Another couple months' worth of ooh-shinies - September-October 02019

Should mention it here, too: November means I'm soliciting ideas for this year's December Days prompt. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Let's begin with the understanding that having an elite education by itself does not make someone part of the elite.

I'll pair this with a guide for maxing maximum visible progress on cleaning a space for the reason that sometimes you need to know both the things you got the high-class education for and the things that make living bearable.

And then give you the endorsement here about how a to-be-read (or played) list can and should be discarded, ruthlessly weeded, labeled, and otherwise returned to a state where reading something off of a list will be enjoyable and fun. On top of that, I also recommend Nancy Pearl's 100-minus-age method of determining whether a book should be finished. (Subtract your age from 100. The book has that many pages to convince you to read further. The decision to read further can be revoked at any time.)

In counterpoint to shredding your TBR pile, the idea that having a library of unread material is useful in reminding people of what they do not know, and fostering intellectual humility from that. And the other benefits related to children growing up in a house that has books to hand.

( All this and more inside )

Last for tonight, Solomon Howard sings You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch and it is delightful. Excepts from a biography of Carrie Fisher, including the reach she had and the movements she inspired.

The surreal photography of Miss Aniela, putting elegant evening wear in the same context as fantasy photography. And also, the winners of the 2019 World of Wearable Art Awards.

PostModern Jukebox takes a medley of Super Mario themes and lets a very good tap dancer provide embellishment. And, for comparison, the main theme of Game of Thrones, performed primarily by handbells. And also, the process of turning a carrot into a functioning recorder.

Also, the possibility that Tetris and other visual-spatial games might help reduce the incidence of flashbacks in those that have suffered traumas.

The ways in which the stories of Ursula LeGuin were profoundly interested in change and imagination of something different, if not also better than what was there.

Write Every Day: 03 November 02019

Greetings! This is the Write Every Day Check-In Post for 3 November 02019.

I was rubber-ducking something today, and it turns out to be a useful thing to talk about in terms of writing. At times, I feel like I'm not providing enough detail in my signups for authors for them, because I don't usually need a Dear Creator letter to describe what it is I was thinking about when I did the signup for an exchange. At the same time, some author comments have said that they like my prompts and enjoy writing them (and some say they wished they could write a lot more of those prompts, but exchanges have deadlines), so clearly I've got to be doing something right.

My duck (honk) suggested that I have spent a significant time learning the art of summarizing in brief, pointing out that a significant part of my work in readers' advisory allows me to envision an entire work, in all of its detail, and condense it into something salient. Since RA's goal is to sell a person on a book and get them to conclude either "This is a book I will enjoy greatly, I'll take it!" or "Nope! I definitely do not want that book, and I can tell you why so we can try again.", being able to elevator-pitch a book (or scan its summary and pick out which parts you want to foreground to the person who is making the decision) is an important skill to have. That skill may be applicable to writing prompts that contain the important bits that will make the work sing.

My duck also suggested that, as a person, I tend to be someone who aims for satisfaction rather than transcendent bliss, and therefore, I don't spend a whole lot of time in a prompt request on the details and parts that I really, really, want to see and would probably write myself, but for feeling like I don't have the skill (or time) to do it. I'll be happy with socks and underclothes and a toy in my stocking, rather than going for broke on wanting the Princess Luna doll with the Nightmare Moon transforming action and unicorn-horn-blasting projectiles. (Because, well, I'm often cognizant the stocking could also be empty, so that there's something there at all is a good thing.) I also find that I enjoy works that the author enjoys writing, and that enjoyment comes through in the work, so I also don't tend to put in a lot of detail that might feel like a writer tried to make me happy and that wrenched the story away from what it wanted to be. (Optional Details Are Optional, sure, but they do help provide direction and ideas as to what the finished work will look like.)

So, if you want to answer it, if you do prompts or exchange signups or other such things, are you a letters person, an optional details box kind of person, or are you just thrilled that someone's making a thing? Why? I've been fandom-adjacent and such for a while, but I still feel a lot like I'm not actually in the middle of everything, and so that makes me wonder if I'm doing it wrong somehow and nobody has had the time to explain to me how I'm doing it wrong and why.

Today, in writing, I promised myself that I would get through this Giving of Grief Book, knowing that there was one major chapter, and then two things that could be summarized in a few sentences. I succeeded at this thing. I also posted a couple of works to fulfill challenge assignments, but those won't be coming out until later on in the month. It's a good idea to get those in, because other assignments are going to be appearing soon, and it's nice to have a nearly clean assignment plate in time to accept other assignments.

Here's the tally so far:

( Rally-ho! )