Writing Shenanigans✨

Mari | 29 | Like most of us, in love with Din Djarin and writing about it here! I also make art! | main: mbpokemonrulez | Header: @sirtadcooper | I do NOT consent to any of my writing/art/posts being fed into ANY AI software. | https://linktree.cx/maribarts | Etsy Shop | Masterlist

[pentechnics]

Latch Ch. 10 AND Corporal Ch. 4 are live on AO3!

[pangur-and-grim]

I won't publish the ask (they asked me not to), but I thought I'd still answer it publicly!

no, royalties are not a significant source of income for most authors. if you wrote something like Project Hail Mary, then absolutely, the royalties would be substantial! but that's like winning the lottery. Ryan Gosling is not starring in the movie adaption of most books.

when you sell a book to a publisher, you get what's called 'an advance against royalties'. it's usually split into multiple parts, so you might get one third for the initial sale, one third for the final revised manuscript, and one third on the publishing date.

an advance against royalties is the publisher saying "we believe you will eventually make X amount in royalties, so here it is ahead of time." and then you don't actually see any money from royalties until the advance is paid off. most books do not make enough in royalties to pay off the advance (I have two children's books and one fiction book, and have yet to see royalties for any of them).

advances are still great, but you need to make them stretch! for instance, last year my net income was about 30k Canadian (21k USD), which is fantastic when you consider that I mostly made it through writing. but I'm definitely not a millionaire. I can live off my writing (not trying to undersell that!) but I'll probably remain in a low income bracket for the foreseeable future.

this isn't meant to discourage anyone from seeking out writing as a career! however, there is a reason that many authors have alternate jobs with writing on the side. or, you know, rich spouses.

[pangur-and-grim]

this isn't me making a fuss about pirating (I've pirated way too many shows to run my mouth on that lmao), but there IS actually a financial incentive to having people buy your books!

buying books shows the publisher that they can make money off you, which means they're more likely to give you advances for future books. and advances are what authors live off (if they don't have a side job). that's why I always push pre-orders so hard! you have to be a racehorse worth betting on, or else they send you to the glue factory....

if I can offer one alternative to pirating: asking your library to stock the book also helps authors, and doesn't cost anything. the only downside is the patience required.

[pangur-and-grim]

OOPS yes, @stjohnstarling makes a good point! everything I'm saying is from the perspective of traditional publishing, but it's a very different game if you're a self-published author

[tseecka]

God I have been struggling so much to explain my irritation with a certain trend I keep running across in LGBTQ+ "cozy fantasy books"

Because everytime I try to verbalize it, it just comes out as sounding like I'm trying to say there's like. An upper limit on how daydreamy an author can be about worlds in which their every fantasy is fulfilled (entire farming village based on mutual aid; where also everyone is queer and/or gender-conforming! And there is little to no conflict! And everyone knows therapy speak and is unfailingly kind and generous and good!)

Because like--there's not, really, an upper limit on these things.

But there is an invisible line of tolerance for me where it turns from "cozy fantasy" to "oh my god grow the fuck up; this is so saccharine it's become one-note and boring and dull that I can't actually ENJOY the low-stakes cozy vibes"

But it sounds like I'm complaining about "there's too many gender queers and not enough homophobia in this book" and it's Not That

Ugh idk take your 2 stars and let me delete this book off my Kobo, I finished it and that's honestly more than I think it deserved.

(a 4.07 average star rating are you FUCKING kidding me)

[ariaste]

The problem you're trying to pinpoint is TENSION ISSUES, and cozy fantasy is fuckin RIFE with them. Major chronic problem with the genre, and editors just keep letting authors get away with it instead of developing the story.

Low stakes are fine, utopian settings are fine, even low-conflict is fine -- but you gotta have a source of tension SOMEWHERE, or it pisses people off. If everyone's cooperating together and an amazing team and there's no interpersonal drama, ok great, but hit them with a tornado or a famine or heavy rains that wash out the fields right after planting.

The following have been called the "7 types of conflict" but people always think conflict means fighting or angry feelings, so i do think that "7 types of tension" might be a better wording:

Person vs Person (this is the one that cozy fantasy is most allergic to, and that's ok!)

Person vs Society (cozy fantasy also allergic to this one, we're still fine!)

Person vs Self (inexplicably underutilized, it rules, highly recommend)

Person vs Supernatural

Person vs Fate

Person vs Technology

Person vs Nature

And here is a list of free cozy fantasy tension points for each one of those. Feel free to steal these, adapt them, tweak them, etc -- as long as you promise to commit to the bit and actually make your protagonist face their problems head-on and have feelings about them and actually DO SOME HARD WORK to resolve them instead of conveniently handwaving it all away. (Your protagonist's name is Blue.)

Person vs Person: Blue's neighbor has a longstanding grudge and is trying to get Blue's bakery shut down by any means necessary, including reporting Blue to the health inspectors, who threaten to shut the whole operation down. (If you are writing for adults, then the grudge is bad enough that it CANNOT be solved with the power of friendship or by offering said neighbor free daily croissants. C'mon, don't wimp out. Imagine the Worst coworker you've ever had. Imagine the pettiest HOA lady ever.)

Person vs Society: There is a war in the neighboring kingdom which has impacted the chocolate chip import market. Blue's bakery is struggling financially, and the bank is making ominous noises about Blue's fantasy student loans.

Person vs Self: Blue is having a crisis of faith. They inherited the bakery and they hate running it, but they feel an obligation to their beloved dead relative. They don't know how to balance this against their own dreams, and they feel a ton of guilt about it.

Person vs Supernatural. Blue boasted that they're a better baker than the local hearth goddess. Blue now has a curse that fucks up every loaf, danish, cookie, and sticky-bun they touch. They can't even go into other people's bakeries without jinxing them.

Person vs Fate: Several generations ago, a fortune-teller spoke a prophecy that says the bakery will fail if someone matching Blue's description takes over. Blue doesn't give a shit about that, Blue is determined to make it work, Blue spits in the face of Fate.

Person vs Technology. A new bakery opens just a block away from Blue's, with newfangled magical ovens and staffed entirely by magic robots. Can Blue compete against this? We explore the upsides and downsides between artisanship and mass manufacturing.

Person vs Nature. A really bad winter strangles the town, trapping people in their homes. Blue doggedly wades through waist-deep snow on their daily bread deliveries to the old folks of the town, but they slip on ice and twist their ankle really bad.

(Anyway read my book Yield Under Great Persuasion, which is an M/M cozy romantasy with lots of different tension points -- we've got a lil bit of #1 and #2, a WHOLE LOT of #3, and a smidge of #4 and #5)

[hailraykin-deactivated20230814]

Reblog to give mutuals a break from whatever they're been going through

[bitchesgetriches]

Everything Is Becoming a Bank

Most major corporations — from airlines to social media platforms — now aspire to become unregulated banks. Bankification today accounts for

[apatosaurus]

This is a long read, but worth it. Some takeaways:

-Don’t use “buy now pay later.” The fine print isn’t what it seems.

-The fine print on medical financing, store credit cards, and contactless payment is also not what it seems.

-Payday loans are still predatory, even when offered by your employer

-Rewards programs are an income stream for the companies that run them. The points systems are manipulated so that the house always wins. They depend on people leaving money in rewards accounts and not in interest-bearing traditional bank accounts.

-Electronic payment apps like VenMo are not banks. You don’t earn interest. Your money is not protected.

-Your financial information is not private if your money is not kept in a regulated bank.

-None of this is regulated by the FDIC. Your money is not protected if it is held by a non-bank doing banking business. Our economy is not protected from the collapse of financial institutions that are not banks.

-The Biden administration was making progress in increasing accountability for non-banks operating as predatory financial services providers. The current administration is reversing those protections to favor corporations.

[mierac]

Oh boy.

 A third of younger Americans hold their savings on nonbank tech platforms like Venmo

PEOPLE! DO NOT LEAVE YOUR MONEY IN VENMO OR APPLE PAY OR ANY OF THIS SHIT. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GO FIND A REAL BANK OR A CREDIT UNION.

If Venmo were to close tomorrow all your money would vanish. There's no insurance or guarantee on any of these things. I know banks aren't great but legit banks will have the "FDIC insured" logo on their doors and websites, which means if my bank goes under tomorrow I still get my money back. Also I guarantee you there is a credit union somewhere in your town, go find it.

You can leave some money in Venmo or Apple pay or whatever, but NOT ALL OF IT for the love of God.

[jenniferdub]

FYI this is what the logo looks like and Apple Cash is FDIC insured.

[idroolinmysleep]

No, it's misleading. Go to Green Dot's T&Cs, search for "FDIC," and you'll come across this:

your funds are insured up to $250,000 by the FDIC in the event Green Dot Bank fails

In the event Green Dot Bank fails. Meaning the only time your money is protected is if Green Dot goes under. Not if Apple goes under (unlikely, granted). Or if Apple changes its terms (entirely possible). Or if you got scammed. Or if Apple freezes your account because they think you're the one scamming. Or any of the other countless mishaps your money could suffer. Green Dot is insured, but Apple Cash is not.

This is the disclaimer (highlighted) you see before you set up Apple Cash:

[heywriters]

I really need my followers, especially younger ones, to read this.

And DO NOT get store credit cards, they are money sucks and difficult to cancel.

[julevanwilde]

As someone who's worked in the industry for a decade now, here's a quick rundown (US specific,) of what your schools and parents didn't teach you:

For the love of god get an account at a federally insured institution. Look for FDIC (banks) or NCUA (credit unions) insured and regulated financial institution. They are legally required to have this status publicly available and accessible so it's not hard to find.

The FDIC and/or NCUA will insure your accounts up to $250,000 PER AUTHORIZED SIGNER and per account type. These are factors to max your coverage to even higher than $250k but the key point is that if something happens to your bank or accounts there, that first $250k of your money is secured anyway.

Banks are for profit. Credit Unions are exactly what it sounds like: unions. They are not for profit and member owned.

Bigger institutions have more money and resources at their disposal; they have the fancier apps, 24/7 phone banking and more locations. But watch out! They are no different than any other large corporation you've heard of when it comes to ethics. Smaller institutions have more limitations, and lesser size is not an indicator of morality, but it's something to consider when choosing where to keep your money.

These institutions, regardless of what kind you choose, will offer interest bearing accounts. Money Market Savings and Time Accounts (also called Certificates of Deposit,) are popular choices to put the money you already have to work for you. You can earn money just for having your money in an interest bearing account type.

All financial institutions charge fees of one sort or another. They are offering products and services, after all. Nothing is free! They will also disclose options to avoid paying those fees, usually based around meeting specific criteria such as minimum balances or direct deposits.

Take this information and do your own research so that you can make an informed decision. Now you know what to look for! Don't be taken advantage of!

[lexirosewrites]

what they don’t tell you about being a writer is that returning to a long fic you haven’t touched in a while means rereading 50k words first because you don’t actually remember your own fics that well

[corvidcall]

to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube

they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!

i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies

[o0fyuu0o]

Saw these easy to read instructions on Twitter. Stay safe 💚

[ransomflanagan]

PEDRO PASCAL as JOEL MILLER in THE LAST OF US (2023-), ep. 3 Long, Long Time

[illusion-of-death]

Revolutionary idea: imagine [character I like] with [disability I have]. More people should get on this!

[graceless-writing]

“How’s your WIP going?”

"Have you made any progress?”

“How close are you to being done?”

[captaindibbzy]

Listen if I get seven spell slots a day I need at least three to cast Writing because it takes two to start and one to keep going.

[gnocchioli]

Imagine all the things I could do if I just did them.

[lobstabear]

To my 25 - 35 year olds, you've reached the age where people around you are starting to give up on themselves because they think it's too late. Don't let that energy rub off on you. It's not too late.

[knittingontheroad]

I became a tattoo artist at 49.

Married the love of my life at 50.

Got my Class A CDL at 59.

You've got time.

As long as you're breathing, you've got time.

[runawaymarbles]

The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.

Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.

[zz9pzza]

Op's tags

#I just started dropping '2.5 Billion page views a month'#into conversations as early as possible bc they would Not believe me otherwise#it was right up there with having to say 'csam attacks' to get them to take my compartmentalization of information concerns seriously#turns out those are the magic words#otw#op

[runawaymarbles]

The last part was kind of insane, honestly. When we started changing platforms for the donor database, I kept telling them that yes I was aware we already had an account for the volunteer database, and no that could not be connected to the donor database. And they said yes fine sure and then connected them anyway. And I called them back and said, excuse me, I'm confused, I can see both databases. And they said, well, yeah, but it's only you, someone has to be able to see both databases to give other users access. The other users can't see both. And I said, no, we have been asking for a completely separate database. I should not be able to see both. And they said, you are one organization, one organization can't have two databases. And I said, last year someone used our volunteer email list to commit approximately one thousand felonies. Please feel free to imagine how much worse it could have been had they had a way to use volunteers' email addresses to get their legal names. We do not want this to be something anyone can do no matter how much we trust them. Let me describe those felonies to you in more detail. And they emailed me two hours later and said, you can have two separate databases.

[kyraneko]

This post feels like watching an iceberg go by in clear water. The amount of stuff going on beneath the surface of AO3 just astonishes.

[jeffsatyr]

(ID in alt)

[debian-official]

reblog to boop prev with your paw

[luna-azzurra]

If you're a new writer and you're asking yourself "is this too personal, is this too much, will people think this is weird" that feeling is the exact location of your actual voice. The stuff that makes you want to close the laptop is the stuff nobody else could write. The safe version is always worse. Always. I have never once read something and thought "this would have been better if it was a little less honest." go further. It's always go further.

[leveragehunters]

CoPilot in MS Word

I opened Word yesterday to discover that it now contains CoPilot. It follows you as you type and if you have a personal Microsoft 365 account, you can't turn it off. You will be given 60 AI credits per month and you can't opt out of it.

The only way to banish it is to revert to an earlier version of Office. There is lot of conflicting information and overly complex guides out there, so I thought I'd share the simplest way I found.

How to revert back to an old version of Office that does not have CoPilot

This is fairly simple, thankfully, presuming everything is in the default locations. If not you'll need to adjust the below for where you have things saved.

Click the Windows Button and S to bring up the search box, then type cmd. It will bring up the command prompt as an option. Run it as an administrator.

Paste this into the box at the cursor: cd "\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun"

Hit Enter

Then paste this into the box at the cursor: officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.17726.20160

Hit enter and wait while it downloads and installs.

VERY IMPORTANT. Once it's done, open Word, go to File, Account (bottom left), and you'll see a box on the right that says Microsoft 365 updates. Click the box and change the drop down to Disable Updates.

This will roll you back to build 17726.20160, from July 2024, which does not have CoPilot, and prevent it from being installed.

If you want a different build, you can see them all listed here. You will need to change the 17726.20160 at step 4 to whatever build number you want.

This is not a perfect fix, because while it removes CoPilot, it also stops you receiving security updates and bug fixes.

Switching from Office to LibreOffice

At this point, I'm giving up on Microsoft Office/Word. After trying a few different options, I've switched to LibreOffice.

You can download it here for free: https://www.libreoffice.org/

If you like the look of Word, these tutorials show you how to get that look:

www.howtogeek.com/788591/how-to-make-libreoffice-look-like-microsoft-office/

www.debugpoint.com/libreoffice-like-microsoft-office/

If you've been using Word for awhile, chances are you have a significant custom dictionary. You can add it to LibreOffice following these steps.

First, get your dictionary from Microsoft

Go to Manage your Microsoft 365 account: account.microsoft.com.

One you're logged in, scroll down to Privacy, click it and go to the Privacy dashboard.

Scroll down to Spelling and Text. Click into it and scroll past all the words to download your custom dictionary. It will save it as a CSV file.

Open the file you just downloaded and copy the words.

Open Notepad and paste in the words. Save it as a text file and give it a meaningful name (I went with FromWord).

Next, add it to LibreOffice

Open LibreOffice.

Go to Tools in the menu bar, then Options. It will open a new window.

Find Languages and Locales in the left menu, click it, then click on Writing aids.

You'll see User-defined dictionaries. Click New to the right of the box and give it a meaningful name (mine is FromWord).

Hit Apply, then Okay, then exit LibreOffice.

Open Windows Explorer and go to C:\Users\[YourUserName]\AppData\Roaming\LibreOffice\4\user\wordbook and you will see the new dictionary you created. (If you can't see the AppData folder, you will need to show hidden files by ticking the box in the View menu.)

Open it in Notepad by right clicking and choosing 'open with', then pick Notepad from the options.

Open the text file you created at step 5 in 'get your dictionary from Microsoft', copy the words and paste them into your new custom dictionary UNDER the dotted line.

Save and close.

Reopen LibreOffice. Go to Tools, Options, Languages and Locales, Writing aids and make sure the box next to the new dictionary is ticked.

If you use LIbreOffice on multiple machines, you'll need to do this for each machine.

Please note: this worked for me. If it doesn't work for you, check you've followed each step correctly, and try restarting your computer. If it still doesn't work, I can't provide tech support (sorry).