zwei_hexen | Write every day! August 2023

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ysilme here: 1,5k on the nostalgia project, surprising myself with so many words: I spent the day in a bit of a haze of sleep deprivation (was kept awake last night with a marten or two running around above my head under the roof tiles) and wrote in-between bits of folding laundry. Perhaps I should try the latter more often? ;op I never seem to get ahead of the laundry pile anyway. /o\

sylvanwitch here: I spent the day with T. hauling things to school, into my newest classroom, and putting things where they belong, but before we left for a day of work, I wrote 514 words worth of notes on the next writing project I have planned once I've edited my novel.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

yhlee

One alibi page for now on linguistics space opera; hoping for more later tonight, but I'm still playing catch-up on slush-reading training. (I enjoy slushing! Just, some of today inevitably got eaten by household errands.)

From:

sylvanwitch

*shakes fist at errands* They do tend to be relentless and time-sucking, don't they? Good for you for getting that page in, and I hope you do find time to indulge in more. :-)

From:

ysilme

Boo to errands and things stealing your writing time, but you got some words in all the same, yay!
What is slush reading?

From:

yhlee

Ah, sorry! I should have explained.

For Reasons, the undifferentiated mass of unsolicited submissions to a book publisher or a magazine is called the "slush pile." (Wikipedia's take, possible dubious.) The first readers who look at those submissions are called "slush readers."

I've done slush reading before, for Apex Magazine (for a year or so?) and enjoyed it overall, although in that period I only passed up two stories to higher editors. It's such a joy finding a gem in the slush though!

I'm currently a new slush reader for Escape Pod, whose reading period is opening in a couple days so I completed my training in the nick of time! :)

For sf/f zines, this is usually either unpaid/volunteer or VERY low-paid work. I'm doing it because I enjoy it and because I think of it as paying it forward; I was told by my contact that this is usually a position for early-career writers, which I am not (I'm mid-career), but I really do enjoy it so they were happy to have me. :)

From:

sylvanwitch

Oh, my goodness--martens? How cool! (I mean, cool to me, who has never seen one in the wild; I'm quite sure 'cool' is NOT the word you'd use to describe it.)

That's an awesome word count! I should try that laundry trick myself! *grins*

From:

luzula

I also thought the martens were cool! I want to see one!

From:

ysilme

LOL TBH I don't care about them at all in regard to human living spaces (as in, houses and cars), as their appearance usually means trouble of the expensive kind, although in general I also adore them and would love to see or even watch any. But outside of documentaries I haven't ever seen one, just heard or dealt with the consequences of their actions, or seen some shadow whisk away when a door or window is opened - or hear their cries at night when they're fighting. (We did see another variety once but sadly in an unalive state; a least weasel (Mustela nivalis) which was the cutest thing ever - the whole animal, tail included, fit on the palm of my hand. We found it in this state on our terrace.)
The regular marten experience hereabouts, though, consists either of some pipes or hoses of your car gnawed through, meaning a often costly repair, particularly as this might happen over and over again (has to do with the scent of territory markings on your car and can happen regularly when your car is parked for a longer time in the territory of another one who decided this is their car now), or they get under your roof tiles and wreak havoc with the insulation of your roof, thus also causing costly damage. I also think it can't be good for them if they sleep/procreate/raise their young in a lot of the materials used for insulation, like mineral wool which is most commonly used.) Siljan checked yesterday and found some places where clearly the insulation has been dug into and a few of the boxes we're storing up there have been thrown about. We'll see if that was a one-time occurence, as we had before, or if it'll repeat, then we need to see if we can scare them away from the attic by some means (scent, or perhaps noise or light?) Unfortunately the kind of tiles we have allow small mammals to slip under at the bottom of the roof, and there's one tree too close to the roof who allows them easy access - and it's not really possible to prevent that; the tree is a cypress of at least 7m height by now and has been grown from a seed Siljan's granny brought from Jerusalem about 50 years ago or so. We built the house kind of around this tree, and due to the way it grows you also can't put in the climbing preventor we're using in other trees against the cats.
But other than that, I'm totally fine with martens or any kind of wildlife, and would actually love to see them, too. We got a wildlife cam last winter when Ylva kept escaping the pen to check, but haven't used it yet; but we're going to put it on the balcony on that side of the roof (which they also use, we hear them jump on it) and see if we can get some results.

From:

sylvanwitch

That DOES sound awfully inconvenient and potentially costly, and I'm sorry you don't at least get the recompense of getting to see them at play. If it does prove that they're hanging about, I hope you're able to find a way to scare them off. I'm sure this isn't the same thing, but we have mice that live in the dropped ceiling of our television room, and we put strongly scented mint sachets up there, which seems to work well as long as we remember to replace them regularly. I hope some scent proves to be a good deterrent for your problem!

From:

luzula

Huh, interesting! The expensive repairs do sound annoying...

From:

ysilme

Thank you! ♥ I even added 400 more words after posting the tally entry. ^^ I'm so happy this is still rolling for me. Yay for words wording for you, too, even with all the errands to run and things needing to be hauled! I currently can't wrap my mind around the fact that the summer is nearly over and everything is going to take up speed (and creating work) next week the latest. *sigh*

From:

sylvanwitch

I don't know where August went. It seemed to just disappear! I've deliberately planned next year's vacation for earlier in the summer, so I don't have to experience that sense of one moment being on vacation and the next suddenly back to work!

Thank you for the kind words about my words! :-)

From:

shadaras

ysilme: That is a lot of words! Congrats! Especially when you did so much other stuff too!

sylvanwitch: Congrats on words and notes on such a busy day! <3

Day 28: Two longhand pages of notes about a new story that's also an idea I've been attempting to find an angle on for quite a while! I think this'll be story-shaped! I'm excited!

From:

sylvanwitch

Thank you so much! :-)

Ooooh! I'm so glad you've found a way to write the story that's been eluding you! YAY!

From:

chanter1944

Tagging in for days 26, 27, and 28.

100 words, or thereabouts, for both days 26 and 27.

Aaaaand 50-ish words is all I managed for day 28, but not zero, so whew.

From:

sylvanwitch

NOT ZERO IS THE GOAL! YAY! :-) Go, you, for wording even when conditions aren't ideal for such! :-)

From:

sanguinity

ysilme: I like the idea of laundry-folding as means to getting writing done!

sylvanwitch: Making notes on future projects -- well done! I should do that more; there's been quite a lot of opening WIPs lately and discovering I had forgotten quite a lot of what I had planned.

Aug 28: 250 words! It had been 70 when I sat down to report, them, then I was all "make it a round 100, at least", and when I next looked up again it was a round 250. ;-)

From:

sylvanwitch

Thank you! I've found that my brain since I am both post-menopausal and have had COVID once just doesn't hold things as well as it used to, and if I have an idea, I'd best write it down somewhere in detail, or it will be gone like smoke in the dawn sky.

YAY for the power of rounding! I'm the same way, and it's many a day's wordcount that has rounding to thank for having been more robust than it would have otherwise have been.

From:

cornerofmadness

I was Columbus so all I managed was to edit the word 'that' out of 9 chapters. still progress

From:

sylvanwitch

That IS progress--the most necessary kind, in fact! Go, you!

From:

yasaman

Day 28: nodding off over my keyboard, so calling it a night after 351 words!

From:

sylvanwitch

I hope you went to bed feeling extra rested for those words you stayed awake to write! :-)

From:

regshoe

Martens in the roof sounds very cool, annoying as it must be to be kept awake by them!

Day 28: Some polishing of chapter 20 and the epilogue.

From:

sylvanwitch

YAY for polishing! This story must be getting close to done, yeah?

From:

regshoe

Barring last-minute major changes, the writing is all done now! Just lots of editing to go...

From:

sylvanwitch

YAY! *does the happy close-to-finishing dance* Sending you LOTS of no-snags energy! :-)

From:

luzula

Day 28: 400 words of werewolf fic; total wordcount 20,400.

From:

sylvanwitch

Wooo-hoooo! LOOK at that wordcount! Go, you!

From:

lferion

28 August -- 100ish TRSB 105 words, and a quantity of editing on #92.

From:

sylvanwitch

Progress and lots of it! YAY! Go, you! :-)

From:

carenejeans

Day 28: 430 words on something that is NOT the Thing, though related...

Ysilme: That's a lot of words! Excellent. 8-) Somewhere I have directions for a Housecleaning Word Sprint, where you alternate between sprints of writing and housework -- laundry is in there. ;-) I've done it a few times, but it's kind of exhausting.

Sylvanwitch: Good for getting some notes down for your future project!

From:

sylvanwitch

Thank you! :-)

And GO, YOU, for getting words down! I hope the not-the-Thing words help you make progress on the Thing itself.

From:

badly_knitted

Great word counts, both of you!

Aug 28th - 840 words, my 4 Monday double drabbles and some editing on a fic for posting.

From:

sylvanwitch

Thank you so much and right back at you for that lovely wordcount! YAY! :-)

From:

badly_knitted

Thanks! =)

From:

silveradept

Brains, what are they? Need to check in for Days 19-28, most of my work in doing book club posts and making sure assignments were in on time and had at least a minimal amount of editing. Time for new projects to get going. Whee.