Tag: remote connection

The last weekend of 2020

I mean, the last weekend is also sixteen days long due to personal circumstances, but the calendar is a powerful framing tool.

It’s been a very quiet Christmas. I sent a lot of winter holiday cards and got… I think slightly more than usual? I have the impression people are kind of going out of their way to reach out a little. I also spent nearly an hour on the phone with people Christmas morning, which was definitely longer than usual.

Beyond that, I put up a bird feeder (after dark the day before Christmas Eve), and nothing has visited it yet. Not even squirrels. I mostly picked it up because the birds had stopped going to the ground-level next-t0-the-fence birdfeeder in our back yard, and I was vaguely thinking that perhaps it had started to rust badly enough that the smell of metal was putting them off, or a cat had started using it as a hunting spot, or the suet in it was off. (It has been moderately badly damaged by chewing squirrels, but there doesn’t appear to actually be rust on it.)

Anyway. I have scattered birdseed around the new feeder on the advice of someone much more invested in bird feeding than I am, and I live in slightly anxious hope.

Dynamic

Sometimes I take minutes. My raw notes are inevitably a bit unpolished, but they’re pretty fast. And I clean them up before I send out the draft for people’s comments, because “a bit unpolished” includes my editorializing about some situations. (I write swears. Not that anyone else swears. Just sometimes things are stressful.)

In recent minutes, I referred to the current situation as “extremely dynamic” and that’s about the politest way I can put it.

I’m still submitting. I’m writing a little. I’m having real trouble revising my own stuff, though, so that’s going to be something I’m going to be trying to focus on next month. Aside from writing, I suspect I’m dealing about the same way many other people are, and a lot of them are being more eloquent about it, so moving on.

I am catching up on my reading, though.

 

Thaw, and rejections.

It’s actually above freezing here, for a change. Some of the sidewalks are still covered with three or four inches of ice, so the thaw isn’t helping much there, but the roads are getting steadily clearer. (And it does help with the sidewalks which aren’t covered with that much ice, so really, all to the good.)

The end of February (and the end of Google Events, dammit) came on a lot faster than I was expecting, so this weekend has been a lot of catch-up. I updated my record of rejections and got four stories out on submission. Skype seems to be working as a Google Hangouts alternative, at least, so that’s a plus.

I found out today that TCAF is coming up and at least two creators whose work I am really smitten by (Junji Ito and Emily Carroll) are going to be there, so I may try making it out in May. Looking at the logistics this next week coming up.

CWW 2018 – final update

ETA: and today we learn that I messed up on post scheduling, for which I am very sorry.

2079 words this week, and a story revised. This brings my total for the Write-A-Thon to 8640 words, and three stories revised.

I am so very grateful to all of you for contributing, and patiently looking at my not-very-interesting updates. I think things are slowing down now a little, and I’ve got a few more things I want to talk about; for the moment, however, I’m going to do some final tidying on stories, and continue revisions, and work out what I can do for contributor’s thank-you’s for next year.

 

CWW 2018 week 5 update

Things have been frustratingly busy, but: 1991 words! This is really encouraging, especially given everything else that seems determined to happen this week. Thank each and every one of you so very much for contributing, or for reading this.

My work on story revision is going slowly, simply because there is just a lot to revise, but I think I should be on track to have it done at the end of next week.

(Again, if you’d like to sponsor before this years Write-A-Thon is over: my profile is here, and the webpage is pretty easy to navigate if you’d like to sponsor someone else. Other people have neat prizes!)

CWW update 2018 week 4

Afraid I’m pretty sick this week – vicious cold going around and it got me.

Still, 1232 words done this week. Nearly done one complete plotline for my current project!

Also, a shout-out to Asha Bardon and Shannon Fay, who helped me figure out something pretty critical about a story I’ve been struggling with. Wanted to write a more in-depth post about expectations and story formats, but this week has been mad busy. Will try and get to it later, but in the meantime, wanted to thank them before even more time slipped away.

CWW 2018 week 3 update

It’s been a very busy week, but a productive one. I wanted to take a minute to say thank you so much to people sponsoring–me or the other writers, honestly, it’s a really lovely feeling.

1077 words this week! It’s still morning, but I’m planning on outlining this evening if I get time, and I’m not going to count an outline towards my wordcount. If I do get any prose done, I’ll just roll it forward into next week.

I also completed my second story revision, so that’s two out of three done, which does give me a little breathing room. I’ve got three weeks to revise the last one, so I may try working on the novelette that I handwrote a draft of in May. (I increased the wordcount in the story by 192, but I figure I’ll just keep revision wordcount changes separate from everything else.)

In other news, the last week’s heat wave is finally breaking. I look forward to going outside and breathing without feeling like I’m trying to iron a soaking wet T-shirt.

(Again, if you’d like to sponsor: my profile is here, and the webpage is pretty easy to navigate if you’d like to sponsor someone else.)

CWW 2018 week 2 update

1023 words this week! It’s not as much as I’d like, but I decided to not count any of my outlining towards this week’s total, so at least it’s not all I’ve done. Also, last week I revised a story, so that’s one of the three done.

I’m slightly worried that I’m coming down with a light summer cold, so my plan for the long weekend is to largely stay inside, avoid the rather intense stew of humidity and pollen that is descending on us, and make progress on a rewrite. Hopefully what I’m feeling is just a very prolonged allergy attack and a couple of days to recover will have it tapering off.

(Again, if you’d like to sponsor: my profile is here, and the webpage is pretty easy to navigate if you’d like to sponsor someone else.)

CWW 2018 week 1 update

1238 words this week! Not a complete draft, sadly – there’s the short piece I was working on earlier, and the rest of the words went on a different piece that’s been around for a while. But I have a couple of draft zeros now; those things that are still at the level of having [[TRANSITION SCENE GOES HERE]] and [[CHECK SETTING FOR DESCRIPTION]] peppered in a few times, but are otherwise pretty solid.

I’m going to try and spend most of tomorrow working on revisions so that I can have one of the three stories I’m meaning to revise done for next week.