!!!!!

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i got a message from the NYS DOL today

(the last one was them being like “send us your SS card, front and back” and I was like “i don’t have it here’s my passport??” and that was that, so I’m waiting for my replacement social security card, which the SSA was like “you really don’t need this” and I was like “but I do” and they were like “optimally this will take seven to ten business days” but i was not hopeful)

the message said, simply,

“I would expect your benefits to be released tomorrow.”

So I had a small freakout and bluescreened my own eyeballs right there at my desk at work– I never got any determination of what I’d be eligible for, no hint of, like, anything– I literally don’t know– can’t begin to guess–

and then I got a text message from the DOL, which I did not know had my phone number, and it was a link, so I clicked it, and it was an image.

[image description: a formal notice with a big fancy letterhead across the top “WE’RE YOUR DOL” and the NYS Dep’t of Labor logo, and the relevant part of the letter says “Thank you for your patience. We have determined that your claim can now be paid. If you have not already, you will soon receive a letter in the mail telling you how much you will receive each week. If you provided bank account information, your benefits will be deposited there.”]

!!!!

I still have no idea how much it is but at least it’s something and it makes up for the fact that my job! is not! paying me! and golf guy never came in today! and anyway.

I am going to lie on the floor but this time not cry, that’s what I’m going to do.

replies about original writing

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msilverstar https://msilverstar.tumblr.com/ replied to your post “astroloquacious replied to your post “replies and asks and such” …” https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/626267556452401152/astroloquacious-replied-to-your-post-replies

Maybe it’s your unpublished first novel and you should move on to the next?

I have moved on, many times, and have circled back around to it because it is a story I want to tell and care about deeply. I think there’s a story in it I ought to tell, but I am also aware that I’m fairly mired in it– however, the only reason it’s being discussed at all is that I picked it up briefly because I spent a year slogging through a Brand New Idea that also bogged down into bullshit after I wrote about ¾ of a draft and it failed to develop a plot.

So methinks it’s not that particular novel that’s the problem, somehow.

mikkeneko https://mikkeneko.tumblr.com/ replied to your post “astroloquacious replied to your post “replies and asks and such” …” https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/626267556452401152/astroloquacious-replied-to-your-post-replies

I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, but: perhaps printing out your draft, the whole ass draft, and then typing it up again would let you sift out the good stuff

Mm I tried that. The waste of paper horrified me, so I used side-by-side computer windows and transcribed it entirely in the 600,000-word process I described earlier. What happens with that is that I often think “oh I could go this other completely different direction here instead” and then I have two completely incompatible storylines going, and you can repeat that infinitely and it’s super easy to get a million words of which there is not one coherent chunk for you to work on. So that’s super not an approach that’s useful for me, but I know it works for other people and I’m not knocking its validity– I just know, I’ve tried it, a bunch, that’s great for a really thorough final polish but utterly disastrous for a good way to winnow through a lot of ideas and pick just one.

astroloquacious https://astroloquacious.tumblr.com/ replied to your post “astroloquacious replied to your post “replies and asks and such” …” https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/626267556452401152/astroloquacious-replied-to-your-post-replies

WOW, that’s a lot! I rescind that particular bit of advice, then, ha ha. Would you say that the issue is more a lack of feedback, then? You mention feeling like it needs editing– do you mean structural editing? Is it an issue of not feeling like the plot & characters are solid?

It’s that I have too many ideas, chase down more and more of them, and wind up with a huge fractured mass of story, mostly worldbuilding, with endless iterations of new reworkings of the old ideas, and they are measurably better with each iteration! but I can’t actually support a plot on them, they’re too fragmented.

My problem is largely that for most of my life I haven’t had anyone willing to read my writing, and it’s only made worse by my horrid rejection-sensitive dysphoria that means that if someone says a thing I wrote isn’t exactly perfect as-is then I have to lie on the floor in despair. I’m hoping I’m a bit more robust now as like a whole-ass adult but that’s debatable. In my real life, people think it’s funny that I think I can write a novel, and are super not interested in reading it, and that’s all I’ve had.

pantsy-fancy https://pantsy-fancy.tumblr.com/ replied to your post “astroloquacious replied to your post “replies and asks and such” …” https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/626267556452401152/astroloquacious-replied-to-your-post-replies

                   If if would help your original novel progress to

have an AO3 comment squad for cheerleading & encouragement as you write chapters, then sign me up!!! You are one of my favourite writers and I would love to read anything you’re working on. (Apologies if this is out of place–I realize I’m jumping into the middle of a conversation here)

Oh, you’re not out of place at all. Someone else (s_leary? maybe?) suggested I put this original work up locked on AO3, and I was under the impression that original works were prohibited on AO3, but now that one mentions it I guess they changed that. It’s not impossible! I just… don’t use AO3 as a place for concrit, so I’m not used to attempting that, but I guess I’ve had some good comment discussions there. But that’s why I was trying to post the mammoths thing on Dreamwidth back in 2019 (you know, before the earth’s crust had cooled, back in that epoch, so long ago), but so few people use DW it was rather difficult to really get any discussion going.

I could try AO3, I suppose!

!!!!!

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bomberqueen17 https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/626297537462190080:

i got a message from the NYS DOL today

(the last one was them being like “send us your SS card, front and back” and I was like “i don’t have it here’s my passport??” and that was that, so I’m waiting for my replacement social security card, which the SSA was like “you really don’t need this” and I was like “but I do” and they were like “optimally this will take seven to ten business days” but i was not hopeful)

the message said, simply,

“I would expect your benefits to be released tomorrow.”

So I had a small freakout and bluescreened my own eyeballs right there at my desk at work– I never got any determination of what I’d be eligible for, no hint of, like, anything– I literally don’t know– can’t begin to guess–

and then I got a text message from the DOL, which I did not know had my phone number, and it was a link, so I clicked it, and it was an image.

[image description: a formal notice with a big fancy letterhead across the top “WE’RE YOUR DOL” and the NYS Dep’t of Labor logo, and the relevant part of the letter says “Thank you for your patience. We have determined that your claim can now be paid. If you have not already, you will soon receive a letter in the mail telling you how much you will receive each week. If you provided bank account information, your benefits will be deposited there.”]

!!!!

I still have no idea how much it is but at least it’s something and it makes up for the fact that my job! is not! paying me! and golf guy never came in today! and anyway.

I am going to lie on the floor but this time not cry, that’s what I’m going to do.

I sent the above screenshot to the family group chat and got this stunning array of emojis back from the fam:

[image description: a screenshot from a phone showing a group chat containing my mom and dad and sisters. Sister A {Farmsister} has sent a huge sticker of a ball painted to look like a monkey’s face popping open to spill confetti and then the confetti-party-horn emoji nine times, sister F {middle-little} has sent the head explodey emoji guy, Mom has sent “Hooray” with a pile of exclamation points and five peacock emojis and eight unicorn emojis, proving that she’s learned how to text from her grandchildren. At the bottom of the screen I’m beginning to reply “this is a lot of emojis, I’m very overwhelmed.”]

Oldest sister hasn’t responded yet in the screenshot but I assure you in real life she… oh she missed the conversation entirely because the next chats from her phone are from her son, so she likely never scrolled back up. That’s fine, I am not concerned. Family group texts have increased steadily in complexity as phone technology and adoption has increased and now that all the grandchildren are literate and phone-stealers it’s becoming yet more complicated.

Someday I should write a memoir based entirely on my family’s grouptexts though because they’re pretty entertaining.

Anyway– I should find out today what kind of unemployment assistance I’m supposed to have been getting. Or, I won’t, and it’ll be a new hassle, but we’ll see.

Fic Rec: A Favor For A Friend

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Here’s a lil palate-cleanser:

a very pleasantly wholesome (ok my definition of wholesome is not the same as most people’s, I get that) little High School A/U story about Kiera and Lambert.

If it were up to me to name it, I’d name it Stregobor Gets Punched, but I can see how that’s maybe not the most important thing in the story.

Listen, Lambert’s soft in this one but he’s also still recognizably his chaos gremlin self.

A Favor For A Friend https://archiveofourown.org/works/25861948, by Anoke, on AO3, rated M, 3k words.

“‘M sorry, Keira,” he said, clearly uncomfortable.

Keira’s jaw dropped. “Why are you apologizing?”

Lambert looked even more uncomfortable. “I mean, I don’t like any of ‘em, but they’re your friends, aren’t they? And now they’re being assholes because,” he cut off for a second and gestured vaguely at himself.

“They’re not my friends,” Keira said miserably. “I’d say ‘not anymore’, but just, thinking about how they treat everyone, I don’t think they ever really were in the first place. I’m sorry, for dragging you along to this.”

“It wasn’t all bad,” Lambert said. “At least, until they started being nasty to you about me.”

He’d heard that? She hadn’t even seen him in the room, but then again she knew he had amazing hearing. He still looked uncomfortable, too, or maybe—

“Lambert,” Keira started. “Did you—”

He rubbed at his nose, clearly embarrassed now. “I just, I know you can defend yourself, but—”

“Am I going to have to worry about murder charges?” Keira said, with a slightly watery laugh.

“Just assault and battery, if he even decides to try,” Lambert muttered.

You mean a palate tickler?

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LOL I was like… what… is this about… but yes, I called that fic a palate-cleanser but I meant like, as a break from my endless personal angst and such, as I feel things have been rather intense around here lately and not all that enjoyable.