The Sounds of Silence

[in_the_blue]

It's been quiet here.

A little too quiet. I'm starting to accept that the age of online journaling is a thing of the past, or will be soon. Then I ask myself: am I enough in love with it to be a champion for its continued use? I don't know.

Since I got back after my dad's memorial (which was wonderful - he would've approved), I've been catching up on life and playing Dragon Age: Inquisition (I just got all the dlc, spent more on that than on the game itself which was SO worth it). Question of the day: Have I been too engrossed in it? I saw a pile of eucalyptus bark beneath a tree today and thought "AHA! DEATHROOT! I should stop and harvest it."

Tomorrow I have an all-day workshop for Society for Children's Book Writers & Editors, which I hope will be as good as the last one I attended. Otherwise, I've been checking in on my mother-in-law every day and doing the usual expected & unexpected shit.

Hope all of you are well. Talk to me.

Comments

[vivien]

Don't go. I'll be so sad to not have an online journal to flee to in the Internet wilderness.

I even cranked up my Halloween countdown this year!

[in_the_blue]

I love your Halloween countdown.

I'm not planning on going anywhere. The trend I've noticed, though, is for people who've stopped using DW/LJ to come back, seem all excited about posting, promise they're back for real this time, never respond to much of anything, and disappear again. Maybe I'm just nostalgic for the days when we all sat around refreshing LJ to see what our buddies were up to. I don't get the same warm fuzzy feeling from tumblr, which is why I stopped using it, and I can't keep up with Twitter by any stretch of the imagination. WordPress is active, but it's not all that interactive.

I guess I'm just feeling old and/or nostalgic. Must be that time of year.

[vivien]

I know those feels.

I've seen some of my older fannish friends perk things up a bit. http://minim-calibre.dreamwidth.org/ has a lot of discussion happening in her journal. (I'd have done the user name dealie but my equal key is giving me a = instead of an equal symbol. WEIRD.

[in_the_blue]

I'm always so glad when people perk up again. I suspect if I had more fannish content, I'd have more activity from other people.

But, you know, fannish interest comes and goes. Right now I'm not particularly enamored with any fandom, although we did recently watch all three seasons of Vikings.

[ceitfianna]

I still journal here as I feel far more comfortable being honest here than Tumblr or Twitter. To me this is my home and everywhere else is good for different ways of connecting.

I've been applying for lots of jobs, having skype interviews with a school in Baltimore and being slightly depressed after fact checking a book about Yemen.

The workshop sounds fascinating. What are you hoping to get from it?

[in_the_blue]

Ha, it's been so long since I signed up for this conference, I had to go back and look to see what I'd signed up for. I have four workshops:

1. The Art and Heart of a Strong Character
How does a strong character begin? Take shape? Change and unfold? Creating a believable character is at the heart of story, from picture book to chapter book to young adult novel. Deepen your understanding of giving voice to character, whether zombie or princess, rat or robot, sister or superhero. Explore ways to dig deeper in getting to know your characters, individually or across a series.

2. So Your Character Walks Into a Plot Hole … And Other Common Traps To Avoid In Your YA and MG Manuscripts
How to avoid those pesky common mistakes and pitfalls in MG & YA manuscripts. This presentation will speak to a wide range of topics like pacing, world-building, easy-to-spot scenes that can be deleted, etc., that pop up while an author is writing and revising.

3. Simply Irresistible: How To Explode Out of the Slush Pile with your First Page

4. The Picture Book Litmus Test
Description: You’ve created a picture book; now it’s time to revise! How can you make sure your picture book is the best you can possibly make it? What are the key things editors and agents evaluate when considering your work? How can you make your project the strongest it can be, sot hat you have the best shot at getting published? In this session, Kelly will offer the same tips and writing advice she uses with her clients during the revision process. From the big picture (e.g. reader connection, character development) to the smaller details (e.g. word choice, sentence structure, page turns), you’ll leave this session with a list of go-to points and a clear idea of how to polish your picture book to make it more attractive and competitive in today’s market. And hopefully, rejection-proof!

...I have no idea why I signed up for #4. I'm not writing a picture book. But it should be interesting regardless? Or I can just skip it and write.

There's a query workshop after that, too.

Good luck with the job opportunities!

[ceitfianna]

The last one sounds fascinating since picture books are such a completely different sort of book. I'd be curious to know what you learn from it. The other ones seem really useful too.

Thank you, there are more out there and I've recently retooled my cover letter which makes me feel braver in terms of putting myself out there. I'm even applying for a few academic jobs that seem like a good fit.

[in_the_blue]

I just remembered I actually DID write a tiny picture book for an educational publisher. So maybe I will learn from it!

I think you'd do well in academia. Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

[ceitfianna]

Oh that's awesome, picture books are amazing and so hard to do right.

Thanks, in college, I thought that was where I was going to end up. Now as a librarian, I know I could go a lot of different ways. I'm applying to public libraries, schools and two colleges. The one I hope I get a chance on is with a woman's college library that has a focus on Classics. It combines a lot of loves and its in the area I grew up, so I'm stretching on it.

[in_the_blue]

Fingers crossed for you!

[silveraspen]

Hi. :)

I'm glad the memorial was good. I've been thinking about you. I am shit at writing much of anything these days, although I go through waves of trying. I figure right now it's part and parcel of every little thing on the family side, Talia's passing (which still hits me in new ways all too frequently), and trying to stay afloat at work, which is harder than usual. Mind you, there are good things too, but I evidently haven't had energy enough to write about them either. Wtf, self?

Anyway. Hi. It's good to hear from you. Right now I am typing this from a room at a B&B in east TN for a family wedding - strange how small the world is any more, isn't it?

[in_the_blue]

Hi yourself!

It is a small world. I was thinking about how I've been to Connecticut three times since May. If it was... what, as recently as 40 years ago? that would never have even been an option.

I'm still so sad on your behalf about Talia. I had a cat named Tommie. She was an outdoor girl, a stray, and after I had to have her put down (brain tumor), I would still hear her distinctive yowl outside at night. It broke my heart. It does even now when I think about it.

You're about the busiest person I know. I manage to stay pretty busy myself - I see my mother-in-law almost every day and even though she's just down the street, it's a sizable chunk of my time. I cherish it, though. She's 96 and won't be around forever. I don't always have the oomph to write here, but also I doubt most people want to hear what happened at the assisted living place today, you know? I cleaned the dishes in the sink and changed the cat litter! Woohoo! Then I helped my mother-in-law get her feet up for a half hour! It doesn't make for compelling reading, but it is life.

♥

[king_touchy]

Real life family stuff keeps dragging me away from DW (and will for the foreseeable future), but I come back when I can. (Like now, heh.) And NaNoWriMo is coming right for us! but that means I'll procrastinate more on DW than anywhere else, heh.

I see lots of Yuletide content hitting my reading circle. It's That Time of Year, for sure.

[in_the_blue]

It is that time of year. I ought to start thinking about Yuletide.

...maybe later this week.

[waddledoodles]

hey there

haven't touched any dragon age but i've heard wonderful things about it. one day, when i have A Powerful PC...

[in_the_blue]

I think you might like it? It's super story-driven, but that's what I like best about it. If you do play it, let me know?

[waddledoodles]

definitely! i mean i could play it right now since i have a ps4 but i think i might just leave that for what few playstation exclusives exist for it

[in_the_blue]

I dunno, Frankie, it's pretty beautiful on the PS4. But I'm sure it's every bit as gorgeous on the PC - that part I wouldn't know.

[waddledoodles]

don't tempt me im trying to get through my backlog by playing bayonetta 800 times ;_;

[in_the_blue]

Cheering you on from my corner of the 'verse...

[misslucyjane]

Hey lady.

I just don't find myself with a lot to say right now, really. Work isn't particularly entertaining unless you're there, and the only other things I'm doing is writing, so, yeah.

[in_the_blue]

Those are both good things, though.

I'm so glad you've got a job you actually like now. That's fantastic.

[misslucyjane]

Thank you :)

[agonistes]

hello, i would like to hear about your inquisition playthrough! also you are not the only one who gets the urge to harvest useful crafting materials. *shifty*

(i know you're not a tumblr person but i have developed a dragon age situation so dire that there's now a sideblog. but also trespasser spoilers!)

[in_the_blue]

Ooh, I'm not at Trespasser yet. I'm in the Deep Roads, though. This game is so beautiful.

I'll probably blog some about it when I'm done with this playthrou--oh, look, some Arbor Blessing! And people left their exciting caches of equipment just lying around for ANYONE to take...