Periodic ponderings: Week 30 edition
Jul. 22nd, 2014 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calissa
What are you doing/thinking/wondering/making/reading/etc. that you don't normally post about? It has been a while since I have done one of these and I thought it would be a good way to post about non-holiday stuff
Doing: I'm back to swimming after a break of about a month. It wasn't intentional--a few different things were conspiring against me. My shoulder had started playing up again during the break, so I'm glad to be back to it (though I overdid things a little on the first time back).
Watching: On the anime front, I've been watching Sailor Moon Crystal on Crunchyroll. I was never into the original when it aired during my years at high school, but I have become a lot more interested in anime since then.
I am also watching a new anime called Glasslip. It is produced by P.A. Works who turn out the most gorgeous-looking animes and I have enjoyed most of the stuff they have released. This particular show is about the daughter of a family of glass artisans. When she stares into glass she has visions of the future. It is also about the changing relationships between her group of friends in their last year of high school.
On more of a RPG theme, RollPlay have just started up a sci-fi campaign called Swan Song. Utilising the Stars Are Infinite system, the campaign is being run by Adam Koebel. I totally have a new GM crush. He co-wrote the Dungeon World system and his style of game-running clearly speaks of intelligence, passion and long experience.
He and my other major GM crush, Steve Lumpkin, have also just started posting up a segment on GMing they're calling Playing Everyone Else. If you're interested in tabletop RPGs at all--as player or GM--it is well worth checking out.
Thinking: An acquaintance of mine has been getting on my nerves a lot lately. Ze does a lot of complaining about suffering from writer's block but seems to feel that in order to be published, ze needs to write in certain kinds of ways and in certain formats. This single-minded focus on publication seems to press a button of mine. I recently came across this wonderful article from Australian horror writer Peter Ball on why you don't really want to be published--it is simply shorthand for another goal. I'm wondering whether this person's reason for wanting to be published is fundamentally different from mine or whether it is simply our manner of getting there. Or perhaps we have different levels of patience with the process.
Reading: I'm in a weird in-between place with my reading at the moment. I'm slowly making my way through a gardening book put out by the local horticultural society and have been for months. However, I don't have a primary book that I'm reading because I can't decide on what I want to read. My sweetheart has made off with my Kindle in order to read some out-of-print Warhammer books and everything I kind of want to read is on that. Which is ridiculous--I have a zillion print books on Mt TBR, surely I should be able to find something I want to read. If anyone wants to make suggestions, you can check Mt TBR and my 2014 acquisitions list for what I have currently available.
Wondering: A while back, I began studying the AODA Candidate curriculum. I am almost finished--just some loose, time-consuming ends to tie up--but I have been pondering whether this is something I really want to do. While I think their curriculum is great, I'm not sure their philosophy and cosmology is really something that works for me.
Writing: Still going on Heartwood. I originally started writing the story a year or two ago and then shelved it for some unremembered reason. I'd only written two scenes and a bit. When I came back to it this year, I felt it needed rewriting and I bashed my head repeatedly against the first scene, trying different things. I finally got something to work and have been concentrating on getting the words for this new version down on the page without worrying too much about what still needs fixing. I have now caught up to where I was when I first shelved the story and am looking forward to breaking new territory.
Drinking: My mother-almost-in-law recently gifted me with some rose-scented tea that she wasn't fond of. I have zero problem with this because I absolutely adore rose-scented teas.
Earl Grey is generally my default tea (unless it is Twinings which I find way too harsh). I've been drinking much less of it over the last few months but I find myself starting to come back to it.
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Date: 2014-07-22 02:22 pm (UTC)Also I would totally skip Stranger in a Strange Land unless you are good at suppressing feminist outrage while reading. (You don't need to have read Heinlein to be a good fan.)
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Date: 2014-07-22 10:08 pm (UTC)I confess that Stranger in a Strange Land is not my usual sort of fare but it was a gift and I thus feel obliged to read it. Hopefully I won't Hulk out too many times. I appreciate the warning.
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Date: 2014-07-22 08:48 pm (UTC)Show that article to your aquaintance, along with your firm advice as a God that trying to keep up with currently saleable trends will result in a mediocre and swiftly dated product that won't remotely do justice to any story or characters worth the telling of.
I am very ambivalent towards neopagan pseudo-Organised Religion, myself...may I send you a scanned page or so from an article in Shamanisim: a reader, though? It puts things well, for the speaking of.
Rose tea! Bastion of all things sophisticated! I keep failing to get any, but you may have renewed my determination...
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Date: 2014-07-22 10:21 pm (UTC)I have decided I'm not going to push the issue--they're only an acquaintance, after all--but if it comes up again, I'll definitely be taking your advice. Unfortunately, this acquaintance moves in the same writing circles that I do and listening to advice from other Gods (i.e. "You should publish some short stories before trying a novel because it builds up your brand & helps you hone your craft") is what got zir in this mess to begin with, so I'm not sure how effective it will be.
I would be delighted, as long as it doesn't prove a hassle for you. I think it is mostly habit that has had me looking at pseudo-Organised Religion in the first place. The more time passes, the more I feel I'm better off doing things my own way.
Yay for rose tea!
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Date: 2014-07-22 10:49 pm (UTC)Tell Aesop's fable of the man, his son and the donkey? Trying to please all to sell is probably precisely why no writing is happening.
I would like to show large chunks of it to various people, but I don't mind, no. I'm shy enough about my own faith that I let most folk draw their own caricature of 'atheist' on me rather than get dragged into a spiritual box or literally explaining the universe and everything, and I know what trauma an early imposition of doctine leaves. I would like to discuss Thoughts sometime, if ever you were up for it.
^__^
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Date: 2014-07-23 06:06 am (UTC)I am really quite astonished that zie hasn't connected zir writing block with trying to please. It seems remarkably obvious.
I would be delighted to discuss Thoughts with you sometime, though I should note I can get a little prickly and defensive about spirituality and religion (it's something I'm looking to improve). Do you have my email address? Or were you thinking more along the lines of IM?
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Date: 2014-07-27 07:57 pm (UTC)Zie might be young and/or foolish.
Pages sent, with a minor Thought in explanation - is there anything I should avoid poking? For future reference, IMs burn through my people-meter as badly as being physically cornered and demanded things of; I don't have any in use.
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Date: 2014-07-27 10:29 pm (UTC)Zie is both young and foolish.
Pages have arrived and I'm in the middle of drafting a reply. Apologies for not getting it to you sooner--I've been a bit swamped. And thank you for letting me know about IMs.