Archive | September 2012

Hey, look, a boundary, eep edition

Sep27

I’m going to put this behind a cut because it’s coming off a bit cranky. Read at your own risk.

I don’t do well with setting boundaries; I don’t do well with enforcing them.

I do really well with learning other people’s and trying to respect that (Wyst says I am too good at trying to respect other people’s boundaries, actually), and I tend to expect other people will do the same for me, which would be a lot more reasonable if I was more clear on those boundaries, yes.

But I’m beginning to at least learn where they are. Generally by realizing when I’m really, really angry and stopping to take a look.

Here’s some new ones.

This one’s a deal-breaker, too:

  • Do not presume that my mental health should occur on your agenda.
    To start with, assuming that I’m not working on something because you don’t see change is pretty arrogant. To continue – I work on fixing things based on my mental comfort, my life, my marriage, my friendships, and my job, in about that order. So, you know, I might have something taking my energy that isn’t the brainweasel you think I ought to evict today.

    (Side note: Please see other boundaries, especially the one regarding “should,” this one)

  • Please don’t tell me how I should be feeling. It’s silencing (I learned this phrase recently, and it startles me how much it fits.) It’s just… just don’t do it, okay?
  • This one isn’t a boundary as much as it’s a tip: If you want to know how I’m feeling (emotions), ask. I won’t lie to you if asked directly.

It feels like there ought to be more, but that’s what I’ve got so far today

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/403960.html. You can comment here or there.

Thursday, with #WebLitWednesday

Sep27

My friend @Shutsumon, of Firebird Fiction, is trying to revive #WebLitWednesday.

(Yes, I’m a day late.)

WebLitWednesday is a time to tell the world all about the awesome web-based fiction you have been reading. Not on Twitter? Tell me here, or tell the world in your LJ or DW.

I’m going to try to review someone else’s fiction every Wednesday going forward as well; is there anything you’d like me to review?

Recommendations:
@Lynthornealder: Shadow Unit – http://shadowunit.org/ – This engrossing sci-fi #weblit is a crime show for your computer screen, only better. #weblitwednesday

@Shutsumon: Check out my #weblitwednesday review of Akumu Love Panic! by Illise Montoya http://webfictionguide.com/listings/akumu-love-panic/review-by-shutsumon/

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/403631.html. You can comment here or there.

Lyn Action Ficure, complete with chainsaw, axe, and canning jars

Sep19

It’s been a busy time around Casa Thorne.

It’s autumn, which means that the tomatoes, cukes, and everything else are all coming ripe, so it’s canning time (Apples will be another month, and we won’t have many at all this time, due to the wonky March-April).

In addition, we just got 2.5 cord of wood delivered, so there’s hauling and stacking to be done.

And I’m working on prettifying the foyer, which, like everything else around here, means making it uglier first!

In addition, I started a new serial…

/falls over/ sleep nao?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/403120.html. You can comment here or there.

Fuze Logic, a story for the Giraffe Call

Sep18

For EllenMillion‘s prompt. Captain Fuze, who appeared in the Alder by Post, is my new favorite character..

They were having trouble with the Senedacht.

The Senedacht were… well, that was part of the problem. Nobody was
quite certain what they were. Best guess was a created intelligence,
but humanity had yet to deal with a created intelligence in a created
body, so they weren’t sure if the Senedacht were what it would look
like.

In the Senedacht language, as far as the translators could tell,
“Senedacht” was a pointer that meant the creatures who called
themselves that. It didn’t mean “people” or “those who live on
Sene-something” or anything else.

The whole Senedacht language was like that. Their words had no nuance,
no borrowed meanings, no connotation. Very rarely did their words
even appear to have any relationship to each other: Their word for
ghost, for instance, looked nor sounded nothing like their word for
ghastly. It was almost as if someone had gone through their world and
cataloged things, labeling each with a collection of sounds.

That was not where the humans running the translators gave up, crying. The Senedacht were
more than willing to spend hours pointing at things, reciting the word
for them. it was tiresome, in a language where you could not
extrapolate, but it was honest work.

It was in concepts that they came to the real problem, and not even all concepts, but specific concepts. When it came to the idea of “maybe,” both human and Senedacht translators ended up breaking down, the human crying, the Senedacht fluttering its antennae and muttering, over and over again, “yes or no, yes or no.”

Captain Fuze watches it all with more than a little amusement, but only because Captain Fuze had learned how to be amused by most things. “This planet,” she murmured to her navigator, “is not going to deal well with Fuzzy logic.”

Fuze Surprise

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A reference to me and Addergoole, in re. something I’ve been considering

Sep18

Thanks to Mei-Lin Miranda for pointing out my mention here, which came from this article.

With Kindle Serials, Amazon hopes to reinvent a format that already exists. Jeff Bezos dragged out the obligatory Dickens reference at the LA press conference, but serial fiction had a presence online before Amazon (and a presence offline after Dickens: Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City” and Candace Bushnell’s “Sex and the City,” for instance). The website Tuesday Serial compiles links to many online serials and offers advice about writing them. Authors like Claudia Christian and Lyn Thorne-Alder have written online serials for years. And longform journalism site and e-singles publisher Byliner launched Byliner Serials last month.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/402568.html. You can comment here or there.

The Cup

Sep14

For [personal profile] inventrix‘s prompt

Pellinore has appeared in June Again,, Boom, amd Visit From School, and was referenced in Legacy, where JohnWayne showed up.

The rumors had been flying around for years. Pellinore had listened to them all, and tucked them in the back of his mind. The Thorn Vessel. The Wooden Death. The Hawthorne Cup.

The world was a bigger place now than it had been when he was young, bigger and so much smaller all at once, and it took him a long time to gather enough information. He traveled – he got the feeling many of them did. It made it less obvious that they didn’t get older, that they never really fit in. The story traveled, too, changing and mutating, but parts of it stayed the same. There was a cup, and it was magic.

It had been years since Addergoole, years since he’d been caught and released by Cya on his graduation day, but when he decided it was time to go looking for the Cup, Pellinore went looking for Cynara first. She could find anything. She’d know where to start.

He was braced for some other Kept to answer the door. He knew she’d made a habit of collecting them. He’d visited her from time to time, only to be greeted by another Addergoole grad wearing another collar. He even expected the guy to sort of look like him. Half the time, they did.

He wasn’t expecting the same ears, the same eyes. He tripped over his words, managing nothing but stammer for a moment. Finally, he came out with, “Pellinore. I’m Pellinore, that is. Lookin’ for Cynara.”

“Pellinore?” The boy stared at him. “From Addergoole?”

“Long time ago, yeah.” He hadn’t been that famous. Not for this kid to know him, had he? “Do I know you?”

“I’m JohnWayne.” The boy tugged at his collar. “Was sh’Xanthia. Now oro’Cynara.” He was still getting used to that, too. “You’re my father.”

Pellinore coughed. That had not been what he expected. “Yeah. Yeah, I reckon I am.”

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