#fixed typos and made it broader

[nicname]

”Oh if we didn’t have xenogenders/GNC trans people/neopronouns/MOGAI/etc etc etc then transphobes would respect us.” Untrue. Most transphobes are so insanely vitriolic that you could be the most standard, decent, agreeable trans person, and they would still hate you.

I’m a fairly basic trans man, online and off. I tone my gender down even more for work. I have short hair, facial hair, I wear pretty standard non-fitted pants and t shirts with some manner of compressive undergarment underneath, and I go by my fairly basic, common masc name. The only difference between me and my cis coworkers is that I openly engage in good-faith discussions about my being transgender when brought up, and I have a “he/him” pronoun pin I like to wear.

I have one coworker who I’m well aware has never gendered me correctly. I have assumed it was an intentional, bad-faith decision (because of other, unrelated-to-me conversations he has had with coworkers), but I’ve never really cared enough to bring it up to him. I figured, “if this is intentional, that’s his issue. I’m not interested in trying to change his mind.” I’ve reached a point in my transition to where I don’t really care that much if some random person doesn’t respect me or my gender, because I don’t need every stranger’s approval to be happy with myself.

With all that being said, I’ve treated him the same as I have every other coworker. I’ve been civil, I’ve been agreeable, I’ve still been friendly to him and haven’t gone around the workplace intending to smear his name. (Yes, I have discussed his behavior to those close to me who have asked, but I’ve kept it very private and said that as long as he doesn’t say anything outwardly malicious, I don’t really care about his behavior.) He has been outwardly friendly to me, too, telling me about his past careers, showing me pictures of his family, we’ve talked about our hobbies and other things we enjoy.

Still, after all of this, he has given up the ghost and decided to gossip about me negatively to coworkers. I won’t go into detail about what I’ve been told he said, but it was all explicitly transphobic and pretty aggressive. I’ve never gone out of my way to make him mad, relating to my gender or not, so it’s a little out of nowhere. I’m not particularly surprised by this, but I’m more surprised that he would be bold enough to say everything out loud when working for a company that has explicit protections for trans people in place. He was reported fairly quickly, without me ever knowing what occurred. The only reason I found out about everything is because I overheard a manager discussing it with a concerned coworker from my department.

So, if you take anything away from this, let it be that no amount of friendliness, gender-conformity, or civilness with stop a transphobe from taking their transphobia out on you, and it’s not your fault or any other trans person’s fault. Don’t victim blame trans people who become the subject of someone’s transphobic hate, because a transphobe is dedicated to harming trans people regardless of whether they blend in with cis people or not. Don’t use a transphobe’s needlessly malicious behavior as a reason to harass other trans, GNC, nonbinary, or otherwise gender diverse people.

[exilethegame]

Writing Update (09/22/23)

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I made one of these, huh? 👀

I've spent the past few weeks settling back into university work, but now I'm back into the swing of writing and developing things. So I thought I would take this chance to clarify some things, and lay down what the future of The Exile is gonna look like.

The Public Demo is now done. Chapter Five is the last chapter that you'll be able to play for free until the game is finished. Right now, I am working on rewriting what is written and porting the game into Twine. This means I'm expanding scenes, adding variation and flavor text, fixing stubborn lingering bugs, and implementing a codex + optional flashback scenes (*cough* and art *cough*) into the game. This will take a while.

I'm not just copy and pasting things into Twine and changing the coding-- I'm polishing things, adding lore and info, and overall just making the game significantly more "put together" so-to-speak. The version of The Exile that's up right now has been the Alpha Version of the game, It's never been properly edited beyond fixing glaringly obvious typos, continuity errors, and bugs. Now, I'm working on actually implementing broader, more complex changes into the game based on feedback I've gotten over the coarse of the past two years of writing!

My hope is to release the Twine Demo at some point around January. But that's a goal, not a deadline. I'll likely take in more beta readers for the Twine version of the game at some point, and post the Twine build onto my Patreon more casually in the following months. I'll delve more into both of things, however, when the time comes.

My hope is to be as transparent as possible and try to be more active on here as I work on things, so expect to see writing updates once more! Though they'll likely be quite short, functioning just to keep you guys updated on what's going on ~*behind the scenes*~

That's all for now, and thanks for reading! :)

Rewrite Progress [Prologue] The entirety of the Prologue is being rewritten and expanded upon.

Expanded the Jamie + Lnyla encounter in the woods (scene has three main variations, and can end in 4 different ways! And Jamie is less of a little brat <3)

[WiP] Expanding Vethna's intro scene-- there are two main variations, and there will likely be more than one way for the scene to end this time...

Added codex entry for magic-users

Added codex entry for Vrithka

Added codex for blood magic

Working on overhauling and simplifying stats (the main focus with be MC's combat stats, along with MC's personality + commanding style)

Debating adding a sort of optional "personality test" that will tell you what mythosi your MC would be based on their personality!

[jazzfordshire]

Jazz, first of all, you are a great writer. I've thought that since I first stumbled over your vampire AU ages and ages ago now, but let me reiterate: you are a great writer. You have always been a great writer. We all feel cringe over our early works, but those early works hold the building blocks of who we become as storytellers. Every typo, misplaced punctuation, misspelled word, or any other "trouble spot" that you see now is there because you were able to grow and change and become the writer you are now. I guarantee in another two or three years, you will look back at the stories you are writing now and feel a large well of fondness...but also wince a little when you spot things you'd change in that nebulous future.

The changes are not necessary. Although, I won't say don't do it, because sometimes, it feels good to take what was lumpy and mal-formed (to your own eyes) and turn it into a sweet little baby you can love all the more. Just remember to be kind to yourself. I say this as someone who has written fanfic and published novels. I say this as someone who has re-written both stories and novels to try and present the stories in a broader and better way...be kind to yourself, because in the end, you are your own best audience.

Thank you!!! I really do appreciate that! And I do know I’ll look back on what I write now in the future and think it’s not good enough, it’s part of the journey of getting better, it can just be difficult to see narrative mistakes or decisions I made and not want to FIX THEM hahaha. It’s why I wouldn’t delete the old one even if I did do some kind of refresh! I do like being able to see the path I took, ya know? It’s also why I really enjoyed writing the Lena POV to my 70s au, because it felt like having a conversation with my past writing!

[rjalker]

(The typos Speech-to-text made have now been fixed, and I have received an answer in the reblogs! :) )

Do therian and otherkin mean the same thing? Is one of them the umbrella term? How does this work. I thought otherkin just meant everybody who doesn't identify as a human, but then I heard therian means people who specifically identify as real animals, possibly specifically ones that are not extinct, I don't know.

I assumed otherkin was the umbrella term that includes both of these things, am I wrong? Is there a broader umbrella term I should be using? (I don't want to accidentally leave anyone out if any of my posts apply to them).

[a-dragons-journal]

my friend made a carrd on kin terms and wants to make sure terms are correct as they aren't that interactive with the community yet being in it for years, the url is kinform. carrd. co ( I am not sure if links work )

- and in case my tumblr messes up again I wanna stay anon

A’ight, let’s go through this!

First off, I want to say: I really appreciate the effort your friend is putting into this, including going to the effort to have other people check their work! It’s a well-organized carrd, and I appreciate that they included a lot of less well-known labels! That being said, there’s definitely quite a bit of misinformation here - which is totally understandable, the misinformation has spread unfortunately far at this point. But hey, that’s why I’m here!

Incorrect info:

- “alterhuman: a general term for anyone who identifies as non-human, whether it be 'kin or 'link” (on Terms) “Alterhuman” is a much broader term than that - “Having an identity that is alternative to the common societal idea of 'human'; a person who identifies as such.” It covers anyone who has an alternative experience to humanity, or who experiences humanity in an alternative way from “normal”. It’s intentionally an extremely vague and broad term - it covers ‘kin, ‘links, ‘heartedness/kith/synpaths, plurality, daemonism, furry lifestylers, real vampires, endels, probably voidpunk, etc.

(There’s a whole conversation to be had here about how the alterhuman community was supposed to get away from centralizing the otherkin narrative but somehow ended up with that being a huge problem anyway, with it often feeling like it’s about nonhuman identity even though it’s not - but that’s a pretty long conversation, so we won’t go there xD)

- “astral limbs: the sensation of a body part that is not there in real life ; not to be confused with phantom limbs which is used by amputees” (on Terms) Astral limbs =/= supernumerary phantom limbs =/= phantom limb syndrome. What you’re defining is supernumerary phantom limbs, not astral limbs/shifts - astral limbs/shifts are where your astral body changes to match that of your kintype, which a) doesn’t always coincide with phantom shifts, and b) requires belief in astral bodies/the astral plane in the first place, which many ‘kin don’t hold.

Supernumerary phantom limbs is the sensation of having a body part that is not and never has been physically present, as opposed to phantom limb syndrome which is referring to limbs that have been amputated. It’s not “appropriating” language from amputees or anything like that like some people have tried to claim - supernumerary phantom limbs is a medical term. Astral limbs isn’t an accurate, adequate, or necessary replacement.

- copingkin: identifying with or as anything under fictionkin or otherkin for comfort and/or coping ; also referred to as comfortkin ~ also see copinglink (from Kin) I would strongly suggest removing this; it’s not an accepted term and pretty much never has been as far as I’m aware. You’re either copinglink, someone who chose their identity for coping purposes, or otherkin who happens to have a psychological explanation, if your identity came about as an unconscious/involuntary coping mechanism.

- fictionkin: identifying with or as a fictional character or race. (from Kin) Remove “with or”; it’s identify-as. If you don’t identify as them, you’re not ‘kin. Identifying strongly with, but not as, is ‘heartedness, not ‘kin. I would also suggest swapping “race” for “species,” if that’s what you meant, since that’s a pretty loaded term out of context.

- otherkin: identifying with or as non-animal/non-human and mythical creatures ; some have their own label such as songkin. (from Kin) Remove “with or”; it’s identify-as, as above^.

- kin is often involuntarily & spiritual, if you consider yourself kin but don't do these, see hearted or synpath (from Kin) ‘Kin is involuntary, full stop, but it’s not necessarily spiritual. Nor is the distinction between ‘kin and ‘heartedness/synpaths the voluntary/involuntary aspect; it’s that ‘kin is identify-as and ‘heartedness/synpath isn’t.

- aeslink relating to anything for aesthetic reasons ~ "i am angel & palace aeslink" copinglink strongly relating with a fictional character for comfort and/or coping. (from Other) ‘Links are voluntarily choosing to cultivate an identity as something else - character, species, or otherwise. It’s still identify-as, not “relating to,” it’s just voluntary where otherkinity is involuntary. It’s not any less serious or any less identify-as. 'Linking or otherlinking is defined as “voluntarily choosing to identify as nonhuman/a fictional character or species”.

- synpaths: strongly relating to a fictional character or race that you see a lot of yourself in, but not as strong as kin. (from Other) Remove “not as strong as ‘kin”; ‘kin isn’t “relating to” something in the first place, it’s identifying as that thing. I would also suggest swapping “race” for “species,” if that’s what you meant, since that’s a pretty loaded term out of context.

- therian: identifying with or as an animal or other living thing. (from Other) Remove “with or”; it’s identify-as, as with fictionkin and otherkin.

Suggested edits:

Things that aren’t necessarily wrong, but which I would suggest edits to anyway for clarity/accuracy.

- awakening: the moment one realizes they identify as a kintype/theriantype (from Terms) I would posit that an awakening isn’t necessarily a single moment in time; much more often it’s an extended process that can take weeks, months, or even years. There’s some overlap between “awakening” and “questioning” that way, imo.

- They also said “theriantype” multiple times where it should be “theriotype,” but that’s more of a typo thing than a content error.

- otherkin: identifying with or as non-animal/non-human and mythical creatures ; some have their own label such as songkin. (from Kin) Songkin is probably not a great example if this is intended for outsiders who are new to the terminology, since conceptkin is kind of hard to explain to begin with, but that’s my personal opinion.

- Cladotherian, therian, theriomythic, and phytanthrope should all be on the ‘Kin page, as they all technically fall under ‘kin.

-  identity/ID, kinnie & kinning won't be added as they are terms created by the more newer kin community and aren't recognized/accepted terms for older kin, though some older kin may be okay with these terms. (from Terms) Personally, I don’t like calling them “the newer kin community” - the “kin for fun” people aren’t ‘kin, they’re misusing our language, that’s the entire point. “The “kin-for-fun” community” or just “terms being warped as part of misinformation” would probably be more accurate.

- Synpath can probably be included on the ‘hearted page, since synpath, kith, and otherhearted are basically all synonymous.

Suggested additions:

- A resources list may be worthwhile! Things like personal websites and perhaps a few trustworthy blogs/posts could be worth adding to that list (I have a kin resources tag here that may be useful to them if they want to do that!) This gives people a place to go if they want to learn more.

- The term otherlinker is probably a good one to add, given that copinglinker and a specific type of ‘link (aeslink) are both present but the larger umbrella term presently isn’t.

Out of curiosity:

not edits at all, I’m just curious, ha

- kintrope: a trait found in most of ones kintypes. (from Terms) I’m really curious where they found this term, it’s not one I’ve heard before!

I think that’s about all I can find - like I said, I really appreciate the effort being put into this carrd! There’s a lot of good terms on here, just some definition fixes that need to be made - it’s well-organized and very aesthetically pleasing, which is more than I can honestly say for a lot of carrds xD

Hopefully that’s all clear enough to be helpful - I’m more than happy to chat further about this or provide clearer definitions/suggested resources, if your friend wants! :3

[southeastasianists]

Covid-19 has upended many things in daily life - from travel to retail to education. More menacingly, it has also unleashed an authoritarian blitzkrieg from Hungary to Turkey to the Philippines, where populist leaders are taking advantage of state of emergency conditions and lockdowns that have made public protests and opposition mobilisation next to impossible.

This week's conviction of Maria Ressa, President Rodrigo Duterte's bete noire and founder of the Rappler news portal, on cyber libel charges, illuminates how this plays out in the broader landscape of rapid authoritarian consolidation made possible by the pandemic.

Mr Duterte, who has repeatedly threatened to impose nationwide martial law, has also long resented the liberal-leaning mainstream media. The reports by Rappler, ABS-CBN network and the Philippine Inquirer about his administration's brutal drug war and other questionable policies have earned them the ire of the President.

Since coming to power, Mr Duterte has launched an unprecedented campaign of intimidation against the country's freewheeling media. He has accused journalists of corruption and biased coverage and has warned that "just because you're a journalist you are not exempted from assassination if you're a son of a bitch".

His threats against the media took a more menacing character in the light of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The ABS-CBN shutdown came just over a month, and Ressa's conviction two months, after the Philippine Congress seamlessly handed the President sweeping emergency powers, which authorised him to "move, decide and act freely for the best interest of the Filipino people during this health crisis".

Since the imposition of a nationwide lockdown in late March, countless voices of dissent have faced unprecedented pressure. More than a dozen warrant-less arrests and subpoenas have been filed against netizens accused of engaging in "misinformation".

Of particular concern is the impending adoption of a draconian anti-terrorism law, which could potentially be weaponised against political opposition and civil dissent.

Also hanging in the balance is the fate of the country's oldest and largest media conglomerate, ABS-CBN, which was perfunctorily ordered in early May to go off the air. Its licence to broadcast its television and radio programmes was revoked even though the company's franchise was still under deliberation by the Philippine Congress.

The Philippine Supreme Court is set to deliberate the network's case next month, while civil society groups are expected to also challenge the new anti-terrorism law at the High Court. As for Ressa, who faces six years in jail for the cyber libel case alone, she is expected to appeal the verdict while also battling seven other charges, including tax evasion.

"I admit that it took me more than a month to defang the fear of jail. I hated that the baton was passed to me at this moment in time, but I also knew I wasn't going to drop it," Ressa, a Princeton alumna, told graduates at the university's virtual commencement last month.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque was quick to dissociate Mr Duterte from the Ressa case, which has gained widespread international attention. Mr Roque asserts that the "President has said repeatedly that he has never filed a case of libel against a journalist despite his negative reporting" and that the Filipino leader "believes in free speech, and believes that anyone who works in government should not be thin-skinned". Earlier, the government made an almost exactly identical claim vis-a-vis ABS-CBN's closure, maintaining that what's at stake is standard application of law and Mr Duterte is "neutral" on the issue.

Ressa, the founder of the news portal, along with a former Rappler employee, Reynaldo Santos Jr, were both convicted on cyber libel charges on Monday in a case centred on allegations involving a local businessman.

Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa, who presided over the case, was adamant that what's at stake is "accountability" and that there "is no curtailment of the right to freedom of speech and of the press". The defendants, she said, failed to back up their allegations.

The case concerns a 2012 story written by Santos which alleged that a businessman, Mr Wilfredo Keng, had links to illegal drug and human trafficking. What has drawn criticism at home and abroad, however, is that the article was published by Rappler months before the Philippines' new cyber libel laws came into effect in 2013. Prosecutors argue that the law could still be applied because a correction made in 2014 to fix a "typo" in the story was considered a "republication" of the article.

Mrs Amal Clooney, one of Ressa's lawyers, condemned the conviction as "an affront to the rule of law, a stark warning to the press, and a blow to democracy in the Philippines". No less than Philippine Vice-President Leni Robredo has criticised the verdict as part of a broader campaign of "silencing, harassing, and weaponising law against the media".

The verdict against Ressa was the second major blow against the media. The first shock came when the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) issued an immediate "cease and desist" against the liberal ABS-CBN network last month. Observers noted darkly then that it evoked memories of the martial law years under strongman Ferdinand Marcos, who effectively shut down the independent media in 1972.

Although Mr Duterte has repeatedly threatened the country's leading liberal media outlets with potential closure, accusing them of legal violations from "swindling" to tax evasion to foreign ownership with scant evidence, the move against the ABS-CBN still came as a surprise. For a long time, many doubted if Mr Duterte would go so far as to shut the country's largest broadcast network responsible for the most popular entertainment and news programmes in the country, or oversee the conviction of Ressa, the Philippines' most celebrated journalist.

Concerns about selective targeting of media outlets and the existential threat to the Philippines' long history of press freedom were heightened when in a candid moment, Mr Duterte's most trusted aide, Senator Bong Go, confessed that what's really at stake are "the grievances of the President against the network". "If you are mean to the President, he will be meaner to you," he warned critics. "If you are nice to the President, then he will be nicer to you."

To be sure, the Philippines has long been a dangerous place for journalists, who have been harassed and killed by militants, crooks and political warlords. During Mr Duterte's first three years in office, those in the news business continued to live dangerously, with as many as 154 incidents of harassment and attacks, 15 of them fatal, recorded across the country. "Of the 154 cases, at least 69 had linked state agents - public officials from the executive and legislative branches, uniformed personnel, and Cabinet appointees of President Duterte - as known or alleged perpetrators. Of these 69 state agents, about half or 27 are from national government agencies," a media watchdog, The Freedom for Media, Freedom for All Network, reported last year.

In the global Press Freedom Index, the Philippines, formally a liberal democracy, ranks below several repressive Arab regimes and, in Asia, just above Myanmar and Thailand, which are under de facto military rule.

Even more worrying, the recent passage of a draconian anti-terror law, which could lead to charges of terrorism against anyone accused of seeking to "intimidate the general public" or "create an atmosphere to spread a message of fear" has had civil rights groups warning that it would give the government "almost free rein in determining who are suspected terrorists" with potentially devastating impact on the opposition and press freedom.

Mr Duterte's endgame is far from clear, but there are fears that he may follow in the footsteps of other authoritarian populists, from Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who systematically eroded free speech protections once in power.

But the fight is far from over. From challenging the anti-terrorism law and ABS-CBN's closure in the Supreme Court, to appealing against Ressa's conviction, the opposition and independent media are determined to hold the line in hopes of better days. After all, they survived the darkest days of the Marcos dictatorship.

And time is fortunately on their side, With Mr Duterte limited to one term and entering his fifth year next June, he effectively becomes a lame duck by the middle of next year. Also, progressive relaxation of the ongoing lockdown will create more space for protest and mobilisation; those who resist him may still have a fighting chance.

[nona-gay-simus-main]

How To Collect and Organize Beta Reader Feedback

As some of you might know, I previously wrote a full draft of my currently untitled m/m romance novel and got through an almost full round of beta readers before I decided to scrap it and start again, nearly from scratch and with a different premise (It went from two timelines - first love/second chance to a single timeline - enemies to lovers).

Out of nowhere, I decided to start rereading and reorganizing my feedback in hopes to find something that would be useful to me in my current draft. Originally, I just planned to delete everything that wasn’t relevant, but a lot of it was really cute and funny, and I mean, I did write a full book - even if it wasn’t all that good - I at least deserve to keep my feedback from it.

Before I went on this endeavor, I foolishly believed that there’s no wrong way to collect beta feedback and boy, oh boy was I wrong! So I’m here to tell you the wrong ways and the right way. But first, let’s revise our terms:

What is a Beta Reader?

Beta readers are readers, who would be interested in picking your book off the shelf if it were already published. That means you should already have a pretty good idea of what is your genre and age category is. There’s no such thing as a ‘fiction book for everyone’. While certain books might have broader appeal, all books have a target audience. So figure out yours. 

The reason to know this from the start is two-fold. First, obviously to know how and where to market your book. Second, different genres come with different expectations and you really don’t want to piss off your core readership. You’re not going to be able to please everyone, and if you try, you’re likely to end up pleasing no one. So while it’s definitely a good idea to look for diversity in your beta readers, you should probably not be looking for genre diversity. 

I’m gonna let you in a little secret: for the longest time, I had no idea I was writing a romance novel. Part of it was that I really just hadn’t read a contemporary queer romance, so subconsciously thought that (contemporary) romance was for the straights only. But the bigger part was that my story just wasn’t well structured so I had no idea what the main conflict was supposed to be. And let’s just say... that didn’t exactly do me any favors when I was trying to get people interested in reading it. You can’t really amp others up about a project if you don’t know what the project is about.

Not only that, but I had a cp/beta reader who while wonderful, wasn’t a romance fan, so there were several points where I felt frustrated with their critique because I felt they simply didn’t like certain conventions of the genre. And that’s not their fault - we were just not a great match. Still appreciate working with them, but I know better now.

Where to find Beta readers?

You can find them anywhere. Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook groups, Discord servers and so on. Just look around. I assume you’re writing your story because you want to read something like it, and if you want to read it, someone else probably wants to read it too.

How to collect Beta feedback?

I normally use Google Docs or sometimes Word. Chapter by chapter is definitely best. It’s much less overwhelming to try to read 10 pages than 210.  Copy/Paste the chapter in a new document and send it to the beta, after warning them for any triggers or squicks that might apply. 

If you’re using Word, send the document over email. If you’re using Google Docs, share it with their email. Make sure to share it through email and not create links (like me), because it’s much safer that way. If you share it, only the person with the access to the email can see it, if you make a link, anyone with the link can see it. Again chances of plagiarism are minuscule, but still.

On Google Docs you want to give them Comment permission. That way they can make comments in the margins and any edits they make will show up like Track Changes on Word. If they are using Word and making edits, simply encourage them to turn on Track Changes. 

Encourage betas to make comments while reading, on everything that they liked, disliked, found confusing, or anything that made any impression at all. Even if’s just ‘lol’ or a keyboard smash. Sometimes those are the best comments to read!

But also keep in mind that not everyone will do that. That’s why I always have a questionnaire or do an interview with the beta. Questions tend to prompt people into organizing their thoughts a bit. Because I’m nice, I’ll share my questionnaire with you, (it is actually an adjusted version of @jennamoreci​‘s questionnaire from her beta readers video here:

1. What is your overall opinion of the chapter? 

2. What do you think of x character ? 

3. What is your favorite scene/part/line and why? (You can pick more than one.)

4. What is your least favorite scene/part/line and why? (You can pick more than one.) 

5. Are any parts confusing or unclear? 

6. Do you think there’s anything specific I need to improve or fix in the chapter, whether it’s the writing, the charters, plot, setting, etc.? 

7. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much did you enjoy the chapter? 

8. On a scale of 1 to 10, how eager are you to read the next chapter? 

9. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much are you enjoying the book so far (not applicable to chapter 1)?

10. Do you have any predictions? 

12. Do you have any other comments, thoughts, suggestions, or advice?

You can also add questions specific to the chapter, especially if you are already worried about a particular aspect of it. You should also ask their opinion on every character who shows up in the chapter.

I prefer to put this questionnaire at the end of the document I send to my beta reader, that way I’m sure they won’t be accidentally spoiling something with my questions and they can go over it right after reading instead of waiting for our schedules to match so we can have an interview. It’s a bit of a copy-pasting game, sure, but ultimately it takes no more than a couple of minutes. I would discourage you from having the questionnaire in the same document you are writing because it might end up messing with your word count, and lie to you that you’ve written more words than you actually have.

Afterward, if you need any clarifications on their answers, message the beta on their preferred platform - for me, that’s usually Discord, sometimes Twitter or Tumblr - to ask for clarifications. Sometimes you can also explain what you were going for, especially if the beta had a question, but don’t overdo it. You don’t want to seem argumentative. 

Oh, and be sure to thank your beta readers. Don’t forget they are giving up their time to help you for free. Nothing annoys me more from a beta reader perspective, then to not receive even a form thank you. 

How to Organize Beta Feedback?

So this is the big one. After you receive your beta feedback, address all the small things you can like typos and grammar right away (unless you’re already pretty sure you’ll be deleting/rewriting the scene) and mark stuff, that they’ve pointed out is badly phrased, etc. for later. Then delete irrelevant feedback, like one-word answers or ‘no opinion’. The feedback you disagree with might be unpleasant to read, but that doesn’t make it irrelevant. And if something makes you really mad, chances are it’s something you probably need to work on.

Then copy all the feedback - every comment and every answer, even if you disagree with them - into a separate document organized BY CHAPTER, not by beta name. This was the mistake I made. You’ll need this feedback when you move on to revision and you really don’t want to have a million tabs or documents open. Аlso it’s much easier to spot patterns if everything is in the same place. And if several people are saying the same thing, that’s probably something to pay attention to. 

Oh, don’t play around with fonts too much. I make everything the same font, but at first, I tried to make it really distinguished between what quote from the manuscript the beta was responding to and the beta’s own words, and honestly, you wrote your book, you know it pretty well. 99.9% of the time you can easily tell what they were responding to and what’s a quote from the book and what is the beta’s own words.

Good luck on your beta journey!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Insiders claim that Google's internet-fixing Jigsaw is a toxic vanity project for its founder, where women keep a secret post-crying touchup kit in the bathroom

In 2016, Google announced that it was renaming its small Google Ideas unit to "Jigsaw," giving the new unit a much broader, "wildly ambitious" mandate: to tackle "surveillance, extremist indoctrination, and censorship."

In the years since, the company -- now a separate entity under Google's Alphabet parent-company -- has made a lot of headlines for products that, on closer inspection, were deeply flawed: the troll-detecting AI that could be terminally confused by typos (which was then used to produce a deeply flawed map of America's most trolly places). Other projects (generally more modest than the "wildly ambitious" mission statement implied) were more credible, but so far have not borne much fruit: turning Change My View into a standalone, separate from Reddit; publishing a giant, amazing open data-set of news links; producing a censorship-busting DNS proxy; providing a pop-up dictionary of security terms.

Some of the other "wildly ambitious" projects were never released: the company crushed its own report on the use of trolling by state actors to achieve authoritarian ends.

One project stands out as living up to Jigsaw's promise: Project Shield, which helps journalistic organizations defend themselves against Denial of Service attacks, a frequent tactic employed by state actors to silence unflattering reportage.

People who work at (or partner with) Jigsaw are bound by tight, far-reaching nondisclosure agreements, but Motherboard's Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai (previously) got many current and former Jigsaw employees to speak anonymously about the conditions inside the mysterious "think/do" tank.

They describe a toxic work environment where complaints are met with vicious retaliation; where women are demeaned, sidelined and degraded (the women of Jigsaw have a secret bathroom kit "with mascara, moisturizing spray, and other items to help employees in distress hide their tears"); and where women on Google's anonymous gwe-anon message board warn any woman thinking of applying for a job at Jigsaw that it is a misogynist cesspool.

As to the actual mission of Jigsaw, the insiders say that the first priority is not to fix the internet or defend its most vulnerable users, but to generate headlines and accolades for Jared Cohen -- a US State Department veteran who served under Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton before becoming senior advisor to Eric Schmidt, longtime CEO of Google and now Chair of its Board. Cohen and Schmidt have a very close relationship, and co-authored a book: "The New Digital Age."

The insiders say that Jigsaw's internal leadership are alternately patronizing and hostile when it comes to the internet users they say they want to defend, and cite an incident in which Cohen threatened to scuttle a joint project with the world-leading Citizen Lab if they did not feature Jigsaw's logo on the project's site.

Franceschi-Bicchierai claims that Jigsaw has hemorrhaged two dozen employees (out of 60) since mid-2018, including Lucas Dixon, the first engineer at Jigsaw, who was chief scientist when he resigned and published an open letter to colleagues decrying Jigsaw's culture of retaliation, fear, and ego.

Google and Jigsaw are apparently aware of their cultural problem, but their major effort to address it has been nothing short of bizarre: "Jigsaw’s leaders tasked six employees to form an internal committee, interview all other employees—including each other—and write a report that would detail the team’s problems and potential solutions, according to current and former employees." The committee's report was "dismal," revealing widespread dislike of Cohen, but it was also "purposefully vague, because employees would not have felt comfortable sharing personal complaints with the whole team and feared retribution for speaking up."

Franceschi-Bicchierai appeared on this week's Cyber podcast -- another Motherboard project -- to discuss his article. In the interview, he describes Jigsaw as serving the role of a diplomatic corps for Google -- a company that is larger than many of the world's governments -- helping shape public opinion of Google and its role in an ethical, sustainable internet.

Cohen would not comment on Franceschi-Bicchierai's article. After its publication, he sent an internal memo to Jigsaw employees, lamenting that he was "deeply disappointed for all of you to see our culture characterized in this way," and "as CEO, I take this responsibility seriously and I’m committed to ensuring we continue to improve." (The odd phrasing of the former does not inspire confidence in the latter).

https://boingboing.net/2019/07/03/missing-piece-of-the-puzzle.html

[heart-forge]

Feedback is also appreciated just so y’all know. Let me know how the routes made you feel, if you thought they were romantic enough or not, if you thought the pacing was whack in spots. I know there’s a couple typos that I fixed like immediately after posting but aside from broader story concepts the copyediting should be mostly done.

Also here’s the forum post for it as well, just for the sake of numbers !!

(and I’m not entirely sure how the save system works since it’s just a js library I’ve imported, but if you find you don’t have any more story than what you had before, try restarting. I know it’s a pain and I’ll try to code around it next update if people are having problems)

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[marviinmelton]

America’s design community comes into its own

A heated plagiarism scandal that rocked design discourse, a splashy return to 1970s maximalism, and independent design came out on top. With New York City’s annual NYCxDesign festival now officially concluded, these are just some of the lasting impressions from two weeks that were chock full of events, launches, and installations.

Held less than a month after Milan Design Week and Salone del Mobile—the world’s largest and longest-standing trade show dedicated to furniture and product design—NYCxDesign is our most comparable stateside counterpart, with several fairs and countless pop-up events spanning the city’s five boroughs. Yet despite the fact that New York is home to a higher density of design professionals than anywhere else in the country, NYCxDesign has often been regarded as an afterthought to industry insiders: Larger brands and furniture houses will often present the same collections just previewed in Milan, and often with activations much less grand than those presented abroad. (It’s hard to compete when Milanese pop-up venues are often ornate, centuries-old palazzos, open to the public just for the occasion.) What’s more, NYCxDesign has rarely been able to contain itself to a single, tidy week—last year, it ballooned to span nearly the entire month of May, making it a marathon event that might dissuade international visitors from being able to take the whole spectrum of events in a single visit.

[Photo: courtesy Jumbo]

All of those factors, however, also give NYCxDesign some distinct advantages: There’s no shortage of homegrown talent, and with the high cost of attending and exhibiting abroad, many local designers opt to go all in on their home turf. With cross-disciplinary collaborations, spirited debates, and a host of openings celebrating independent work, this year convinced us that American design may have finally, refreshingly, come into its own as a platform where designers can speak to a broader audience. This year’s edition of NYCxDesign genuinely felt like a cultural event, more akin to fashion week or a film festival than a staid trade show. Read on for our top five takeaways.

Egg Collective, Designing Women II.  [Photo: Egg Collective]

Rise of the designer-curator

In the age of social media, are any of us not curators? This year saw a surge in a particular breed of multi-hyphenate—the designer-as-curator-and-exhibitor—with a number of independently organized group exhibitions in a show of tight-knit community. Last year, in the jarring wake of Trump’s presidential election, the all-women design trio of Egg Collective mounted a show of work by women designers in their downtown showroom, in a positive and constructive flex of dissent against the state of affairs. As a follow-up to the widely lauded effort, this year they teamed with Lora Appleton of Kindermodern on Designing Women II: Masters, Mavericks, and Mavens, featuring an international and cross-generational mix of mixed-media works by Nicola L., Mimi Jung, Mira Nakashima, Bari Ziperstein, and more.

Egg Collective, Designing Women II.  [Photo: Egg Collective]

Eskayel, Next Level [Photo: courtesy Eskayel]

Manhattan was particularly hard-hit by the decline of brick-and-mortar retail this past year, with a string of closures in previously high-trafficked districts—look to the formerly boutique-packed stretch of Bleecker Street in the West Village for a prime example of how digital-first commerce has affected neighborhood streets IRL. The vacant storefronts are signs of a changing industry, and for some designers, a serendipitous boon. At a former Superdry clothing store on Broadway—one of several vacancies on the main thoroughfare in Greenwich Village—several studios banded together to present Next Level, a group show of work by their peers and friends, partly looking to channel the cultural fervor that completely overtakes Milan during their design week.

“[Eskayel] exhibited at Salone for the first time ever this past year, and it really opened my eyes as to what was possible,” said Nick Chacona, a partner at the Brooklyn rug studio Eskayel, one of the show’s organizers. “Events are so integrated into the city there, and we wanted to bring some of that approach here to New York.”

In East Williamsburg, the tongue-in-cheek design collective Jonald Dudd (no, that’s not a typo) curated Return of the Living Dudd, a group show housed in a recently abandoned, half-gutted 99 cent storefront. Framed as a “platform for dissenting objects,” it was easily the wackiest batch of works to surface all week—ranging from vessels with live-oozing goop in swirling shades of pink and green, to a seatless chair made of square bathroom tile—all placed in a collage-like disarray upon a swooping, cobalt-blue carpeted backdrop that evoked an appropriately internet-bred aesthetic. As the curators Lydia Cambron and Chris Held held forth: “Punx not dead.”

Jonald Dudd, Return of the Living Dudd. [Photo: Jason Mandella]

Their DIY ethos was a refreshing counterpoint to the hallowed halls of Jacob J. Javits Center—home to ICFF, the longstanding trade show anchor to NYCxDesign—and gave the corporate approach a run for its money. New York’s new class of designer-curator-whatever brought out some of the most compelling work of the festival.

Camille Walala [Photo: courtesy Industry City]

Fashion, design, and internet culture collide

Chunky geometries, tubular forms, furry surfaces, and supergraphic patterns were all out in droves this year. It was a signal that 1970s maximalism and a fashion-influenced approach to interiors are still driving many independent designers. Was a secret memo circulated to all of the cool young makers, or has the Internet given birth to a globalized ur-aesthetic? Seen at the various booths of design fairs WantedDesign, ICFF, and Sight Unseen alike, it stood up alongside the enduring popularity of midcentury and Scandinavian modern design. Seemingly more concerned with form than comfort or function, many of these works channeled an approach to furniture and interiors driven by fashion.

Kamarq [Photo: Travis Chantar/courtesy Kamarq]

The idea of how fashionable trends spread, particularly in our internet-driven society, became a topic of heated debate after Kamarq, a Japanese startup aspiring to be the “Netflix of furniture,” was forced to cancel its debut collection within hours of its launch, after copycat claims on Instagram went viral overnight. The designers of the collection, fashion personality and former Lady Gaga stylist Nicola Formichetti, and PJ Mattan, a consultant behind brands like Hem and Bezar—neither of whom had previously ever designed furniture, and extolled the idea of a “fast fashion” approach to home interiors—suggested their tube-and-slab forms were so basic so as to allude authorship, while many others (including this writer) saw undeniable likenesses to a 2015 Matter collection by independent designer Ana Kras. The Wing cofounder Audrey Gelman, artist Katie Stout, musician Dev Hynes, and Hem founder Petrus Palmer were among the many creatives who commented to weigh in on the controversial topic that, fittingly, cemented Kamarq as a “fast fashion” brand indeed.

Vitra+Akris+Alexander Girard [Photo: courtesy Akris]

In general, the fashion world played a significantly direct influence in NYCxDesign this year, with trendy downtown boutiques Philip Lim, Creatures of Comfort, and Opening Ceremony among the many fashion fixtures that teamed up with local furniture designers as part of Sight Unseen‘s curatorial project Field Studies, which paired creatives across various disciplines to produce unique one-off pieces, with proceeds going to a range of charitable causes. Even the big brands got cuddly with the fashion world: Swiss furniture juggernaut Vitra launched a series of dresses and skirts with Akris, featuring iconic patterns by the legendary midcentury textile designer Alexander Girard.

Retrosuperfuture, Slash Objects [Photo: Sean Santiago]

The ecological imperative

The model of a circular economy—by which resources and materials are continually circulated, from by-product to manufacture, in order to drastically reduce waste—has been simmering within critical design discourse for the past several years. And while such thinking has begun to infiltrate even Milan’s luxury-focused design week, it emerged in top billing at NYCxDesign, where some of the most highly attended projects applied the progressive model toward working proofs of concept.

Kim Markel + Glossier [Photo: Charlie Schuck]

At the sunglasses shop Retrosuperfuture, architect-designer Arielle Assouline-Lichten of Slash Objects presented an installation inspired by traditional Japanese rock gardens, but traded stone for rubble-like mounds of shredded tires and recycled rubber. Designer Kim Markel, who often works with discarded plastic bottles to mold translucent, candy-like creations, paired with cosmetics brand Glossier to create a luscious armoire with pink-tinted panels made from the company’s packaging, saved and collected for months by its employees. For her spindly side tables, she lathes spun stone dust, the powdery composite waste left behind from stone cutting. And in Brooklyn, the MINI-backed design incubator A/D/O continued its recently launched, year-long program tackling the global clean drinking water crisis.

Finnish Cultural Institute of New York, Zero-Waste Bistro. [Photo: Nicholas Calcott]

Communal dining proved to be the basis of a winning engagement at WantedDesign Manhattan, a smaller trade show of international exhibitors, where the Finnish Cultural Institute of New York hosted a working pop-up cafe called the Zero-Waste Bistro (full disclosure: this writer will be participating in a program with FCINY this year). Designed and built entirely with recycled materials, it also served a revolving tasting menu of delectable, prix-fixe meals minimizing scrap food waste, with dishes like coconut husk ice cream and chopped asparagus salad, from the chefs of the Helsinki-based concept restaurant Nolla. The project was co-curated by Harri Koskinen and Linda Bergroth, who also designed the space using recycled and compressed Just water bottles and TetraPak waste to dazzling effect, like a pointillist tableau or digital rendering made real. The pop-up bistro was, above all, a tasty sight and experience to behold. The future of design must be ecological, that much is sure—and, as the event’s sold-out seatings proved, style and taste need not go by the wayside to achieve an environmentally responsible outcome.

Coil+Drift, Home Unimprov. [Photo: Sean Davidson]

The performative power of objects

The demands of maintaining a creative practice in a highly digital, politically asinine time is not an easy task—which may be why many designers also took to physical works to explore performative and expressive narratives. While also exhibiting at ICFF as part of the curated Collective Concept presentation, Brooklyn-based designer John Sorensen-Jolink of Coil+Drift—a former dancer turned furniture and lighting maker—presented Home Unimprov at a Soho gallery. Bringing both sides of his work together, the show explored our bodily relationship to designed environments, combining live choreography and short films centered around a trio of conceptual chair designs.

Colony, Balance/Unbalance. [Photo: Alan Tansey]

Over at Colony, an independent design cooperative in Chinatown, founder and curator Jean Lin presented works by Fort Standard, Meg Callahan, Moving Mountains, and more, under the overarching theme of Balance/Imbalance, both physically and sensorially, through color, form, materiality, shape, and even sound. “Perfect balance is a lie, but magic can be found in the space between balance and imbalance,” says Lin, who last year organized a show around the theme of lightness, in response to the tumultuous and heavy American political landscape.

Kosmos Project, Future Illusions. [Photo: courtesy Kosmos Project]

At WantedDesign Manhattan, Polish design studio Kosmos Project presented Future Illusions, a collection of illustrative landscape rugs inspired by video games, complete with a participatory, choose-your-own-adventure element. The designs can be purchased as-is, or uniquely customized through a series of personality quiz-type questions that algorithmically generate a unique variation on a theme. The overall concept, the designers said, was to show both sides of the coin when it comes to big data–and ultimately make viewers more aware of their consequential choices.

The Principals + Ashley Olson [Photo: Charlie Schuck]

Toying with tech

While big consumer tech brands made a splashy arrival to Milan‘s traditionally furniture and interiors-focused design week last month—with high-profile activations from Google Home, to Sonos and even Instagram—in New York, technology found its way into design show with a decidedly more homegrown and experimental slant.

The Principals + Ashley Olson [Photo: Charlie Schuck]

At Sight Unseen’s highly curated satellite show of emerging talents, Drew Seskunas of The Principals teamed with musician Ashley Olsen to create a custom 3D printer. Sound waves of the singer’s voice were translated into physically rendered wax forms, which were then used to mold aluminum candlesticks—rigorously traversing from immaterial to material, it was an undeniably engaging experiment: call it design synesthesia. Hailing from Warsaw, UAU Project exhibited a more market-friendly approach to 3D-printed wares, with a colorful range of lights and small tabletop objects made from a reused corn byproduct. They were available for cash-and-carry, or, for a reduced price, as a digital file compatible with any desktop 3D printer.

Rich Brilliant Willing [Photo: courtesy Rich Brilliant Willing]

Darlings of the hospitality and contract market, lighting studio Rich Brilliant Willing wowed with a series of conceptual, working prototypes exploring the new formal possibilities of OLED technology and 3D-knit textiles. The team took a minimal, sculptural approach to thin, pliable strips of OLED, which read more like ambient surfaces or screens. Unlike traditional bulbs or LED diodes, partner Theo Richardson explained, OLEDs naturally emit soft, diffuse light—meaning no shade or additional element is required. Instead, the studio added its first experimentation with 3D-knit textiles into the mix, sheathing each of the OLED strips—molded and hanged to gently bend by the weight of its own heft—with translucent, graphic-patterned sleeves.

Design Within Reach, Hands at Work. [Photo: Charlie Schuck]

Not all young designers embraced new-fangled technology; some even eschewed it the name of mindfulness. At Hands to Work, the third edition of Furnishing Utopia, a now-annual group show sponsored by Design Within Reach, dozens of designers were commissioned to develop simple, useful items and tools with an intent to engage and transcend the tradition of Shaker design. The overall vibe was gleefully analog, as visitors were invited to engage in “sensory isolation,” and left to their devices in an all-white room containing only a tidy tray of gravel and an immaculately designed dustpan and brush. Among the wares displayed on the main exhibition floor: a wheeled planter by Jamie Wolfond, a basket bound with cable ties by Shigeki Fujishiro, and a wooden dish rack by Studio Tolvanen.

Hands to Work exhibit featuring @patkimpatkim Roomba cover that brings a new sense of life to robotic machines. Shot by @charlieschuck, styled by @natashafelker, creative direction by @ladiesandgentlemenstudio / also thanks to special support from @designwithinreach @norwaynewyork @_sightunseen_ / May 22 is the the last day to see the exhibit/ 158 Mercer, 9am-5pm #furnishingutopia #handstoworkexhibit #dwrxutopia

A post shared by Furnishing Utopia (@furnishing_utopia) on May 21, 2018 at 9:42pm PDT

All conveyed a cheerful attitude to hand labor and daily chores, with the exception of a tongue-in-cheek piece by designer Pat Kim: a handsome cherry wood casing for an automated Roomba vacuum, which amused visitors as it made the rounds and reminded us that not all labor is sacred.

America’s design community comes into its own published first on https://petrotekb.tumblr.com/

[dictacontrion]

I was wondering if you'll give me your opinion on this. As a writer, say for example there's certain hard fact that you may have gotten wrong (like maybe science stuff) and a reader points that out to u. How does that make you feel? Like generally, how does it feel when a reader points out a flaw or contributes criticism (mainly the constructive type). I hope I dont sound too rude...

Nope, you don’t sound rude at all @defiantlilsheep!! It’s an interesting question!

Short answer: It depends!

Mode of delivery, tone, and content matter a lot.

Mode of delivery: private message are preferable to criticisms or corrections left in public comments. If people are reading my fic, it’s either on LJ (which has a private messaging system), tumblr (which has a private messaging system) or AO3, where I link to my tumblr ask box at the end of my fic, so there’s not a logistical reason for people to choose the public route. So when people leave a comment like that on AO3 or wherever else, it sometimes feels like a callout or like it’s more about them showing off what they know than trying to reach out to me and be helpful. Think of it this way: if you saw that someone had toilet paper stuck to their shoe, would it be better to tap them on the shoulder and whisper it in their ear so they can fix it quietly, or to make an announcement to everyone in the vicinity?

Tone: It’s hard to describe, but some messages or comments are clearly friendly and well-intentioned and some read as smug and condescending. As you might imagine, that makes a big difference in how it feels to get the comment!

Content: Hard facts and typos, yes. A comment about hard facts is different than a flaw or criticism more generally, though. If there’s something factually wrong, I want to know (preferably in a private message, from someone who’s genuinely being friendly and trying to help). Ditto typos. I want to know! And generally feel momentary exasperation with myself and gratitude to the person who’s pointed it out for giving me the chance to fix it before other people see it. But the broader stuff....there’s a good chance I don’t want to hear about it bc:

if the story is out in the world, the odds that I’m going to change something other than a hard fact or typo are slim, so if you’re telling me there’s something wrong with the story that’s just gonna stress me out and feel shitty.

giving constructive criticism takes skill and practice, and reading a lot of fic is not the same thing as learning how to workshop fiction; tbh a lot of readers don’t know how to give criticism that’s really constructive, and will leave comments that say things like “that twist was obvious” or “that was heavy handed” or “that dialogue was bad” without explaining (without knowing how to explain?) exactly what made that obvious or heavy-handed or bad. At that point it’s not concrit, it’s just telling me why you thought something was crappy. It’s only concrit if it’s constructive, if it’s teaching me something new or helping make me a better writer, and maaaybe .01% of “constructive” comments do that.

the line between a flaw in the story and a matter of personal taste gets reallllll blurry for some people. There’s one commenter who comes to mind who, across multiple stories, only comments about whether the “right” person bottomed and sometimes about whether Ginny and/or Pansy were the “right” amount of bitchy. That is not constructive. Reading a story that doesn’t jibe with your headcanons doesn’t make the story bad, it just means you see things differently. But I’ve gotten a fair number of comments that are just about how readers would have preferred a different way of writing X event/character/sex scene, and that is annoying af. It’s fanfic! If you want something done differently, write it yourself!

some commenters hide behind the idea of “constructive criticism” and use it as an excuse to be dicks. “Your story sucked it was flat and cardboard, bad sex, no feeling, wish I had my time back, you shouldn’t write more.” “That was really mean! If you don’t like it, stop reading!” “Why are you being so sensitive, jeez, it’s constructive criticism!” Like, buddy. My non-friend. My non-pal. Nothing about that is constructive, you’re just venting your shit all over my inbox.

tl;dr:

Corrections on typos and hard facts (like, scientific facts, dates, etc. that you’re going to include a source for) are welcome and appreciated

Preferably in a polite private message 

Your headcanons/preferences/kinks/power trips/mean feels disguised as concrit are not welcome, in a private message or otherwise

But! I know I differ from some other authors in this, and would be interested to hear what other people think!!

[hydrus]

Version 405

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macOS

app

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tar.gz

I had a good week. 'system:number of tags' now supports namespace filtering.

number of tags

The 'system:number of tags' predicate now lets you attach a namespace, so you can search for 'files with two character tags' or 'files with more than one creator', or any other combination you can think of. Also, all 'number of tags' queries have been optimised, and are now typically much faster, particularly when mixed with other tags. They are also quickly cancellable, so if you do enter a very slow one, it should respond fairly quickly if you hit the 'stop search' button that appears after a delay.

I updated a bunch of the database code here to support new types of search. With the namespace searching, you can enter a blank namespace to search for 'unnamespaced' tags, and if you have a very specific need, you can now enter a wildcard namespace, like 'crea*', perhaps to help search for typos.

Unfortunately, I am removing 'system:number of tags' from the 'default system predicates' options panel. EDIT: I am hiding the whole panel now. This horrid stack of UI runs on ancient and difficult-to-update code, so rather than wrestle with it more, I plan to retire it and replace it with a clean system that also allows for editing search predicates in place (e.g. right-clicking an active search predicate and changing the >2 to >3 or similar).

I am really happy with how namespace counting turned out, and I have wanted it myself for a long time. Let me know how it works for you.

duplicate subscription queries

I believe the subscription data storage rewrite introduced a bug where when you paste queries into a sub and it says 'x y z are already in the sub and will not be added', they were being added anyway!

I fixed it. If you paste into subs a lot and get this message regularly, please check your subs for dupes! Now we have faster and more flexible subs, some users have also asked for broader de-duping tech that spans across multiple subs or does upper/lower case deduping, so I also expect to write buttons to do this in the near future, so you may also just want to wait for that.

ptr parents

Please note that the public tag repository is turning off tag parent submissions for regular users for a bit. If you haven't seen it already, the 'ptr' tab in manage tag parents will disappear in a few days. The task of cleaning up old and ongoing mistakes is proving too awkward with the current tools, so it is halted until I have a 'virtual parents' rework done, which will allow for more cleanly undoable parents (and hence less contagious bad ones). If you have seen 'shadow the hedgehog' or other bizarre tags appearing in odd places, this is what we hope to fix.

I have scheduled my next 'medium-size' job week, 408, to be for a 'presentation' tag cache, which will allow fast and accurate searching and loading of the tags you actually see on the front end. It will start with siblings, extend to tag filtering/censorship, and then parents will be made virtual and moved to it as well. This was a priority at the end of last year, before Qt and 2020's fun appeared, so I would now like to focus on it again.

full list

tag search:

system:number of tags now supports namespaces, for example 'find files with two character tags'! (issue #280)

it also supports wildcard namespaces, as now do regular namespace search predicates. both run faster. "crea*:anything" is now possible

system:number of tags has been optimised, and in many cases is now ten to a hundred times faster

system:number of tags still does not support siblings, something I hope to start correcting as of v408

both tag existence (numtags =0 or greater than 0) and tag count database routines now respond quickly to 'cancel search' commands, so if you do run a slow query (a bare 'has creator tag' search on 'all known files' on the PTR, for instance), you can now back out quickly after the 'stop' button appears

note that 'system:number of character tags greater than 0' and '= 0' are equivalent to +/-character:anything, which will be swapped in if you enter these. also, +/-unnamespaced:anything can now appear

the program is a bit better about determining =0 and greater than 0 and less than 1 being 'none' and 'any but none', when it needs to determine optimisations and special labels

unfortunately, I am taking away the default value for system:num tags in the options page (edit: I am killing the whole panel now). this old ugly mess of stacked predicate edit panels works on ancient, difficult to update code, so I will retire it and replace it with a unified system that is easy to use, supports in-search system predicate editing, and keeps up with changes automatically

system:number of tags is now comfortable with redundancies--if you add >2 and >4, it now knows that >4 is the true lower bound (previously, the one used was random)

boring code changes here:

updated tag existence and tag count searches to take advantage of the tag cache when in a specific file domain (which is pretty much all the time), which should speed them up significantly

updated tag existence and tag count searches to more carefully plan their queries, speeding them up both in advantageous and difficult situations

cleaned up tag existence and tag count code significantly

updated all edit system predicate panels to return full predicate objects, a step towards decoupling them and allowing in-place system predicate editing

wrote a new number test object to hold and help with number range test values. num tags now uses it, and eventually all range predicates will too

the namespace existence search code ('anything' queries) is now folded into the new generalised tag existence search code

streamlined how the search context propagates through all database tag searching--now, most queries do not know or care about domain or current/pending status--they just iterate over n tables as determined by a specialised routine

added a handful of unit tests for the new namespace num tag searching

.

database repair:

the database menu has a new entry, 'repopulate truncated mappings tables', under the newly renamed 'check and repair' submenu, which will try its best to 'fix' a client.mappings.db file that has been truncated due to hard drive fault by repopulating from the local-file-only tag cache. do not run this unless you know you need to

the 'help my db is broke.txt' document has a full update pass. the language is clearer, common issues and questions are better addressed, two new recovery routines are added, a section on the stages after boot recovery (like the new repopulate job above) is added, and I added my stock 'now become a backup patrician' nag at the end

the debug routine to clear cached service info numbers is now moved to the 'regenerate' database menu. this thing fixes hanging incorrect 'pending' counts until I can fix it properly

.

the rest:

fixed an issue where when you pasted queries into a subscription, those that were already in the sub (and got the dialog saying so), were being added anyway! I believe this bug came in the last few weeks, after the data storage rewrite. please check your pasted-into subs for dupes

fixed tab double middle-click behaviour (so you can spam page close), which I thought I had fixed last week but actually messed up completely right at the end (issue #314)

cleaned up some more of the page tab event code--it was a mess all around. should all be on Qt now, no wx hacks

network jobs will no longer wait for and consume bandwidth start tokens while all network traffic is paused. all bandwidth competition now halts. (previously, they would continue to consume tokens according to current rules and then all rush to start as soon as traffic was resumed)

fixed some client booru/client api requests to correctly 404 on missing file results, rather than 500

cleaned up some file sort code and fixed the sort string conversion, which was rendering the opposite sort direction (asc/desc) in summary labels (e.g. on manage favourite searches)

cleaned up some ui layout stretching code, including some borked tag import options expand sizing

improved some button and padding layout definitions, and improved, slightly, the way the top-right media viewer hover window lays itself out and changes its size on media change

improved some review services layout. should be fewer weird heights and widths in unusual situations, and the new multi-column list fits better

the manage subs dialog now saves its changes to db more cleanly and atomically

updated the default derpibooru parser to pull species tags. ten points if you can guess what that is most of the time

next week

Next week is cleanup. I did some layout/sizing work this week, and it was nice to clear out some cobwebs, so I'll keep pushing on that. I'd like to bring back system predicate defaults as well, with a cleaner system.

[rtf393q-latina]

Journal 6

I continued to play Mystic Messenger this week because it is an 11-day length game (unless you dish out the cash) and I wanted to see what happens. I’ve gotten to day 9 and things are certainly reaching a climax.

When relating my play to the readings this week, I cannot speak to some of what I found the most interesting in Gray, the designation of various terms for antisocial behaviors in game like griefing and flaming, the breakdown of factors that might form toxic disinhibition, and the description of the progression of an aggressive encounter from questioning through diffusion/war. However, Gray’s very narrative-based approach to discussing hegemonic constructions of race and gender have a lot of resonance to my narrative-based game.

In class we wondered if the extremely one-sided, flat representations of the “Monstrous Other” had a correlation to particular game genres like fighting games. We also thought about the international constructions of hegemonic identity, where the hegemonic construct might be different. I think Mystic Messenger has a lot of bearing on those discussions. In my visual novel game, one of the key interactions is with various potential guests. Through sending the responses to their emails that these characters would like to hear, I can convince them to come to the party. The design choice with these party guest personas is exaggeration for comedic effect. The personas are heightened stereotypes of certain interests and profession. A lot of these seem relatively harmless (though there are definitely traces of harmful stereotypes). The winery owner writes with egregious typos and inserted *hiccups,* as if he is drunk no matter what time of day he writes back. He is concerned about who he will drink with at the party. Interestingly, one thing that gets made fun of is Korean national pride and traditionalism: the taekwondo dobok-wearing security guard is obsessed with how cool and important the Korean-originating sport is, whereas a producer of music videos with traditional Korean music speak almost entirely in humming sounds.

An email persona playing with the kooky doctor/mad scientist type? A bit silly and weird, but overall, a fun character I think.

However, one depiction that really alarmed me was of a Middle Eastern oil tycoon. Much like the Street Fighter characters, this oil guy was stereotyped to death: spoke English very poorly, insisted on rolling in with a tank limo, and tried to get me to marry his son. I think rather than these outrageous national/ethnic stereotypes being tied to genres without as much narrative, they might be a function of needing to create lots of characters. The main six characters in the game are much more complex than simple stereotypes, but with this email invitation part of the game, there was no space for much characterization, and a need for lots and lots of characters (there might be 40 or so potential guests based on how many I’ve managed to encounter); also there was an attempt at humor and levity; these combined factors I think resulted in some lazy, terrible stereotypes. While not a central concept for Gray or Paul, joking and laughter was a noticeable throughline in video game harassment, a means to exclude and bond over that exclusion, and to dismiss any criticism as well as anyone who isn’t laughing. I don’t think the impulse to joke in Mystic Messenger comes from a bad place, but the way lazy humor and innocent(ish) laughter can become weaponized is noticeable.

An email that gave me immense pause.

Picking up on the nationally contextualized hegemony topic—I don’t quite know how to contextualize this depiction of a Middle Eastern man within the Korean cultural context; I don’t know how he fits in discursively, so it is hard to fully analyze him. More pertinently, the same can be said about depictions of gender in the game. I am superficially aware of gender roles being more strict in Korea as compared to the US, based on Korean dramas I have watched and things I’ve heard about beauty standards in the workplace (you would be looked down on a lot if you did not wear makeup as a woman, if you wear glasses instead of contacts, stuff like that). Therefore, some of the romance storylines with the male characters wanting to act as protectors and saviors, wanting to be a man for you, makes sense, even if tiresome. 

The character’s whose story route I ended up on* is obsessed with being my manly protector.

* (accidentally: I didn’t know that I wouldn’t get to choose and it was based on who favored me the most at a certain point of the game; I was always nice to this guy cause everyone picked on him...and then I ended up stuck with him. I had wanted to go on the route of the girl character, who I heard you help quit her overworked job and find happiness--as a grad student, I felt I could really relate to her storyline.)

What’s interesting to me, is that US game critics have really picked up on the gendered emotional labor implications of the game, where your character is listening to these male characters, helping them deal with their emotions and grow. Additionally, US critics express disappointment that the one female character who has a story route has an ending where she’s best friends instead of lovers with the main character; meanwhile, one of the other story routes requires, in order to earn his affection, supporting a character playing a joke that would be considered tastelessly homophobic to us (outing a non-gay character as gay). Critics have also worried about representations of abusive relationships and mental illness and femininity. I wonder what the reception is like in Korea. Does the game reinforce hegemonic heteronormativity or does it challenge standards of masculinity, femininity, and sexuality that are imperceptible to us? Are US critiques entirely fair or are we reading things in based on our own context that don’t actually apply?

The characters in Mystic Messenger have serious issues and US critics argue that as the player, you take on the emotional, gendered burden of fixing them one by one.

Seen from a different angle, this phenomenon of how the game makes the player take up a certain hegemonic position is not fully addressed with Gray’s representation-focused approach. It’s not just who you choose to play and which characters have what storylines. Through playing a game like Mystic Messenger you end up role playing certain norms.

I did not get to discuss the Paul piece, but what I appreciated about it was the theoretical framing, following Shaw, of game culture needing to be studied not just on the level of the game itself, but within broader social practices, for instance at gaming conventions, in game journalism, through the activities of media outlets and legal developments. To tackle my question of reception of Mystic Messenger in the US versus Korean context, I would choose an approach more like Paul’s.

(Screenshots are my own.)

[marketdigihub-blog]

How I Manage Time, Stay Focused and Remain Productive As A Digital Marketer

How I Handle Time, Stay Focused and Stay Productive As A Digital Marketer

Between 2017 and 2018, I had a fulltime occupation in Devcenter, was handling online marketing at Bitkoin Africa, curating content for a customer's Twitter page and managing some websites (I prefer to run content experiments out of time-to-time these sites were experiments). In the following article, I discuss how I managed my time, stayed productive, accomplished tasks and exceeded KPIs at work.

Here is the first article in this series. Next week, I will be discussing the tools I use for work and the way I use them.

best digital marketing institute in delhi,

Planning I plan my day by assigning specific tasks to cubes of time. I comprise 15 minutes extra for every task only if I do not finish immediately.

Dealing with tasks I handle each task as it comes. The snare of multitasking but it's important to remember that it's impossible to multitask -- exactly what we do would be job switching. I tackle the simple tasks first on most days and move to the harder tasks, especially on days once I work from a professional. I prefer tackling large tasks when I'm fresh from a nap or shower. I also practise 'Deep Work' as made popular by Dr Cal Newport.

Templates and Techniques Templates and Processes. I love to draw templates up and Procedures for recurring tasks -- especially tasks I execute weekly or daily. A process document is typically a listing of small tasks that have to be done to achieve a bigger job. For instance, this is the procedure for every single blog post that gets printed on this website. A template works for producing image content and as this is readily replicable.

Here's a screenshot of my procedure for writing articles On this site. By breaking the larger article task into smaller bits, I'm able to tackle every part one following the other. Small tasks also help me from feeling overwhelmed by the increased goal.

Programs and processes help reduce the mental load of beginning work and ensure it is simple to get things done -- regardless of the way I feel. I have procedures for discovering topics to write about, composing weekly newsletters, distributing content and  digital marketing training in delhi even distributing press releases for customers. They also help me remember all of the things I want to. It's easy to forget what you have to do when you've got a lot of tasks. I typically Operate from 10 AM to 5 PM but want to have some'free mind' before and after those times. I also stay off societal media over those hours and clip any news item or articles that comes my way into Evernote so I can consume afterwards. If I locate content I want to share, I add to Buffer. I have, however, chose not to really get involved in the Twitter feed and place my ideas via Buffer. Social networking is a black hole and it's quite easy to get sucked . It's a helpful tool for networking, news and sharing thoughts but it's important to stop it from controlling your life.

It Can Be Quite Tough to stick to a set agenda during meetings. I try as much as possible to maintain banter low and focus on solving the problem at hand. Many managers and businesses like weekly meetings. I don't think meetings are necessary if there is nothing to talk about and there are no problems to fix. You can't host meetings simply because you want to host meetings. To prevent unnecessary meetings, it's important to track metrics in the work you do.

While handling interns at Devcenter, I used the daily Standup concept. Going over what every intern achieved the day before, setting the tone for the new day and record what should be achieved on that day. We also set time to go over articles and books that would help them develop.

Typically no requirement for it. They are more likely to upgrade you themselves or utilize tools such as Trello or Asana to discuss upgrades. Work environment I read Rework by Jason Fried and Daniel Heinemeier Hanson once I was considerably younger and it completely fascinated me. I took their information concerning remote work and time management and spoke with each manager I have worked with about it. Managers typically letyou to operate remotely as a digital marketer if you achieve your KPIs and can work independently without supervision.

I love to take a nap at midday. I usually shower If I am In the home and then undertake a big task right after. My naps are usually an hour and 30 minutes long. They're sometimes shorter when I'm pressed for time. Naps work very well.

I take naps during lunch interval. Mind if you rest during this time period. Again, if you're independent and you are fulfilling and exceeding your goals, employers really don't mind what you do with your time.

Food I try not to consume a lot for breakfast. I realized in University that heavy carbohydrates made me drowsy. So during lunch, I sometimes eat rice because it helps me get sleepy enough to nap.

Thinking I love to take time out to believe. From the early evenings When I am at my co-working space, I take a stroll for about 10 minutes. In the workplace, I take shorter walks. Every single day , I try to take some time out to do nothing.

Working outside work hours Back in 2013 and 2014 I used to work late into the evening. This was unsustainable because it left me feeling tired and burned out throughout the day. I have noticed when I do not reply messages or mails from work after work hours, people understand because there's generally no catastrophe and will largely wait for me to reply the following day. I am however always open to phone calls and operate whenever there are emergencies -- like a Tweet for a client that is causing a backlash or a typo that is creating a mess.

I strongly believe in just taking as much work as I can deliver. I've spoken up every time I've needed assistance at work and outsourced tasks including designing, writing blog articles and writing ebooks to freelancers. I have also hired people to help me. These help me decrease how much work I must perform while keeping me focused on broader jobs.

It's wikipedia important to not chase productivity as a north star Metric for lifetime. It's perfectly fine to get a small number of jobs done or do nothing in any way. On the day I wrote this, I only had 4 things to do. The point of productivity is not to always be busy, but to get important things done. There's much more to life than work -- it is merely a means to an end(money, affect, influence, fulfilment, etc). We will need to keep in mind that we're not machines.

Thank If you liked it, then please clap for it and discuss with friends. My newsletter.

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HUGE Mistakes I Made My First Year Blogging

This post contains affiliate links. This means I receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you purchase using them. Please read my Disclaimer Policy for more information.

Are you feeling frustrated, tired, confused with tech overwhelm, and getting absolutely nowhere? I’ve been exactly where you are right now. That is how I spent my first year of blogging. Yelling at the computer, googling problems that no one else seemed to be experiencing, and feeling completely lost.

Are you struggling to come up with content? Or do you find yourself creating great pieces of content that you KNOW someone would benefit from, but your words are falling on deaf ears? Been there too.

Blogging is simple, yet complicated. You hear about all these people who are making thousands of dollars per month blogging and getting millions subscribers, yet no one seems to want to share HOW they’ve made their success.

That’s what I thought too until I found Create and Go with Alex Nerney and Lauren McManus.

After completing their course, relaunching my blog, and finally getting traffic on Pinterest, I found out EXACTLY what I was doing wrong on The Enchanted Aunt.

To prevent you from making the same mistakes that I did my first year blogging, I thought it would be helpful to share with you exactly what I did wrong. Stop what you’re doing now and read through this massive list of mistakes. Create a successful blog and build something from nothing by learning what NOT to do.

Here are the HUGE mistakes I made my first year blogging.

1.) I went with a free theme

Everyone wants something for nothing right? I did too. I wasn’t ready to take blogging seriously at first. Actually, I wanted to take it seriously but at the lowest possible cost. 

What cost does that sound like? FREE!

What was the outcome? Frustration!

Here’s the thing about free themes. They’re great if you want to blog for as a hobby, but they’re not a good idea if you want to create a blog that’s fully customizable and that operates with the greatest amount of ease.

Say I just gave you a house, no holds barred. This is your house to raise your family in, rest your head at night, and to do with it as you please. Sounds great, right? A house for free?

What’s the catch? It was built 80 years ago, the appliances aren’t up to code and could catch fire at any time, and the taxes haven’t be paid on it in the last 10 years.

That’s an extreme example of what it’s like to operate your blog with a free theme. Unless you know how to code and fix problems to get things up to speed with current technology, free isn’t always the way to go. Rather than solving your problem, it leads to more headaches.

You won’t find much support on how to customize them because no one wants to work for free. Trust me, I looked.

The solution?

I ditched my free theme. After reading about different themes and asking other bloggers, I decided to go with Divi from Elegant Themes. It was the one that was the most popular because of how easy it was to use. I was told it’s very customizable and that you don’t need to know coding. They weren’t wrong. That’s exactly what it is.

Not only is it extremely easy to use, but it also comes with a lot of support from it’s developers. Support is exactly what I needed in the beginning.

2.) I tried learning how to blog from Google

Google is great for getting answers to very specific questions. However, what I wanted was broader. Asking google how to start a blog gave me the very basics on how to blog like creating a domain, setting up hosting, and picking a platform to create the blog on. That’s not what I needed because I already had all of that. What I needed was a teacher to show me how to create a decent looking blog and get people to read it.

There’s a lot that goes into building a blog and so Google wasn’t giving me what I needed this time. I’d find one helpful article which then led me to google other things and so on and so on. Around and around I went looking for answers. It wasn’t the best approach.

3.) I turned to Udemy for mentors

Since Google wasn’t cutting it, I took another cheap approach by buying a $30 course on Udemy for how to start a blog.

It sounded great since they were offering the course at such a low discount, but the results didn’t yield the same effect. I will say that I did learn from the instructor on the basics of the backend of blogging. However, a lot of his information was outdated.

The trouble with buying deeply discounted courses and turning to YouTube and Google is that the information isn’t necessarily up to date. Also, though I had an instructor walking me through the steps, there wasn’t a place where I could raise my hand and ask a question about something that he just went over.

Dare I say I got what I paid for?

4.) I used Facebook for traffic

This is where everyone gets all of their information from nowadays right? So since I got just enough information from Google and Udemy that I could start blogging, I did just that.

I’d write a post, post it on Facebook, and it would be seen by maybe 4 people. If I didn’t post it at a time when people were most active, it wouldn’t show up in anyone’s feed. Also, it’s a one and done situation. Since Facebook isn’t a search engine, people weren’t looking for the content I was creating.

The other option was to take out ads. However, there’s a lot that goes into that and I knew I’d be wasting my money if I just set a budget and entered my credit card number. So that option was off the table too.

Facebook is not the best place to share content because of how the algorithm is set up. Sure, it’s a good idea to share your content with friends and family. Don’t stop doing that! However, even today, of the 2,000+ (and growing) visitors I get each month, 44 were sent there because of Facebook.

The Solution?

Where do I get nearly all of my traffic from? Pinterest. I used the system laid out in the Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course from Create and Go. They taught me the basics of Pinterest SEO, and I applied their methods to my blog and got results! The BEST thing about their course is it’s UPDATED constantly to reflect the new changes in the algorithms.

5.) I was soooo slow

There was very little content on my blog during the first year. I struggled to find the time to sit down and write. On top of that, once I did create a schedule for myself, I’d overthink everything and got nowhere. I was averaging one post per month. It was taking me that long just to think of, create, and edit content.

Don’t be me. If you want to get results, throw perfection out the window and just start writing. The only way you’re going to find your voice is if you start using it.

There are plenty of free tools like Grammarly or Yoast that’ll help you with spotting typos and offering insight into the readability ease. It’s possible to make mistakes even with these tools, but that’s okay. If can always go back and correct your errors. You’re human. It happens.

6.) I had 0 confidence in myself

Since I had been blogging for a few months and wasn’t seeing results, I was deflated. I didn’t think that anyone cared about what I had to say.

Also, I was embarrassed by the look of my blog. Do you want people to come to your house when it looks like you haven’t lifted a finger to maintain it? That’s how I felt about my blog. My free theme was preventing me from having a clean layout. It was scattered and ugly.

7.) I made it about ME instead of about my audience

I honestly didn’t know why people blogged in the first place. My original thoughts were that it was an online journal for people to cry into. I was wrong.

Tons of people told me to start blogging because I wanted to launch an online product. So I started out by just telling stories about my life as an Aunt because that was my only expertise. However, no one cared about my stories. Like most people, they wanted to know HOW to do something. They wanted to know how to achieve the same results. I was missing my mark.

People read blogs because they’re looking for help. They want to learn from others that are in the same spot as them. If you know a lot about a topic, you could become an expert in that field just from your blog.

8.) I didn’t invest in a course

I did buy the $30 Udemy course, but I don’t think it really counts. I’m not saying that because of the price. However, I am saying it because of how thin the material in it was. It was the bare bones of what you needed to know about blogging. I had something, but I didn’t know how to use it.

I also relied a lot on YouTube, which I love but it was the Swiss cheese of blogging tips. There’s a lot of hole in the content out there.

9.) I didn’t trust anyone’s advice

I kept trying new things that I was hearing from other people on YouTube and from reading other people’s blogs on blogging, but it was a lot of fluff. No one was being flat out honest about results. No one took screenshots of their success. There were just too many scam artists out there to really trust anything. It led me not to trust.

However, I found Alex and Lauren’s YouTube Channel about a year into blogging and that’s when I started making real changes. They earned my trust through their transparency. The information that they put out there spoke to me. I found that I could learn from the people that were actually in my spot at one point. That’s why I ultimately invested in their Six figure blogging course.

10.) I didn’t use Pinterest the way it’s intended.

After I had watched a few of Alex’s YouTube videos on Pinterset I thought that I knew all there was to know about Pinterest. Boy, was I wrong.

I didn’t know about the importance of SEO on Pinterest, what group boards were, or why it was so important to continually create and share other people’s content.

I was getting some readers from Pinterest. In fact, nearly all of them came from there, but it was only 1-10 per day. There’s a lot that goes into building a following. You can read my view of Pinterest Traffic Avalanche to learn more.

11.) I compared myself to EVERYONE

Since I was learning from others, I was comparing myself to others. Don’t do that.

It’s important to remember that everyone starts at the bottom and knows nothing, but eventually you find your way. Comparing your results to a veteran blogger won’t lead to success. You’ll start to get frustrated that you’re not already where they are 1 week into blogging.

12. I didn’t treat it like a business

A business needs to be tended to. It needs to be worked out continuously in order to get ahead. Success doesn’t happen overnight. And if it does, it’s because hard work was put into which lead to that turning point. You can’t publish one post, insert one affiliate link, and think you’ll see any results.

You have to shift your mindset and treat your blog like it’s a living thing in order for it to grow and prosper. You have experiment with different content, wait for results, analyze your efforts, and make adjustments accordingly. Hardly anyone gets it right the first time.

Even though I know now that the choices that I was making were mistakes, I still learned a lot in the process. Yes, I could have saved myself a lot of time and energy if I had just invested in a course earlier, but I realize that the knowledge that I acquired from my mistakes will help someone else.

If you fall into any of the following categories:

Want to start a blog but don’t know what to blog about

Want to start a blog but don’t have any technical experience

Have already started blogging, but are struggling with traffic

Have traffic, but are looking to build a greater audience

Have a great blog, good traffic, but aren’t sure how to monetize

Have a successful blog, but don’t know how to create and sell your own products

You should invest in one of the many courses from Create and Go.

With the help of Lauren and Alex, I have successfully rebuilt and relaunched my blog, started gaining significant traffic, viewership and subscribers, made affiliate sales, and now I’m onto relaunching my own product with them.

I realize that I could have gotten to where I am now faster had I invested in the beginning, but hopefully, my mistakes will help you build, launch, and monetize your blog faster and with greater ease.

I am now an affiliate for them not because I earn a small commission (at NO extra cost to you), but because they have truly helped me. Much like you, I was struggling to move forward and spread my messages, but after completing their courses, I have grown tremendously in a very short period of time.

Please feel free to reach out to me if there are any additional questions. about my experience with Create and Go.

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