A gesture at a salon post (October 26)

[jenett]

Here is a post. Feel free to make comments.

(I am low on spoons today, and not up for the set-up along with other stuff that needs doing.)

Comments

[alexseanchai]

♥

*bounces around like Tigger on Adderall* nano nano nano nano nano nano nano

my planning's going excellently, I am very pleased

(I'm also perfectly well aware that I'm using this story as a hidey away from all my real, including some very urgent, problems)

[jenett]

Planning is good (and yeah, the hiding away is not ideal, but what gets you through is what gets you through..)

[alexseanchai]

p much :)

[brainwane]

Someone I know just finished walking the Pacific Crest Trail!

[jenett]

That is pretty awesome indeed!

[jazzyjj]

Hope everything gets better for you.





As for me, I'm going to a football game tomorrow and I'm excited. I don't follow sports that much due to my blindness, but over the years that has changed a bit. I'm also just looking forward to socializing with others. I'm going with a downstairs neighbor and one of our tutors, and we may tailgate with some other guys.

[jenett]

It's been a week of - well, the world we live in, plus a couple of extra complicated work things.

I am only very nominally a sports fan (which means at the moment, I make pleased noises when the Red Sox win a game, because I think it is impossible to grow up in Boston and not be very nominally a fan.)

[silveradept]

I think a lot of people are nominally sports fans of where they end up in, if only for the practical reasons of "don't drive / transit near the stadia before, during, after a game that's going on if you can avoid it." Which is best done by knowing the sportsball schedules and following accordingly.

[jenett]

I have, fortunately, never lived near Fenway or any of the particularly affected T lines and stops.

(My assistant, who used to work down that way, is very grateful she's not there now.)

I am nominally a fan in a "I am pleased when someone tells me they've won" sort of way, though outside the World Series, I don't bother to go check myself. (I am this week, because a couple of people I talk to at work are big fans, and it's handy to know what kind of mood they might be in.)

[silveradept]

That's the way that I keep tabs on the Local Sports Team, as well. It helps to know how the mood of the office is going to be when you get in after a weekend.

(My current supervisor and I are from the same collegiate conference, and so we occasionally chat about the goings-on at our respective schools.)

[redbird]

That feels different if only because, on the practical level, wanting to avoid traffic problems would mean hoping that the local-to-you teams don't get into the playoffs: "right, the Rangers are in the finals, that's messing up my commute home" didn't feel like being even nominally a Rangers fan.

A job in a different part of Midtown Manhattan left me with a bit of the New York tendency to think of the United Nations, and visiting presidents and candidates, largely in terms of traffic problems. But I simultaneously had a bit of that annoyance whichever president was making it harder to get across town, and had very different opinions of (say) Bush and Obama in other regards. Grumbling about "they've rerouted the M104 because the president is in town for a fundraiser" has a different tone than complaining about that president's policies.

[silveradept]

Here's a gesture at a prompt for the salon:

With NaNoWriMo starting in a week and other major projects line Yuletide underway, there are a lot of people getting ready to write a lot of words in the next few days.

If you're participating in a writing project right now, and you want to talk about it, how are things going? Any useful pieces of advice you've picked up about your own writing and prices you want to share, or resources you find helpful?

If you're not writing, have you read anything good lately? Or discovered a new resource that looks like it might make your life a lot better?

[Rules, etc.]

[jenett]

That is a good prompt! (A lot of the issue with the salon post is there's a certain amount of fiddly setup I can't entirely automate with current tools, plus, y'know, coming up with a prompt. One or the other is often fine, and both together drain spoons fast.)

I am doing Nano (and I'm pretty sure next week's post is going to be "so who's doing that and how's it going")

I'm working on a larger writing project I'm not ready to talk about just yet (but will be sometime in November or December) which I am pretty pleased with, and also having a lot of fun with, which is a good combo.

Things that are working for me (while recognising they are not the answer for most people.)

1) I really am much better off writing every day.

I alternate between a project with more creative complexity (the above) and writing things for Seeking and other related Pagan stuff which are more 'get the words out of my head and on screen so I can share them' but require a lot less active thought and planning.

2) I am enjoying http://4thewords.com which is a writing gamification site (write words, defeat monsters, complete quests, win virtual amusements.)

It's a month trial for free, and very inexpensive monthly after that - $4 a month. It's done wonders for my wordcount, and they do a special quest set for NaNo I'm looking forward to.

[jazzyjj]

I've not been doing much of anything lately but socializing with my neighbor across the hall. But don't I always do that, lol. But I just downloaded a free iOS app from Microsoft that I think is perhaps going to be a game-changer for me and many others. I posted an entry about it, feel free to check it out. But I've started using this app, and although it works great I've had mixed results with it. I'm sure things will get better over time though. This is largely due to the fact that I haven't had much camera experience, probably for obvious reasons. Although, the iPhone's cameras do work with the on-board screen reader. My brother--who is totally blind--has owned more than one iPhone and has become pretty experienced with the Camera app and I think with this app from Microsoft. We've messaged back and forth about this a bit, but he's in another state and seldom comes to town due to a busy work schedule. But there's a staff member here who also happens to be an artist. He's been out of town for a week or so due to deaths in the family, but will be back in the office on Monday. I emailed him earlier in the week about a time to meet up and chat about some things. This is one of them.

[alexseanchai]

wrex_writes on Shitty First Drafts

Jami Gold's Scrivener beat sheet

Opposite Turning Points 1 and Opposite Turning Points 2 and Midpoint with Save the Cat via Lydia Sharp

(No, I haven't quite figured out how Sharp's beat sheet maps to Gold's yet, but the mirroring effect Sharp describes is a cool toy)

I might also use step 3 (the character outline step) from Snowflake Method

Dani Alexis Ryskamp: How to Get Motivated to Write Your Novel (spoiler: the answer is planning)

Xan West trans rep resource list

[keshwyn]

I would like to be writing right now. Instead I am doing all the cat vacuuming possible with regards to trying to line up contractors to tear the back off my house starting next spring.

I think I would rather be writing. But I'm pretty sure having a bathroom on the ground floor will be worth it. I think. I hope.

[silveradept]

I understand. Next week, I'm getting a moat installed in my basement, which will hopefully help stop the tendency for it to flood when the rains are sustained and fairly heavy. I'm mostly going to work while this happens, but it will be nice to have less worry about the flood.

[alexseanchai]

I really want someone—ideally a canon-familiar someone, canon being Miraculous Ladybug, but anyone with an understanding of story structure will do if they don't mind ML spoilers—to go over my NaNoWriMo outline with me and help me figure out what goes wrong at the 3/8 and 5/8 marks. I'm almost sure one of them has to do with Alya and Nino and the other with Chloé, because this novel-length does actually require subplots that don't pivot around my protags and antag, but I don't know.

—say, do you think Alya and Nino's plot hits its midpoint at the 3/8 mark overall, and Chloé's does the same at the 5/8? Hmmmm...

[sine_nomine]

OMG this was the week that I emptied my spoon drawer and went looking in the closet for the spare set.

Between health, work, the antics coming from the WH and environs, finances, house challenges and still more there are just no more spoons anywhere to be had.

Oof.

[solitarywalker]

Julia Holter's new album is so good that i forgot about my tea and it got completely cold.