signalboost | Member Posts

Scrivener has been such a boon to my editing. Initially, I migrated stuff there mainly to be able to organise my worldbuilding notes and for the per-chapter/scene notes, but I'm finding so many little ways to make my life easier. Nearly every time I think "if only there was a way to...", I realise there is one. I could cry. What really helped me is watching a bunch of the webinars that Literature and Latte are running, especially Oliver Evensen just showing his actual workspace and how he's organising a whole series in one project. If you're just starting out, the sessions are totally overwhelming because it's often 20 or 25 small tips that make life easier, but half the time I'm like "omg I didn't know you could use labels and label colours this way! I didn't know metadata could be used like this! I didn't realise dynamic collections were a thing!" and everything is awesome, lego-style.

The software is kind of struggling to load if I accidentally load the entire manuscript in "Document" mode with the 5 billions beta-readers comments I imported (and that was a subset!) - still manages though. Because I noted which person said what, I feel like I'm hanging out everyday with the bunch of you who kindly took the time to share impressions, haha. Thanks again <3

I've had a couple of chuckles about paragraph length. In the novella, I was told a few times my paragraphs are too short or too broken down. Meanwhile, whenever I start working with a new beta-reader in fandom, they nearly always tell me my paragraphs are too long. It's related to screen size, I'm told. Looks overwhelming when it takes up the entire phone screen without any paragraph break.

I'm not reading a lot of fic at the moment, but I'm reading a toooooooooooooooooon of books and so my paragraphs are getting chonkier with this round of editing. Who knows what'll happen when I do the final-final (;D) proofreading afterward though...!!

conuly

Anyway, E was looking at Halloween costume patterns and obviously your opinion doesn't really matter at all, only the parents' does, but I thought I'd put up a poll anyway. Which costume is best for a six or seven month old?

Poll #33490 Halloween costumes!

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

View Respondents

Which costume is best?

View Answers

Bee
11 (36.7%)

Dinosaur
5 (16.7%)

Pumpkin
10 (33.3%)

Bat
4 (13.3%)

* Former stepmother, but the relationship is still there even if she's not with their dad anymore

************

( Read more... )

conuly

See if you can find one near you.

ysabetwordsmith

Today's theme is Indie.

i_love_games -- A Gaming Community
An Active Gaming Community created July 5th, 2013.
[Somewhat active with last post in December 2024.]

indie_games -- Indie Games
Indie games discussion, recs, and squee.
[Somewhat active with last post in June.]

indie_lifestyle -- Indie coolness and all that.
[Dormant with last post in November 2020, but posting is open to all members so this should be revivable.]

musicianships -- The Freaks Club: Musicianships
This Community is for everyone who is involved in music in any way.
[Active with one post in August.]

onesongaday -- One Song A Day
You love music? Come share, listen, enjoy.
[Active with multiple posts in August.]

thefreaksclub -- TFC // The Anti-Thesis Social Network
Everything related to darker alternative subcutlures. Discussion on books, the occult, music, & more.
[Active with one post in August.]

Current Mood: busy

lannamichaels

What do you mean, Brandi Carlile and Belinda Carlisle are TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE???? I thought Belinda Carlisle had reinvented herself and made a comeback, what do you mean it's a completely different person.

I have not been this betrayed since finding out that Carl Sandburg and Carl Sagan were different people, but at least these are still two singers. WTF.

conuly

So, we watched that one with the telepathic pitcher plant. Seven and Naomi bond - the writers really worked to make Naomi useful to the plot rather than just being kinda there, and it mostly works - but honestly, our space Ahab has chosen the least-efficient manner possible to destroy his whale.

Then we watch the two parter with the Borg Queen, in which we establish that the Hansens (whom Seven actually refers to as the Hansens) were absolutely terrible parents. I mean, even beyond the way they brought their child on a platter to be assimilated, growing up on a tiny spaceship with only two other people is just no life for a child. They should have left her at home. (And all the flashbacks establish that she spent a lot of her brief childhood scared. Poor baby!) At one point in this episode, Seven helps rescue a group of astonishingly passive refugees who are about to be assimilated. There's a lot of off-screen screaming, but I guess these refugees weren't paid enough to talk, because they're both passive and totally silent. Also, nobody at any points suggests trying to de-assimilate any drones, even the one who is probably Seven's father, if we can believe the Borg Queen. Seems a bit uncaring, but as I said, he wasn't a good father so fuck him, I guess.

This is followed by a kinda sad and pointless episode in which Harry Kim contracts love from having surprisingly racy (for 90s Trek) sex with a dissident from a xenophobic society. She achieves her primary objective, forcing the people in charge to allow those who want to leave their society to do so, but they still break up. He's sad about it. (E and I decided that the only other Varro with a speaking role has gotta be her dad. He sure acts like he knows her pretty well, and that ship has a lot more people than Voyager does!)

And then one of my absolute favorite episodes, the one where Tom and B'Elanna get married and there's apparently a new baby on the ship we haven't heard of before and, by the way, the ship is disintegrating. Lots of people hate this episode because it's sad and bleak and pointless, but I absolutely fucking love it.

We skipped the Chakotay episode because ugh, fake Native American fake spirituality, something something "vision quest", and then it was Think Tank, which is a very watchable episode. It's not great, it's terrible - it's watchable. Also, nobody really says it, but the spokesperson of the eponymous Think Tank is himself a victim of it. He was taken from them in childhood, which wasn't all that long ago. Possibly they all are victims except the founder. It sounds like being part of a particularly reclusive cult.

*****************

( Read more... )

ysabetwordsmith

These futuristic 3D-printed homes start at just $200K. One city is building 80 of them.

The development will include energy-efficient, high-quality homes with an average size of about 1,360 square feet.

HiveASMBLD plans to print two unique home designs, each with a two-bedroom and two and a half bathroom configuration, as well as an office or flex space, and a covered patio.

Pricing for these homes starts in the mid to high $200,000s.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Here is a list of bookshops from

duckprintspress over a wide area.

Current Mood: busy

kaberett

I am now well over halfway through the book, and spent most of chapter four screeching to anyone who would listen about the extent to which either she is deliberately and cynically misrepresenting approaches that aren't Her Personal Programme in the interests of selling the latter, or she's just incompetent.

The actual suggested movements -- the strength-building and the stretching -- are totally reasonable, and also totally standard. It's the surrounding framing that has my eyebrows crawling into my hairline; I... tried to summarise and rapidly discovered I was launching into the full rant, and it's past bedtime, so let's start with: while there's a References section it's a whole 15 items long, and she's blithely saying "X states" or "Y says" as though the fact that something has been published in a single peer-reviewed paper means that it's unquestionably true, and of those fifteen one is a systematic review of any kind and... Several... are under the aegis of an organisation specialising in complementary medicine.

More details tomorrow, probably. With excerpts.

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny, humid, and hot.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

EDIT 8/14/25 -- I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 8/14/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 8/14/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/14/25 -- I watered the patio plants and old picnic table garden.

I've seen a male cardinal in the forest garden.

EDIT 8/14/25 -- I watered the new picnic table garden, telephone pole garden, and some of the savanna seedlings.

Crickets and cicadas are singing. Fireflies are out; I haven't seen them in a while.

There was a skunk in the south lot.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

vriddy

Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

Over the last week...

Commented on common_nature.

Chit-chat on booknook.

Promoted fan_writers to potentially interested folks >:D

Signal boost:

worderlands is hosting a 3-sentence challenge based on a table of 10 prompts, if that's of interest!

ysabetwordsmith

Clearly a portmanteau of "side effects / consequences." I like it.

Current Mood: busy

althea_valara

It all began with a stone, or so the legend says.

In ages past, a sentient jewel, enormous and beautiful, banished the darkness. Its many-colored light filled the world with life and brought forth mighty gods.

Bathed in that light, the world entered an age of bliss until, after a time, the gods fell into slumber. That world was called Vana'diel.

The legend goes on to say...

From the darkest depths of the earth the Warriors of the Crystal rose...

The Rise of the Zilart expansion tells the story of the Warriors of the Crystal, and of the ancient clash between two races, one of which was the Zilart - who have plans to bring about Vana'diel's destruction. Read on to find out just what the Zilart have planned.

(As before, the actual game script is located at my Neocities site, here: https://altheavalara.neocities.org/ffxi/rotz - what lies under the cut is my summary for those who don't want to read the long script.)

( spoilers galore! )

kaberett

a tomato with a dark purple upper and red lower, speckled with gold

(This cultivar is called Blue Fire. I was very late getting my tomatoes started, but I am about to have lots of them and I am excited by this! Rainbow planting didn't quite work partly because none of the Yellow Pear-Shaped made it but largely because I lost track of which were my purple plum tomatoes and which were instead my orange, but -- I'm about to have A Bunch of ridiculous coloured tomatoes, and this is probably the showiest of the lot of 'em!)

ysabetwordsmith

Scientists confirm two new species of pika in the Himalayas after 20 years of research

Using data collected from 2003, 2023, and 2024, researchers Pan Xuan and Wang Xuming were able to delineate previously unidentified species as Ochotona galunglaensis and O. legbona.

“Our findings highlight the previously underestimated diversity within Conothoa and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of pika diversity in the Himalayan region,” Xuan and Xuming observed in their study, which was published in Ecology and Evolution.

Pint-sized pikas, which resemble hamsters in appearance, are not rodents but lagomorphs, meaning that they are closely related to rabbits and hares.

Good news, but hardly a surprise. Pikas are currently alpine species. That means they are easily isolated and thus prone to speciation. Think of mountaintops as islands, in the sense that creatures dwelling there find it difficult or impossible to move from one to another.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is mostly sunny, humid, and hot.

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

EDIT 8/12/25 -- I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 8/12/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 8/12/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/12/25 -- I potted up 4 asparagus berries from the Charleston Food Forest.

EDIT 8/12/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/12/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/12/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/12/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This poem came out of the August 5, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by

janetmiles. It also fills the "As If By Magic" square in my 8-1-25 card for the Crime Classics Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the series Monster House. It falls between "Secondhand Sight" and "Paper, Scissors, Stone" so reading in that order will make more sense.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Life is full of things which are hard or tedious or otherwise unpleasant that need doing anyhow. They help make the world go 'round, they improve skills, and they boost your sense of self-respect. But doing them still kinda sucks. It's all the more difficult to do those things when nobody appreciates it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our accomplishments and pat each other on the back.

What are some of the hard things you've done recently? What are some hard things you haven't gotten to yet, but need to do? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your hard things a little easier?

Current Mood: busy

conuly

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

********

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