chapter of my best writing yet to a popular writing website. After ten minutes, I was thrilled to already see one review and five comments. Each comment was telling me to immediately delete the story because of how horrible it was. The rating was half a star. FML
Today, I had to proof-read a terrible paper containing a bunch of mistakes. It took me 4 hours and I didn't eat dinner until I was done. His response when he got it back was, "What the fuck did you do to my paper?! You bitch!" FML
Today, I finally got a phone call from a publisher saying they would publish the book I'd written. I'd gotten loads of rejection letters, so I was so excited. Until I realized it was my dad, feeling sorry for me. FML
Today, I finally finished my 500 page manuscript and so went out to buy some paper to print it off. I get back home and find out my dad has infected my computer with a virus and the only way to save it was to wipe the hard drive, which he did. That script took me a year and I have no backup. FML
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Top comments
Awes0meperson 10
You could just be honest with him and maybe help him fix it instead of torturing yourself
hamzor 5
At least he's into writing and not drugs, you should be happy!
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Comments (119)
schminkyjim 1
don't focus on the grammar, focus on the storyline and content. Drivel??, what a horrible.thing to say.
cdawgtate 9
Try helping him
myoukei 31
This is my worst nightmare
Kevlar_burrito 6
such a supportive parent you are....
jrmhjs12213 7
Hey be glad he's doing positive things instead of drugs and knocking up girls. He seems like a good son. Be proud of him and praise him for doing something positive.
at0micmin3r 23
The key is POSITIVE reinforcement. No critisism. Tell him what's wrong AND WHAT HE CAN DO TO FIX IT. WTG for being a good parent!
ByeTech 10
He might not be the next Stephen King, but I think it's pretty cool he finished a whole book, especially at his age! I've been writing on my stuff for 7 years and I'm not getting anywhere. Be supportive and constructive!
LoyalSatanist666 13
as a writer I feel ur pain. Bad grammer is one of the things wrong in the world.
AmbrosiaFan 19
At least not let him get too embarrassed and help him out with grammatical errors instead of suffering through it all.