Ventrilo. Hobbles away on my cane.

I see a lot of “just accept the gift” here, but that’s a rough choice. If you accept the gift, then you would be expected to use it over the one that you like. Your wife may even go so far as to throw the other one away (depending on what it is). So I don’t think accepting the gift was ever an option.

It really is a hard spot to be put in, and I would have probably done the same thing in your position, even though I hate denying gifts. The whole premise of gifting is flawed, imo, at least where I’m from. To me, the one being gifted is put more on the spot than the one gifting. I hate getting gifts for this reason.

So maybe this. Explain why you like the one you use better, but that you’re very happy with the gift. Ask her if it’s okay if you keep that gift as a backup if your first one breaks and store it by the first one “just in case”. Its never bad to have two of something.

Lemmy is actually better on this. I get a lot of upvotes for well thought-out long posts and comments here as well as humorous one-liners. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that people actually take the time to read out my longer posts. On reddit it’d probably just get lost and be another 1 thumber that never got read.

The key is also to make your story interesting. Something that pulls your reader in. Be personal and amicable. Realize you’re talking to real people and speak to those people in your writing. I’m more of a creative writing buff. I managed to eek out 98th percentile for creative writing in my SATs. I love writing. Its my favorite thing to do. I want to be an author. I fucking hate my ADHD. I’ve started a hundred books at least and either bore myself or tell myself its a stupid plot, even though I have friends and family begging for me to finish something.

My early books were written in small notebooks. The old ones that sorta looked like they had cowprint covers with a title on them. They’d get passed around the school for weeks. I’d get them back and people would keep asking me to continue. I never did. Fuck me, I hate ADHD sometimes. But your words are alive. They can heal, hurt, cause laughter and tears, and, above all, words can influence anything. Words are power and, as long as you are careful of that power, you can write any damn length you want.

Honestly, my fear now is AI. I like AI, but I don’t want to write a book and have people claim its AI or AI assisted. I’m regretting not writing one earlier now.

tl;dr: Is k. Writ stuf.