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I have to wonder how many times John saw Arthur catatonic with grief or despair, his devastation magnified beyond endurance by the miasma of the Dark World.

How he spoke of one of the Dark World's heightened states being unable to stop crying.

How there was nothing John could possibly have done to soothe the pain-- but he did know how to Make It Stop.

I wonder how many of those bodies were mercy kills.

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Happy birthday!

Thank you so much!

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Happy birthday!!

Thank you!

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happy birthdayyyyy🎉🎉🎉

Thank you so much!

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Guess who's birthday it is today?

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When I was in college, I wrote a paper on the real life applications of zombies.

Whether you love them or you’re sick of them, zombies as a pop cultural milestone are incredibly useful when it comes to disaster preparation. Organizations like the CDC and FEMA will run drills to train their staff using “zombie outbreak” scenarios. Parents of young children are encouraged to frame home disaster plans in terms of zombie attacks, because zombies are a fun Halloween thing, rather than something as real and scary as a tornado or a house fire.

But I notice it in other parts of my life.

I was looking into a setup for making my own rope, because reasons. When I was asked why I would even care about how to do something like that, I didn’t have to explain that it’s a neat skill to have and I like the idea of being a little more reliant on myself and a little less reliant on Target. I said “in case of zombies,” and the other person nodded like I’d said something perfectly reasonable.

Same goes when I’m making arguments for why I’d rather know how to repair my own clothes than buy new ones. I could talk about ecological waste and sweatshop labor and all that stuff, or I could say “yeah, but when the zombies come, I won’t be the one with holes in my socks.”

And yes, the person on the other side probably already knows a lot of that other stuff without me reiterating it for the thousandth time, but also, constantly talking about all the ways the world sucks is really not doing my mental health any favors. Sometimes it’s better to take a step back and pretend the scariest things we’re facing are a bunch of movie monsters that can be outpaced with a brisk walk.

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Trying to write again after pushing myself past burnout is a little bit like trying to give pills to a dog that isn't fooled by wrapping it in cheese or whatever. It's good for you, it'll feel better once it's done, it's not even that hard, but you're still trying to shove the damned thing through clenched teeth and trying not to lose a finger in the process.

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So why tactical glow sticks?

I mentioned before that I have a bunch of tactical-grade glow sticks stashed around my house-- mostly in my closets and bathrooms, specifically in case of emergency or power outage. I keep a stock of candles and flashlights, too, but I'm into glow sticks specifically because:

They aren't fire hazards. Get them wet, drop them, the cats get too close to them, whatever, the house still isn't going to burn down. I guess theoretically bad things can happen if you break them in half, but that takes some major effort.

They're meant to last for six to eight hours. This is why I specify tactical glow sticks-- these are the kind rated for spelunking, etc, rather than for raves. My phone battery isn't going to last that long, neither are my flashlights. I'm in a situation where there's going to need to be at least one light on constantly throughout the night, so it won't work to have a light source that's going to die halfway till dawn.

No batteries. Listen, my ADHD ass can't remember to keep the smoke detector running if it isn't yelling at me. I need something that has a long shelf life that won't die on me if when I've forgotten it exists for months/years at a time.

They cast a broad light. Think like a lantern, rather than a flashlight. Less helpful when you're looking for one specific thing in a dark space, but much more helpful when it's you and your roommate and several animals occupying a space.

Hands-free without the blutooth. You can put it on a string and hang it from something (your neck, a ceiling fan) without worrying too much about safety, since it's not going to damage anything from contact or proximity and it's fairly lightweight.

They can't be blown out or flicker and die at dramatically convenient moments. Don't you just hate when you're searching the house for a serial killer and your flashlight picks that moment to give up the ghost? Or you're searching your haunted mansion in your most revealing nightie and the resident ghost thinks it's funny to blow out the entire candelabra? Glow sticks, baby. If the villain of the horror movie I didn't know I was in is going to get me, then it's gonna have to try harder than that.

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Maybe it's because I'm a writer, but when I yell at the characters in horror movies, I'm not wanting them to avoid the plot.

Often it's the sound I make when watching a tragedy/train wreck and knowing that the tools aren't there even for a reasonable, collected person (just because I have tactical glow sticks stashed all over my house doesn't mean anybody else on the planet will, even if they are ghost-proof and won't run out of batteries at an inconvenient time) (I will still inform the characters that "this is why you should have brought glow sticks" every time a flickering light becomes an issue).

Other times, it's not that I want to see that tactic fix the problem-- I want to see them try it and realize that it doesn't. (Lousy writing will have the designated victim go into the dark basement without any attempt at a light source and promptly get eaten by the monster; better writing will have them turn on the light before they go down the stairs and have the monster smash the light bulb when they're too far down to turn back.)

It's not that I want the problem fixed easily, I want the problems to be creative enough in their execution that you don't have to turn the characters stupid in order to make the problems actual challenges.

Similarly, I am entirely cool with characters being mentally ill, panicked, etc, as reasons for behaving irrationally-- but I want those things to be established by the writing and direction before they become plot-necessary. Make them part of the overall characterization, not just a cheap plot coupon.

I don't want my stories without conflict, I want them to be written competently.

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One major way to get this back:

When you reblog an ask meme, send an ask to the person you reblogged from and every person who reblogged it from you. Even if you don't have anything solid to ask, even if you're embarrassed and don't want to bother them. They posted it because they wanted an ask.

It's a basic courtesy, and it keeps conversation alive.

Reblogging without giving an ask has the unfortunate effect of making people feel like their blog content might be worth taking from, but they themselves aren't worth interacting with, and it feels awful.

bring back tumblr ask culture let me. bother you with questions and statements

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It's hard to stress enough how much of learning depends on failing and making mistakes so that you can learn from them, and how much learning is lost when you aren't allowed the freedom to fail.

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So it took me a day-long anxiety attack, but I've officially submitted my first audiobook for distribution.

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Pretend you’re an influencer: You can influence people to do only two things. What do you choose?

I'm going to assume that this is referring only to influencing the Masses, rather than being really influential on particular political figures and such.

Being utterly selfish, I'd influence them to actually read my books (with all the anxiety involved with it).

Let's be real, I'd probably chicken out of that and throw my weight behind people actually getting out and voting (especially for local and midterm elections!), and making an effort to buy ethically sourced sugar/chocolate/coffee, etc.

(I've found only a small handful of stores in the USA that sell fair trade cane sugar. Almost all of the sugar sold in the United States is harvested through slave labor, as is most of the chocolate we have available to us. Using things with the fair trade label isn't necessarily a guarantee of ethical sources, but it's often the best you can do from the consumer end.)

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For reference: one of my most recent fics was published over the course of a year. Two years old is easily within "possibly still updating" range.

Hell, I recently finished a fic that had been put on hold because of my divorce several years ago, and comments on it are what convinced me to finish.

I still get comments every so often from a fic I wrote when I was in high school, and those always bring me joy.

Comment on those fics, please!

people who write fics. how do you feel about comments on super old ones you wrote like 2+ years ago

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I'm deeply amused that Juno Steel is canonically older than Arthur Lester.

(And of course, that Rita is older than both of them.)

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Imagine if Julian had been there during Empok Nor...

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I need to give myself a break.

My dog just died. My grandmother is quite possibly dying. I just got done with a convention, which is normally enough to wipe me out all by itself.

And also the whole *gestures vaguely at the state of the world*

Sure, I can get through major rewrites in the next two weeks, right?

Right?

What's so impossibly frustrating is that I'm so close-- in theory, I really can get this done in that time, but that just requires pushing myself to the limit for that entire time when I'm already unfocused and struggling with everything else.

I keep looking at my writing and seeing that it's acceptable (that is to say, it can parse as a story and can be followed with basic reading comprehension), but it isn't good, it isn't where I want it to be, and I'm going to be furious with myself if I try to submit this to the printer just to be done on time.

At the same time, it's so tempting to just call it good enough and be done with it.

Like I said, I need a break.

Progress: 51k/93k