Tues. Jan. 9, 2024: Steady at the Keyboard
image courtesy of StartupStockPhotos via pixabay.comTuesday, January 9, 2024
Day Before Dark Moon
Uranus Retrograde
Icy and cold
I hope you had a great weekend.
If you didn’t see my answers to the questions up on the Goals, Dreams, and Resolutions site yesterday, you can read them here.
Today’s serial episode is from Legerdemain:
Episode 153: Portal Diving is Not for Amateurs
Shelley travels back to the Cathedral via portal and meets the assassin between dimensions.
I was a tired, burned-out puppy on Friday. The storm wasn’t supposed to start until Sunday, but then they pushed it back to Saturday, but when I woke up on Friday with gnomes tapdancing in my head wearing cleats, I knew it was coming in faster.
In fact, it started snowing when I left the house at 9 AM to run errands (I usually write first, errand later). My headache stopped, but I had to drive in snow, but it wasn’t too bad. I’ll take it.
Instead of writing in the morning, I did my errands: picked up ink for the printer (because, grrrrr on inkjets), did the massive grocery shop (7 bags of groceries), dropped off and picked up library books (there were so many there they had to lend me an additional bag), dropped off the city census, picked up wine at the liquor store.
Humped everything upstairs. Put away the groceries.
By then, it was time to start lunch. I made chicken and vegetable soup with lots of basil. It was a slow cooker recipe, but my chicken was already cooked, so I made adjustments and did it on the stove, and it was delicious.
Printed out my colleague’s script, so I could work with it for a few days before the reading.
I got the week’s episode videos done, uploaded, and scheduled. One of the crows stopped by to chat with Tessa, but she wasn’t in the rocking chair in the reading corner by the window, so then the crow wanted to see the videos, and had a few notes. The bratty squirrel stashed a cookie on one of the porch windowsills. Storm prep all around.
I did the social media rounds to promote the 100th episode of ANGEL HUNT.
Of course, because I bought black ink, the color tank decided it was low, too, ONCE I GOT HOME! It couldn’t have let me know before I left?
I was cooked by then, and didn’t work on Legerdemain, which will come back to bite me in the butt this week. I checked the pantries and charged all devices. I finished reading THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES. Hastings worked my last nerve. I didn’t remember him as such a fool in the Christie books.
There were events I wanted to attend at First Friday, but the COVID post-holiday surge numbers were too high for it to be a worthwhile risk. Any and all calculations tipped against me; therefore, I did not go.
The first seeds arrived – I’ll detail that in Thursday’s Gratitude and Growth post.
Researched more bed frames and rugs. If I go with the more colorful, Art Deco frame, then I need to re-think the rug I planned. And there’s no point in getting a rug under the bed to “anchor the room” when the bulk of the rug remains unseen. The room’s too small to need that kind of an anchor, and I don’t want wall to wall carpeting. I’m better off with a rug on the side. Feng-shui wants it to be in specific colors, which will work with the frame, if I can find the right hue of rug. I think that’ll be something I have to see in person, rather than ordering online.
We enjoyed our last night with the tree up and the lights on.
Did not want to get out of bed on Saturday morning.
The computer was an absolute nightmare to get started. I figure sometime in February (if it hands on that long), it will make a trip to computer hospital.
Then I battled with the template on the Goals, Dreams, and Resolution site. I cannot get it to do what I want and need it to do, and have to adjust and reformat, in the document, each paragraph separately. It’s driving me bonkers. But I didn’t have time to play with new templates. But I need to deal with that in the coming months. This template no longer serves the needs of the site.
Most of Saturday was spent taking down and putting away the winter holiday decorations. We spent eight hours on it, and still weren’t finished by the end of the day. All the cats are upset that the big tree is down, but Tessa, especially. I broke one of my old Currier and Ives Hallmark ornaments with the year on it, and was very annoyed with myself. Not to mention how much it took to clean up all the glass.
Make a turkey moussaka for dinner. A new-to-me recipe, from Kripalu, but not one of Jeremy’s. The proportions for the bechamel sauce looked off to me; I checked in JULIA’S KITCHEN WISDOM (Julia Child’s book) and they were very different. So I made a bit more roux and stirred it in to right it. It turned out pretty well.
Was a slug on the couch in the evening, because I was so sore I could barely move.
The snow started about 8 PM.
Sunday morning, I did not want to get out of bed. It had snowed all night and was really pretty. My bed was comfy.
But I got up. I spent a couple of hours with my colleague’s script, familiarizing myself with the entire script, plus the assigned role.
After breakfast, it was back to packing more things, rearranging some boxes, figuring out how and where to put things. I got rid of a bunch of boxes that were falling apart, but we’d kept them because we’d always kept certain ornaments in them. I found better boxes (Harry & David boxes work well for ornaments. All those little compartments). Because I packed better, even though we’d bought stuff this year and there were more ornaments, they took up less space.
I still have to finish switching out fabric, but I did most of it. And I set up the big project table in my office for the contest entries, so I can get started on them this week.
I plugged the laptop back in and booted it up early enough to trouble shoot. It fired right up, thankfully, and both the power and the internet held, so I could participate in my colleague’s reading. It was so great to be in space with some of my Nightwood people again! And the new faces were also great.
The reading was a great experience, and we had a good, solid, discussion after. I scribbled a bunch of notes as we went. It was an honor and a pleasure to be part of it. I’m so proud of my colleague’s work!
It also made me itch to get back to THE WOMEN ON THE BRIDGE.
It was still snowing by the time we were done, and I was tired. Heated up some leftovers for dinner, and was cat furniture for the evening. Did a little bit of reading, but not much.
I started a page for the short stories on the Devon Ellington Work site. I put links to the two most recent stories, and will slowly go through my clip file for others. Since I want to submit more short stories this year (and, hopefully, some of them will be published), I need a page with the links. Plenty of the stories eventually listed won’t have links, because they were in print only.
Had trouble getting to sleep, but finally did. Charlotte woke me at 4:30 on Monday, and I got up around 5:30.
I worked on the daily Kripalu journal prompt, which was about dedication. Plenty to say about that, especially after yesterday’s experience. However, they encourage us to share our journal work on social media with various hashtags. I understand wanting to promote the program, but I can either plumb personal depths or I can put something on social media. They are mutually exclusive, because social media is not safe space. It’s public. That does not support the depth of inner work for this course.
This week’s primary serial focus is THE LIGHTHOUSE LADY, with 10 episodes planned. I didn’t get enough Legerdemain episodes written last week. I should write 4 more this week, plus the 4 already scheduled, but I know 8 Legerdemain episodes aren’t going to happen. I have to get two more written between now and Thursday; next weekend, I’ll do the four as planned.
On Monday, I drafted three episodes of LIGHTHOUSE LADY, which took longer than I planned, because I had to design the floorplan for the lighthouse and the keeper’s cottage. But I started early, and the words themselves flowed well. The joys of having an outline, even though I have to adjust a few things as I go. But it means I don’t have to wonder what happens next. I can just sit down and write it. I even managed to draft an episode of LEGERDEMAIN. Altogether, a little over 3K, which is a decent start to the week.
I then typed up my notes on Sunday’s reading, and sent them off to the playwright, and sent catch-up/follow-up emails to my fellow cohort members. I feel bad that I’ve only been in sporadic touch.
After lunch, I had to go and shovel the car out. Monday night was set to freeze, with more snow on Tuesday, then changing to rain by Wednesday. As tempted as I was to just leave everything until the rain, I knew that was a bad idea. The snow was light and fluffy, and it didn’t take long.
When I got back, I did the edit/proofread for the “Severance” re-release. It’s a novelette, just under 15K. Got it uploaded, then downloaded the e-pub, which I will proofread in my Ice Cream app, since my old Kindle doesn’t handle it well anymore. It’s a weird science fiction horror western, and I added content warnings. I mean, it’s a horror story, but still. I’ll proof it sometime this week, and set it for release just before the full moon.
Had some great exchanges with my Nightwood colleagues, and with a couple of the Boiler House Poets.
Made chicken stroganoff for dinner, and then read one of the books for review. It was a lot of fun, and I was glad to read it.
So, Platformer and Substack are congratulating themselves on their little public performance, pretending there’s actual positive change. It’s so obvious that all it was is a performance, so they could both keep monetizing.
I don’t believe, for one second, that Platformer ever planned to leave Substack. If they were serious, they wouldn’t have sent out press releases about their big meetings and their threat to leave. They would have LEFT, and then forced Substack to woo them back via action. Substack should never have taken the stance it did; at the very least, they should say, “We were wrong, and we will do better” but they are doubling down, and claiming they are just following their content guidelines – if that’s the case, then there wouldn’t have been this controversy in the first place, because the guidelines would have prevented extremist content. And they’re not taking down all extremists, just the ones with the lowest profit margin. It’s all performance, to protect their bottom line, and to give cover to those who can’t be bothered to switch platforms and hope we’ll all forget. It’s all lies, and neither company can be trusted.
When someone shows you who they really are, believe them.
It’s such a disappointment. I mean, I drank the Substack Kool-Aid as much as anyone. The platform was easy to use and I had a lot of fun on the Notes aspect of it. But there were more and more reveals about them that just don’t sit right.
Slept pretty well, although with busy dreams. All good, but I woke up feeling like I’d put in a full day in on the Dreamscape, rather than waking up rested.
On today’s agenda: two more episodes of THE LIGHTHOUSE LADY, one more of LEGERDEMAIN. Hopefully, proofs of “Severance.” I have a bunch of short coverages to turn around. I’d like to work on a couple of other things, but I need to be realistic.
Have a good one!
