Rambling on

[neil-gaiman]

In case you were wondering

The release date of Good Omens on Prime Video is May 31st 2019.

All six episodes will drop at the same time.

[dasistalles]

[dasistalles]

Yeah, it’s Valentine’s Day, and yeah, I have projects to prepare for tomorrow, but OH MY WORD tumblr I have missed you 

[librarianproblems]

WHEN I’M SO BUSY I DON’T GET TIME TO READ

[dasistalles]

Me before November: 

Me during November:

[dasistalles]

Interviewer: “So what kind of social media do you use? Twitter? Instagram?”

Me: “ummm.....tumblr?” 

[threeninetyfour]

Me: I’m in a good mood today.  My Brain: Well, we can’t have that. Let’s start thinking about your non-existent grad school prospects.  

[majortomwaits]

me after one shower

[dasistalles]

me before binge watching 30 rock

[birdandmoon]

BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT: I have a Bird and Moon comics collection coming out on April 17th through Andrews McMeel!

This book contains a poem in praise of botany, a foreword by the wonderful Jeph Jacques that includes a story about tattoos, and an exhaustive index of every species in every comic because I’m a nerd like that.

I showed my advance copy to a discerning test reader and she described it as “delicious”.

Preorder here!

[dasistalles]

I don’t send a lot of email anymore because every single time it’s for anything remotely important to me, I obsess over wording and punctuation for DAYS. Then I send it and immediately obsess over what I might have done wrong in it. for DAYS. Every. single. time. 

Anxiety used to be relatively annoying, antisocial and yeah, I thought it made me quirky, but now it’s actually hurting my relationships and limiting my ability to develop professionally. My heart will race for HOURS because I thought her head looked a little wetter than it should, or a little redder, or little different. My foot is busted, so exercise is not an option for a while, which was the only thing that really helped calm me down a little.  

Anxiety is driving my BP, my heart rate, and I cannot calm myself down. There’s a part of me that knows what’s going on and is trying to help, but all it can really do is send a “don’t freak out” message to the rest of me, and the result is that I just sit for hours because if I try to do anything, I will either A)cry or B)freak out, race her to the hospital ER, and cry. 

Some nights, it’s’ just five minute period cycles of noticing something, adrenaline rush, calming down, then noticing something else about her and the cycle starts again. For HOURS. I can’t spend the night with her away from my husband because he’s the only one my crazy brain trusts. When every instinct is screaming to take her down (when absolutely nothing is wrong with her, btw, no real symptoms of shunt failure), he can say there’s nothing wrong, and I have to just trust that he’s right. Because my brain always says she’s failing.   

[dis-c0nnect-ed]

If you’re crying bc of the crushing weight of the reality that time is passing and the suffocating pressure that everything you’re doing is Not Enough™ and you know it clap your hands

[leslie-knopes]

[dasistalles]

Me most of this week. 

[humanityinahandbag]

Fanfiction is easier to write than original because the world is already established. If you’re someone who’s giving up on their dream of writing original fiction because it’s not flowing like the former, remember that, please? Write shit. Write freely and terribly. Write a first draft that’s everywhere and nowhere. Because once it’s done and you’re left with a mess, you’ve also established yourself a world. And the second and third drafts will follow with much more ease. Let yourself be messy in creating your own worlds.

[peachhoneii]

This is exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you.

[quinnandersonwrites]

As a published author, I can say this advice is LEGIT. Get the first draft down. Don’t stress about it. Let it be messy. But get it down. You can always fix it later.

[juleskelleybooks]

The best piece of advice i ever got was, you can edit a terrible first draft. You can’t edit a blank page.

[pikestaff-deactivated20200113]

Don’t think about it as a first draft.  Think about it as Draft Zero.

[dasistalles]

Please go to the National Park Service website and let them know if you think the proposed fee increase is a bad idea! 

Here’s the basics: 

Our National Parks have almost $12 million of deferred maintenance. 

 The rate hike will only apply to the 17 national parks that already have entrance fees, and generate 70% of park entrance fees. (There are 417 total NPS sites, and 118 of them charge entrance fees.) The increased fee rate would only be valid during a 5-month peak season. 

However, the price more than doubles, turning a $10-15 entry fee for a single person to $30. A vehicle jumps from $25-30 all the way to $70! 

There is no denying that our National Parks need our help. But I personally feel that this will severely limit who can enjoy 17 of our national treasures. And that will also affect the economies of communities who live near these parks.

Comments will only be accepted until Nov. 23! 

[kelcf]

[dasistalles]

Looking at job boards because why not torture myself

[dasistalles]

When I think about grad school and my life and how did this get so hard

[shamelesslymkp]

for neurotypical writers: easy ways to incorporate neurodivergence in your characters without resorting to tired old tropes

(a brief list of examples bc why not set myself up as some kind of authority that sounds like fun and completely legit)

- have them carry around a specific scent of hand sanitizer in case they can’t stand the smell of available soap - have them carry around a little vial of coffee grounds to clear out bad scents - worry stone or some other fidget to carry around - when describing clothes/linen shopping, throw in a mention or two about how they occasionally recoil from or wrinkle their nose at a texture - tuneless humming - have them echo the style / syntax / vocabulary of whoever they’re talking to - when exhausted / overwhelmed, have them be reluctant to or have difficulty speaking (either saying anything at all or completing thoughts / making fully sensible sentences) - (awesome thing for a friend to do! ask questions with two answers, casually holding up one finger for the first and two for the second, so all the ND character has to do is echo back the appropriate number of fingers) - occasional pedantry and frustration with inaccurate or incomplete instructions - always have to sit with their back to a wall, or with other people on the left, etc - prefer emails / texts to phone calls - prefer video chats to text chats - prefer to use speaker phone feature - character uses lots of specific mobile apps for managing various life things - sometimes uses the completely wrong word or mixes up word order in sentences, apparently without noticing

mainly the thing is to incorporate ND traits organically. ND people are just, you know, people. the way their neurodivergence affects their life is a part of their norm, and is part of the norm for the people constantly surrounding them. we learn to compensate. our family and friends learn to accommodate. these things are just parts of the whole.