No need to feel bad–this is a casual writing club. :) As much as we’d like to believe that we can find a perfect balance of all our interests, in my experience it’s difficult to really focus on more than one at a time.

I didn’t really set a goal last month, I think I was just so thrilled as to have a job haha. And that is still taking up a big share of my attention/energy, but things are starting to stabilize somewhat so I’m more comfortable eking out some time for creative self-expression.

On that note, I finally did some actual writing. I was looking over all my notes for this short story I’ve been planning forrrevver, when I decided to just pants it rather than following my usual methodical outlining approach. I blame the corrupting influence of some of the members of this book club 😆 for making writing from pure imagination sound so fun–and it was. Just writing scenes as they came to mind was really quite freeing.

I’m sure it’ll be a lot to edit, but at least it’s some matter on the page to work with rather than just bouncing around in my head.

My outrageous goal for next month would be to finish my rough draft for the short story, but I’d be happy just to have the key scenes 1) figured out, 2) drafted.

Nice. I like that kind of paradigm shift–reframing resolutions to be more personally centred. It makes sense.

Lots of good points in here, but this part about perfectionism really struck a chord:

tinkering with the syntax like I’m splitting the atom

It’s true it’s easy to become obsessed with finding the right phrasing (nothing wrong with, but); sometimes we lose focus on the joy of writing, and also of reading. Like I don’t think I’ve read anything without some mistakes.

I think I’m going to borrow your birthday resolution idea. I love it, actually.

I wanted to complete it by the end of December, but it looks like I might need a couple more weeks. Reminds me of the saying I heard about the last 10% of a project taking 90% of the time, hehe. It can take forever. Although you seem like someone who’s no stranger to actually sharing your work, so I’m sure you’ll get it dislodged soon.

I started taking part in a monthly anarchist writing workshop, so I hope I can get some new insights on my work AND I can provide mine to other likeminded authors!

That sounds amazing. I would love to hear more about it.

Pratchettian

😍

That’s great. I love journaling for that–it’s like, even if life might be whelming in other ways, it’s still very doable to at least jot down some words about how you feel.

Oooooh! That is exciting. I’m happy to hear you’re continuing on with Neovim. It makes editing text into a game almost. :)

For my update, my year+ long search for a fulltime job is finally at an end 😮‍💨 but as much as that’s a relief, I forgot how much time and energy fulltime work takes up!

But I’ve been keeping up my writing in small ways. I continue to collect ideas like a magpie collects shiny things, but I’ve started to do my writing in short snippets with whatever is available: a notepad when going on walks, in the form of essays or concept pieces on mastodon, or even on my phone using Fossify notes.

Though I still spend more time consuming media than producing it. Especially reading. I found that my reading speed has actually almost doubled since last year! (Though I’m still v slow.)

I’m pretty invested. It’s a real cocktail of strong personalities–makes for a real page turner!

I don’t know much about professional kitchens, but I love all the shop talk.

I’m usually such a “concept” writer/reader, it feels kind of novel to read something that doesn’t have a huge fantasy/sci-fi/horror/other twist built in, but just like a straight up interesting drama.

Yes to this when juxtaposed against consumerism.

Also don’t feel bad that you need more than sun and air to fulfill your basic needs. It’s not a sin to enjoy a falafel.

I’m so sorry. One of my neighbours is non-American MAGA as well, and without taking a hammer to my frontal lobe, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand how they see the world. They literally believe sci-fi fantasy shit about giants’ bones and “med beds” and cloning politicians.

Well I’ve heard all I need to. I knew Chomsky was kind of a prodigious jerk. He’s put out some good material in his time, but it sure doesn’t seem like he’s personally on the right side of of the child abuse “side” of the debate.

Sure it is. It’s a matter of the taste of the people in the movie theatre.

Nolan’s movies are just vehicles for Zimmer’s music.

Matter of taste. For my part, I don’t like watching movies with anyone who can’t carry a conversation while it’s happening. I love getting the live reactions and theories as the movie is still playing out.

This is partner. It’s like a tic. It’s actually amazing to watch. It’s like they become possessed by the spirit of cinema and start babbling about the most obscure trivia you’ve ever heard.

Fortunately, I love it.

I love that kind of stuff. Both me and my wife do it, then we theory craft. We try to guess twists before they’re revealed.

This obviously doesn’t work well without subtitles.

Conceptually, sure. But the last big setpiece made no sense from a visual perspective. I feel like you would need to show an overhead view of the map simultaneously, to actually keep track of what was happening.

From the link…

Microsoft provides the Israeli military with Azure cloud and AI services that are crucial in empowering and accelerating Israel’s genocidal war on 2.3 million Palestinians in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip.

Welcome to the writing club! For drafts or snippets, I can recommend https://pads.slrpnk.net/ for quickly sharing anything that is too long to fit in a comment. I’d love to proofread a new draft!

Sounds like you’ve got some great measurable goals there. I look forward to hearing your update next month. :)

I think that counts as a “hiatus” if only because if it doesn’t then I have a lot to answer for. :P

Speaking of, how are you all setup for writing?

I use neovim as well! I’ve been using vim for a long time, and I find the keybinding great for navigating prose ({} for jumping over paragraphs, () for sentences, etc). I’m experimenting with the following plugins: vim-pencil, limelight, goyo, as well as some others, unrelated to writing. Although personally I would recommend you be judicious about adding plugins to your .vimrc, because they can quickly get out of hand. I also use the kitty terminal for easy splitting of the view, as well as for the animated cursor_trail, which makes it easier to visually track the cursor jumping all over when you’re using vim motions. :)

Good luck with your writing. It’s great feeling the creative energies coming on, and then choosing how to direct them! :)