Status Updates

Sounds like good news!  (Unless you hired in a body double to take the test for you...)

Awesome news!

Nice!

Hmm… that’s definitely a pickle you’re in.  Read more?  Learn to draw?  Paint?  Maybe a different creative venture might circle back to writing?

I’ve been having trouble focusing on writing myself, but I’ve been reading a ton of books, and hopefully something will kick me into gear. I’m also trying to find time to game a bit, which is how I started writing again in the first place—thank all the gods for game devs who can’t write decent dialogue!  

No ideas that you’re excited about, eh? Wish I could give you some of mine, with the excitement attached. 

Happy birthday, @DemonGoddess!

Aw thank you!

Happy birthday! Like the blimp, I wish you a good year.

Your opinion is always worth a lot, Bronxwench. 🙂

Appreciated, Desiderius.  Sorry I didn’t review more than the first chapter of Fiends, but while I eventually made it through the second chapter, I wasn’t sure how to write the review for it (there are elements framed as scientific necessities in-universe that are more about kink/personal favorite ideas, and I wasn’t sure how seriously to analyze them), so I never ended up doing that.  I looked around to see if you had a short story I could review, but it seems you have the familiar writer’s curse of the stories growing ever longer.

*glances at my own unfinished, ever-expanding stories*

Trust me, I know this feeling. 😅

Also trust me on being with you on wanting to keep the separation of church and state intact.  I will do whatever I can over the next four years.

@InBrightestDay Yeah, kinks are in there, and it’s one of the earlier stories meant to be rewritten and updated once I get all the others done.  (I’m trying to forbid myself from new projects until there, because there’s some interesting things slated to happen toward the end of Fiends that basically kickstarts where I intended to take the series.)  There *are* some short stories sprinkled into the holiday/halloween fests (I’ve since cross-posted those to AO3).

In terms of elections, don’t forget to pay attention to things like board of education, local offices; those are things your vote has a much greater impact on.  My local board of education had a couple of candidates that seemed to be regurgitating the Trump/Religious-Right manifestos, and luckily neither of them made it (this time).

@Desiderius Price, apologies about not replying to this yesterday, but way ahead of your there.  Did my research on the local district school board members.  We had one running on that “empowering parents” idea (first name was Karen, amusingly enough), who I voted against.  She lost.  I’ll stay on it.

Well, the thing I like about this doctor, is he listens to me.  As you know, that’s often not a thing.  

Well, depending on your genetic heritage, there is that thing about English peasant girls… where your metabolism thinks when you start exercising, “Oh, you’re running from the invading Vikings, love, don’t worry, darling, I’ll keep you plump as a partridge, no matter how hard you run!” 

My genetic heritage means I get fat easy!  I also build muscle like nobody’s business.  It’s either one, or the other.  ROFL

Sometimes you have to remind yourself that you aren’t a fish… or was that for hiccups? 😅

Sometimes I write a sentence and that’s enough or maybe somebody kidnapped your muse?

Nope. Good luck though! I’m sure you’ll crack it eventually and kick some literary ass!

A few years back I had writer’s block and did a strange creativity exercise that helped a lot. I wrote a kitchen sex scene told from the point of view of the APPLIANCES.

The microwave oven let out another angry, “BEEEP!”, meaning, “Take your sausage out of her, and get your damn fried chicken out of me!”

My daft bugger would be drooling right next to you. He still has a picture of his 1966 Chevy Bel Air on “his” bookshelf.   

My guy doesn’t get why I love classic cars so much, but you bet your butt he lets me drag him around car shows by his hand. I went absolutely fangirl over a sweet, rare classic in a parking lot awhile back—I won’t name it for risk of doxxing myself, but it’s something I’ve never seen in person, and it had a wooden chassis!—and Cold was just   “It’s a car,” the whole time. 😆 Your guy has good taste—Bel Aires are an instant squeal-fest in this family, Cold aside, and that was a great year!

Good to have you back. 👍

DG, I’d happy dance if I even could!  Wahoo!

I get that.  I’m working on a few things before my echo cardiogram towards the end of November.

Losing weight

Regaining my mobility (see losing weight😅)

Controlling my BP

Quitting smoking

Yeah, I’m fine the back of the car is gone and the truck and the idiot responsible fled onto the reservation. So that’s gonna be fun.

Granny is fine, apparently directly in the ER under experienced medical supervision and veteran doctors and nurses is the best place to have a stroke who knew? Lol.

Ouch and yikes, life seems to strike 

Wow, that’s a lot. Indeed, the ER is the best place to have a stroke, ‘cause they can give you those clot-busting drugs right away. Glad she’s doing well.

The Dowager Countess has gone to her rest. 

Joins Alan Rickman

And Richard Harris, and Robbie Coltrane. It’s getting to be like a Hogwarts faculty meeting up there. 

Dude, you're a terrific writer, but we're glad to have you around whether you're producing or not.

Welcome back! I managed not to write anything for Hallowe’en or Christmas myself. It happens, and in my case, more often than I’d like, but life isn’t always as predictable or smooth as we’d like. So, come hang out anyway! 

I am sure the story will be worth the wait when you overcome the writers block.

It my conviction that you cannot easily command story progress. Assigning one extra week to the effort is by no means sure to be able to get the done the job. Sometimes you run into situation were the subconscious is intruding on writing and that is life when working with a creative process. Sometimes you just need some cool-down to make the problem go away and sometimes you realize that you subconsciousness was right and the story need some kind of change.

TFW your phone makes a Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference.

“She’s...beautiful, she’s rich, she’s got huge...tracts of land!”

Did your phone also suggest an emoji for “Steamer?”

Perhaps Gandalf took an inter-publisher sabbatical and visited “Scrubett and Raynce” just off of Diagon Alley?  I’ve heard they do good work.

ACK!  Run, hide. 

I’m guessing everybody’s using the same generic open-source-art & slapping their title/name over top of it?

I think @Desiderius Price has the right of it. I was lucky enough to have a publisher who didn’t rely on basic open-source art or awkward renders, and the cover artist did an amazing job for me. After all, the cover is what catches the eye right away, and makes you want to pick up a book and read the blurb...

Hi, all.

Just an opinion from someone who can observe human behavior and isn’t in the business.

Sometimes, the publisher is “mailing it in on the cheap,” like @Desiderius Price has pointed out.  In other cases, they might be trying for something that was far more eye-catching in their minds than it is on the actual dust jacket or paperback binder.

In a rare few cases, the author themselves might be at least partly to blame.  A “new author” won’t have a lot of leverage to use against whatever the printer calls their “dust jacket department,” so they’ll get what they get and give thanks that they’re getting paid instead of printing through a “vanity house” and having to sell their books out of the trunk of their car for the next twenty years to get their money back. 

A “proven winner,” on the other hand, has a lot more leverage on what their dust jackets will look like, even for reprints of their initial best-sellers.  Some authors make good use of this leverage.  For others, they sell their books because of the story inside, in spite of the weak-sauce dust jacket or paperback cover.

Rain in Arizona… who’s been praying to the rain gods? 

I live just outside of Pheonix, I went for a walk to one of the fast food places, when the wind had just started.

Ten minutes later I was having lunch, watching the rain and wondering how I'd get home, without getting wet.

Luckily it didn't last long. 

When I had lived in So Cal, took a year and a half to realize there was a leak in my apartment roof (simply because it hadn’t rained for so long)

I am supposed to be in charge of nuking the spammers, I’m afraid. Things have just been bananas up over here, with half the fam having been made basically homeless due to the volcanic eruptions and my former hometown now being abandoned, and then the stress of the family needing to find housing, and myself having been unable to renew my lease on my apartment, and then needing to find a new place to live. And all of this has not been beneficial to the mental health of any of us. 

BUT, thankfully, the fam has now found (and bought) new permanent homes, the parental units are already moved in, baby sis and her units are probably moving near the end of the month, and I will be moving into a permanent home around the middle of next month   

So, to recap, everyone’s in or getting into new permanent homes, and therefore my mental health is getting back on track and I’ll do better around here, I swear   

Edit: But, yes, they do make it lovely and uncomplicated whenever they just go right ahead and post directly in the Trolls/Flamers/Spammers forum. That way I don’t have to go far to find them   

And sadly, the report function does seem to still not be operational, but please keep hitting the report button if you see those posts, because who knows, maybe it’ll work one day. 

I’m on EDT, as is BronxWench, so if something comes in the middle of the night my time I won’t attend to it.  But, will do as soon as I see them.

Just to be clear, I was going for humor, and not criticality or passive-aggression.  The garbage “shows up,” and it also goes away quickly.

@WillowDarkling, I’m glad to read that your difficulties are almost solved.

Thanks to all who run this system (both the story archives and the forum site) for all of your hard and effective work.

Cheers!

Welcome back! I hope you had an amazing time!  

Welcome back, Melrick and good on you for getting the rest that you need  

It was good, but I’m also happy to be back home and back to normal.