So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

Hello, darklings! 

I’ve been battling a bit of illness, trying to catch up on projects, making notes, outlines, and realizing I slacked on doing things I meant to do. Stress, while useful for drive, can be a true pain.

There seems to be stress gremlins on everyone’s backs lately.

I took a week off from work and spent it resting and chilling, and that’s helped immensely. I’ve also spent a great deal of that week fretting about things I should be doing, which is something I am going to challenge myself not to do. I suspect it’ll be an ongoing battle, but I like to accept that when people tell me something many times, they’re probably not lying. 

So if they say I deserve to rest and have do-nothing days, they’re not lying. The only liar here is my scumbag brain.

By the way, that’s probably one of my biggest life hacks: believing people who tell me positive things about myself. I encourage you to do the same. 

I also quit Facebook. I used it seldom, and the facebook messenger caused me to question privacy items and who made money from that information and data. So it’s gone, and I don’t miss it. 

So, "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

My only hesitancy in quitting the app had to do with the idea that one day I would be using it for Bad Crow Bookery content. But as with any popular platform that becomes entrenched in toxicity and lines the pockets of the ill-intending, we have to ask ourselves what we gain and what we feed.

At what point can a corrupt thing still be used for beauty, creativity, innovation, and goodness? When do we draw the line to say that there is too much pustulation to use an application any longer, that the virulent machine that it has become can no longer be fed with our attention, time, subscriptions, and data? How do we balance our benefits against how the greedy and harmful individuals who own such platforms reap from our continued use? 

There’s no easy answer to that. I think we must all make our own choices as best we can. I know when most leave a media, it’s due to the toxicity and harm far outweighing the pros, and where that line falls will differ for everyone. 

What I do solidly believe is that making the decision to not be on one or two social media sites will not ruin you. The convoluted turns that sometimes lead to breakthroughs and successes are strange and wholly unpredictable. Be connected somewhere, yes, but be mindful before you attempt to be everywhere.

You must be prepared to work and present yourself, but if you just can’t with an app, don’t dance with that app. There are many out there, and while you must put energy into your endeavors and reach out in some way, and reach out often, you cannot reach out if your arm is too weighed down. You cannot create if your brain is eaten up with stress and poison. Networking, communications, and having wiser fellows to turn to are so important, and yes, being on different web spaces allow more chances for that and more chances to be discovered by excellent people. But you can’t make meaningful connections if you are spread too thin, either. 

And first and foremost, focus on creating many things before you get too caught up in the decisions of stretching out over platforms. By the time you finish a book, the social media landscape will have changed. 

See to your mental health first, corvids, and media second.

Working On: 

Finishing up a casual fic and still picking at the vampire story. Eyeing other projects to see if I can get some easy finishing wins. 

Research History This Week That May Have Put Me on a List (or confused whoever monitors me): 

• Tin lizzies (Model T Fords), driving them, and how they could break your hand and arm if you messed up on starting them.

• Kukri knife models

• World War 1 trench maps

• World War 1 food rationing in France and Britain

• Making a good margarita

Writing Whoops: 

• “Everyones” is not a word. Possessive of “everyone” should always be “everyone’s”.

  • The reason for this is that “everyone” is an indefinite pronoun, and thus doesn’t follow the special rule of no apostrophe as seen in “hers”, “his”, “theirs”, “its”, etc.

  • Indefinite pronouns, which are broader in depicting a person, place, or object, will have the traditional possessive form, so will still use ’s.

  • Included in this list are “anyone”, “someone”, “anybody”, “somebody”, “no one”, “nobody”, “something”, “both”, “few”, etc.

Things my AI bot has overheard: 

• “You can’t play Doom: Eternal before you play Doom 2016!” “But…” “Nope. If you’re going to relax killing demons, you’re going play the prequel first!”

• “What is on your paws? Don’t you run from me! What is on your paws?!”

• “Is that a brand new hatchet? Oh my gawd, can I touch it?”

• “Every time I smell the metal from the iron fish, my brain thinks, ‘That blood smells funny’.” 

• “So I’m stoned off the new medication dose, but I just drank a monster, so I can almost move normal. At least, I’m not running into things currently.”

Beasties Update: 

All good, and the ones that are not tip top shape are good for their age. 

Watching, Reading, Playing: 

I played Subnautica again, just to have something familiar to play, then my spawn suggested I play the two Doom games we have next, so working through that. Heh, there is something satisfying at times in gratuitous gore, violence, and horror. 

In the writing group, we’ve started reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I read it once years ago, and realized I’ve forgotten much of it, so it’s been really nice to revisit. Plus, I like her descriptive prose.