Panels needing panelists
May. 20th, 2025 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boxofdelights posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
wisconThese #WisCon panels still need panelists:
We've lost some people and are looking for panelists on the below:
May 23 Fri7:00-7:45pm | Breathe the Pressure: Burnout and Recovery for Creatives
May 24 Sat10:00-10:45am | Pathways to Publishing
May 24 Sat4:00-4:45pm | Small Press Publishing
Please email Panels@WisCon.sf3.org if you are able to participate!
We've lost some people and are looking for panelists on the below:
May 23 Fri7:00-7:45pm | Breathe the Pressure: Burnout and Recovery for Creatives
May 24 Sat10:00-10:45am | Pathways to Publishing
May 24 Sat4:00-4:45pm | Small Press Publishing
Please email Panels@WisCon.sf3.org if you are able to participate!
BELLA: We’ve loved every minute together
May. 20th, 2025 06:21 pmjesse_the_kOn day one, she was beautiful, and brave, and ready to cuddle. She was underweight, so her sleek black-and-brown body just fills an oval bed. Staring right at the camera with hope and trepidation, her stuffed alligator rests in front.
( Click for pic )
Today was her last day.
Moving to Scrivener for fanfic, too
May. 19th, 2025 09:09 amvriddyI'm not sure how long this is going to last, but I moved all of my on-going fanfic projects to Scrivener as well. I already started using it for my original projects, but for fanfics I used to find it too intimidating. This may well happen again, but for now I'm cherishing the organisational flexibility it allows. It's Just Great (tm) XD
I'll go back to 4thewords if I get too stuck in my own head again (defeating monsters and completing quests just works so well to kick me out of the 'Thou must write something Good or you will waste your time, nay, the entire world's time!' kind of block.) The recent weird bug that resulted in some data loss in many files has been such a pain to manage, even if I believed I recovered everything I needed. Between the hurt/comfort series, fics I drafted last November and still need to edit, and some other things I have going on, it's just been kind of messy to try to find all my files again and making sure they're whole. Scrivener is refreshing in that sense (easy to find things!), but may not help with the "getting stuck in own head" issue... I suppose there's always changing the font to Comic Sans and bright yellow font on neon green background or something to test, etc, if/when that happens again 😆
Note: even with the helpful AO3 Scrivener template that was shared with me, copy-pasting directly into AO3's Rich Text Editor doesn't work and I lose italics and other formatting. However, this Tumblr tutorial from zaharya (and the follow-up tutorial) appear to have resolved the problem for me, so I'm happy with the current status. I only posted a couple of things with it so far though, so tbc!
I'm enjoying working offline more. The only thing I'm missing at the moment is a good thesaurus program that would work offline, too. The one integrated with Scrivener doesn't cut it for my needs.
I want to talk about some stuff going on in my writing again, but because I didn't really share much especially around the orig novellas in January, my brain seems jammed about new thoughts and related posts until I get that stuff out first. I guess I'll attempt to summarise soon, so I can share the fresh stuff again XD
Any of you also using Scrivener for fic? How do you find it? Any tips? I'm still not 100% how I will organise projects over time especially with the many one-shots, but I'm looking forward to testing out various ways!
Writing (and Zine) Thoughts
May. 18th, 2025 10:41 pmgrayestofghostsI guess I'm feeling kind of gross because I feel like I'm between projects, but not really.
I am Looking At The Novel, being the science fiction novel I've been working on for two years, and think the first few chapters need a heavy revision. So I have been trying to do that, but being on the computer, it's hard, and I'm just... not feeling it? And I'm not sure if I need to pause or need to muscle through it. My insane thought was to make a draft where I just took the passages I really liked, in some kind of opposite kill-your-darlings, and try to weave a narrative through that way, because this piece is really supposed to be running on vibes, so selecting the bestest vibes first from the old draft may be the way to go. Or maybe I should just do normal editing. I don't know. I feel kind of nuts looking at this thing, which is making me wonder if I should just chicken scratch at dirt for a new project that I want to do but isn't formed enough to really start writing.
I also had this insane idea of making a zine of excerpts of notes I've sent to my therapist, which in my case are extremely prolific. I mean it's my writing so I can do what I want with it, right? But as I was starting to compile some stuff it just felt really hard, even if the excerpts I was working with weren't super significant. I was at a local group to write and in the middle of it I was just like, "wow, what the fuck am I doing, this is insane," and had to get up and leave. But maybe it would be worth it to do? I don't know.
There is a zinefest at the end of June so I did want to bring something more substantial than my minizine for trades, but this might... not be it.
I am Looking At The Novel, being the science fiction novel I've been working on for two years, and think the first few chapters need a heavy revision. So I have been trying to do that, but being on the computer, it's hard, and I'm just... not feeling it? And I'm not sure if I need to pause or need to muscle through it. My insane thought was to make a draft where I just took the passages I really liked, in some kind of opposite kill-your-darlings, and try to weave a narrative through that way, because this piece is really supposed to be running on vibes, so selecting the bestest vibes first from the old draft may be the way to go. Or maybe I should just do normal editing. I don't know. I feel kind of nuts looking at this thing, which is making me wonder if I should just chicken scratch at dirt for a new project that I want to do but isn't formed enough to really start writing.
I also had this insane idea of making a zine of excerpts of notes I've sent to my therapist, which in my case are extremely prolific. I mean it's my writing so I can do what I want with it, right? But as I was starting to compile some stuff it just felt really hard, even if the excerpts I was working with weren't super significant. I was at a local group to write and in the middle of it I was just like, "wow, what the fuck am I doing, this is insane," and had to get up and leave. But maybe it would be worth it to do? I don't know.
There is a zinefest at the end of June so I did want to bring something more substantial than my minizine for trades, but this might... not be it.
Fic – [フェルマーの料理 / Fermat’s Cuisine / Fermaa no Ryouri] – Made for me. (pg-13, one-shot)
May. 18th, 2025 01:29 amyui_miyamoto posting in anime_mangaFandom : フェルマーの料理 / Fermat’s Cuisine / Fermaa no Ryouri
Author : Yui_Miyamoto
Story Title : Made for me.
Rating : PG-13
Genre(s) : Romance, Drama
Main Character(s) : Kitada Gaku, Asakura Kai
Summary : Ever since Kai left, Gaku thinks he’s going to leave again. Even if they live together now, will he ever let this fear go?
MFG…Warning(s) : M/M.
Disclaimer : The manga is made by Kobayashi Yuugo and the drama with TBS so all rights belong to them.
Livejournal / Fanfiction.net / AO3
Author : Yui_Miyamoto
Story Title : Made for me.
Rating : PG-13
Genre(s) : Romance, Drama
Main Character(s) : Kitada Gaku, Asakura Kai
Summary : Ever since Kai left, Gaku thinks he’s going to leave again. Even if they live together now, will he ever let this fear go?
MFG…Warning(s) : M/M.
Disclaimer : The manga is made by Kobayashi Yuugo and the drama with TBS so all rights belong to them.
Livejournal / Fanfiction.net / AO3
Link: Multifandom questionnaire/question meme
May. 18th, 2025 09:13 amvriddyFannish person who would like to write more on Dreamwidth but isn't too sure what about? maevedarcy's got you :D They adapted a fandom questionnaire to make it more multifandom-friendly and the (72!) questions are so good!! If folks in my circles decide to pick it up, I'll be looking forward to reading y'all's answers :D
Link: Questionnaire: 72 Multifandom questions to ask a fangirl
maevedarcy's got you :D They adapted a fandom questionnaire to make it more multifandom-friendly and the (72!) questions are so good!! If folks in my circles decide to pick it up, I'll be looking forward to reading y'all's answers :DLink: Questionnaire: 72 Multifandom questions to ask a fangirl
Bella got her BCAT!
May. 17th, 2025 10:11 pmmistressofmusesBella had another FastCAT today, this time sponsored by the Keeshond club. (As usual, I would rather have been there than at work. There is one in early June I get to go to, though!)
Her scores today... weren't great. Her first time was okay, 11.49. Her second one was pretty bad, 19.12. Apparently she got distracted at the start, and didn't actually start to run for several seconds, heh. Alex said the wait for both runs was pretty long, so she started to lose a little bit of her hype.
But she accumulated enough points to get her BCAT, which is the first title for doing the event! (Each run gets points, faster runs getting more points. The BCAT title means she got 150 points total in the event. The intermediate is the DCAT, at 500 points, and the highest level is the FCAT, at 1000 points.)
So here she is with her big fancy ribbon!
I also had her pose with her ribbons at home this evening:
A noble sport-beaft.
Her scores today... weren't great. Her first time was okay, 11.49. Her second one was pretty bad, 19.12. Apparently she got distracted at the start, and didn't actually start to run for several seconds, heh. Alex said the wait for both runs was pretty long, so she started to lose a little bit of her hype.
But she accumulated enough points to get her BCAT, which is the first title for doing the event! (Each run gets points, faster runs getting more points. The BCAT title means she got 150 points total in the event. The intermediate is the DCAT, at 500 points, and the highest level is the FCAT, at 1000 points.)
So here she is with her big fancy ribbon!
I also had her pose with her ribbons at home this evening:
A noble sport-beaft.
Request for Testing of Another Website
May. 17th, 2025 06:35 pmjazzyjj posting in access_fandomHi everyone. Several years ago I posted here requesting assistance with some websites. Now I'm back to do the same thing. About 2 months ago I received an email on a list to which I am subscribed, regarding a website that was being launched about Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. They wanted people to sign up for their newsletter, but as I recently found out there is a problem. Actually 2 problems on the site, but I'll get to the other one in a bit. The newsletter sign-up form uses CloudFlare, which I believe Dreamwidth used at one point for security purposes or something like that. I might open a support ticket regarding this, but thought I'd ask here first. I've only encountered CloudFlare a little bit, but each time I attempted to fill in that form a box popped up prompting me to verify myself. I tried dismissing this pop-up to no avail. The verification checkbox is a good alternative imho, but it seems this one has been incorrectly implemented. The other problem on that website is with the forum registration. There is evidently some kind of CAPTCHA on the registration form, which was hopefully meant to be accessible for screen reader users such as myself. But there's some kind of site owner error. I attempted to contact them via their contact form, but again was met with that CloudFlare pop-up. I'm wondering if any of you who don't use screen readers could check out the website and see what happens. Oddly enough, it seems a couple of forum posts were made there, which to me seems impossible given that there is a forum registration. The website in question is http://www.title2.info , and I was able to read a few news articles on there but nothing else.
A Finances Addendum
May. 17th, 2025 06:10 pmhrjJust to acknowledge that I'm not always as smart as I think I am...
While going over things with my Fidelity Guy, I discovered that I overpaid on my taxes the last three years. This came up because I was certain that some of the money that went into my 401K was above the pre-tax limit and therefor needed to get rolled into a Roth IRA, not a regular IRA. Except they couldn't find any evidence that I'd made any above-limit contributions.
Why was I so certain that I had? Because there was this section in the tax instructions for Additional Income where I (mis)read my W2 as indicating that I'd contributed more than the limit. So being a good, law-abiding person, I plugged in the numbers and added it to my taxable income. Except it turns out the numbers I misread as overage were actually non-taxable contributions to my employee-provided health and insurance coverage.
So I need to do corrected tax returns for 2022-2024 and get some money back. I don't mind the paperwork. I just hate losing my pride in being tax-savvy. (Please, no advice required on this point.)
While going over things with my Fidelity Guy, I discovered that I overpaid on my taxes the last three years. This came up because I was certain that some of the money that went into my 401K was above the pre-tax limit and therefor needed to get rolled into a Roth IRA, not a regular IRA. Except they couldn't find any evidence that I'd made any above-limit contributions.
Why was I so certain that I had? Because there was this section in the tax instructions for Additional Income where I (mis)read my W2 as indicating that I'd contributed more than the limit. So being a good, law-abiding person, I plugged in the numbers and added it to my taxable income. Except it turns out the numbers I misread as overage were actually non-taxable contributions to my employee-provided health and insurance coverage.
So I need to do corrected tax returns for 2022-2024 and get some money back. I don't mind the paperwork. I just hate losing my pride in being tax-savvy. (Please, no advice required on this point.)
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Just Create - Cashmere Edition
May. 17th, 2025 01:20 pmsilvercat17 posting in justcreateWhat are you working on? What have you finished? What do you need encouragement on?
Are there any cool events or challenges happening that you want to hype?
What do you just want to talk about?
What have you been watching or reading?
Chores and other not-fun things count!
Remember to encourage other commenters and we have a discord where we can do work-alongs and chat, linked in the sticky
Are there any cool events or challenges happening that you want to hype?
What do you just want to talk about?
What have you been watching or reading?
Chores and other not-fun things count!
Remember to encourage other commenters and we have a discord where we can do work-alongs and chat, linked in the sticky
well, shell it
May. 17th, 2025 12:13 amchanter1944Anyone got any advice for the gal who's just gone to fill a threesentenceficathon prompt and found that the comment has most likely, unless I'm fouling up the original prompt entirely, been deleted? I *thought* the original prompt was 'most glorious night', but all I can find to match that exact phrase is a comment that says the thing's been deleted. Damn. I'd feel like I'd be both usurping the original prompter and committing an act of... er... gratuitous self love if I were to post the same phrase as an anonymous comment, the better to fill it, but I've got the whole shelling prompt fill written out already.
threesentenceficathon prompt and found that the comment has most likely, unless I'm fouling up the original prompt entirely, been deleted? I *thought* the original prompt was 'most glorious night', but all I can find to match that exact phrase is a comment that says the thing's been deleted. Damn. I'd feel like I'd be both usurping the original prompter and committing an act of... er... gratuitous self love if I were to post the same phrase as an anonymous comment, the better to fill it, but I've got the whole shelling prompt fill written out already.Tuesday: Hudson Gardens
May. 16th, 2025 09:46 pmmistressofmuses
Quick picture of Berry Mad, lurking in the corner of her plant pot.
On Tuesday, we had a few errands to run, but spent most of the day at Hudson Gardens.
It was a little early, though it's been so warm it didn't feel like it should be, ha. They hadn't yet planted their annuals or put out any of the water plants, but there was still plenty to see, and it was a very nice day to walk around.
Crabapple blossoms against the sky.
Sixteen more pictures:
Lily of the valley.
A bushtit. They are so remarkably tiny, and the name remains so unfortunate!
Potentilla.
Honeybee on an allium.
Wild roses.
An iris.
Speedwell.
More irises.
Lilacs, which smelled wonderful.
These roses were such an intense red that my phone camera didn't want to believe it existed, ha.
Only a few of the flowers had this kind of yellow variegation, but it was neat.
We stopped and had a fancy coffee and split a pastry (banana bread) from the coffee shop down along the bike trail. Always nice.
The bee hives are more accessible again! Still behind their usual fence, of course, but last year they were trying to reestablish some of the grass and groundcover, so a lot of the grounds were off limits, including the view of the hives.
We'd been hoping for frogs, but alas. Mom and Taylor heard a lot of frogsong up in the mountains a few days before (on a Mother's Day hike), but nothing at the gardens, alas.
However...
There were so many tadpoles! Future frogs!
We took another break at the far end of the gardens, and split a can of boba tea. It was delicious, but had a couple silly things on the can:
Shack well! Precipitation may occur!
We spent a long time just sitting in the "cascades" area, listening to the water and talking. It was a lovely afternoon.
Across the 'mountain stream', a family of geese scrambling up the banks. They were so cute! And hungry. We watched the little goslings just going to town on some of the plants over there, haha.
I liked that there was grass and some small plants growing out of the top of one of the logs. I also rather liked the reflection of the trees.
After the gardens, we also stopped by Barnes and Noble. I had a couple of gift cards from Christmas and my birthday, and I was wanting to get Overgrowth, the new Mira Grant book.
Obviously, I found a few more books than that, as always.
Five Ways to Forgiveness was one of the Ursula K Le Guin books that wasn't included in that humble bundle of her work, so it'd been on my list. The other four books were on a "buy one, get one 50% off" horror table. I picked out A House With Good Bones, because I've heard good things about it, and Blood On Her Tongue because it sounds interesting and I was tempted by the cool cover design. (The bloody effect on the pages!) Alex picked out The Last House on Needless Street and The Reformatory, because those sounded the best to him. We'll add them to our shared TBR list, ha.
More Retirement Stuff
May. 16th, 2025 08:41 pmhrjToday I had a long, productive session with my Fidelity Guy. We rolled over my 401K into an IRA, then set up 4 different instruments to move the money into. I'm putting about half my money into two different types of annuity which, together with my Social Security (still waiting for approval) should cover my current monthly budget (which includes allowances for "special topics" and adding to my emergencies fund). Most of the rest goes into a managed investment fund that shouldn't need to be touched currently. Then a small chunk goes into a cash account that will be available for "topping off" my checking account, if necessary, to keep it at my safety target.
Let me explain "safety target". Currently my "ordinary" credit union accounts (i.e., separate from my IRA funds) include:
* A "pretend this doesn't exist" savings that is for major unexpected costs.
* A couple of smallish IRA accounts from previous jobs that are functionally part of my "pretend this doesn't exist" money.
* My "saving for special projects/trips" savings account. The plan is to have a "safety threshold" that it shouldn't get below, so the target is to keep it at "safety threshold + known projected special project costs". For example, for Worldcon the projected costs include transportation, hotel, and food budget (higher per diem than when eating at home). My planning spreadsheet includes the next year's worth of special projects with estimates of cost. When things settle out, the idea is that if I add a future special project I block out the projected cost and need to make sure I save for it.
* My checking account. This is where routine expenses come from. It also has a "safety threshold" that it shouldn't fall below. Right now, I dumped all my "extra payout" funds (bonus, vacation payout) because I need to be able to work from it until I have the Social Security and annuity money coming in. (The annuity payouts don't start until July. The Social Security will include back-pay back to February when it gets approved, but in the mean time I'm working from my existing balance.)
The take-home lesson for those of you thinking about retirement planning, is that when they say you should have X months of cash in the bank, that includes because there may be a gap between stopping your paycheck and starting drawing from your retirement funds. It really really helped for my peace of mind to get a big bonus check and a big vacation payout right around my retirement date.
And how does retirement feel? Well, I've been back from Kalamazoo for 3 days now and each day has felt like one of those weekend days when I'm running around getting things done that I don't have time for on working days. Still working on the daily routine, but so far the constants have been a bike ride, reading/writing for the blog/podcast, yard work, and housework/organization. Which leaves me fairly tired at the end of the day, but I've been trying to avoid going to bed early because somehow I've started waking up around 5am and I simply don't feel like getting out of bed that early.
I think the rest of May will play out similarly. I have non-routine events scheduled almost every day for the next week and a half. No chance to feel at loose ends yet.
Let me explain "safety target". Currently my "ordinary" credit union accounts (i.e., separate from my IRA funds) include:
* A "pretend this doesn't exist" savings that is for major unexpected costs.
* A couple of smallish IRA accounts from previous jobs that are functionally part of my "pretend this doesn't exist" money.
* My "saving for special projects/trips" savings account. The plan is to have a "safety threshold" that it shouldn't get below, so the target is to keep it at "safety threshold + known projected special project costs". For example, for Worldcon the projected costs include transportation, hotel, and food budget (higher per diem than when eating at home). My planning spreadsheet includes the next year's worth of special projects with estimates of cost. When things settle out, the idea is that if I add a future special project I block out the projected cost and need to make sure I save for it.
* My checking account. This is where routine expenses come from. It also has a "safety threshold" that it shouldn't fall below. Right now, I dumped all my "extra payout" funds (bonus, vacation payout) because I need to be able to work from it until I have the Social Security and annuity money coming in. (The annuity payouts don't start until July. The Social Security will include back-pay back to February when it gets approved, but in the mean time I'm working from my existing balance.)
The take-home lesson for those of you thinking about retirement planning, is that when they say you should have X months of cash in the bank, that includes because there may be a gap between stopping your paycheck and starting drawing from your retirement funds. It really really helped for my peace of mind to get a big bonus check and a big vacation payout right around my retirement date.
And how does retirement feel? Well, I've been back from Kalamazoo for 3 days now and each day has felt like one of those weekend days when I'm running around getting things done that I don't have time for on working days. Still working on the daily routine, but so far the constants have been a bike ride, reading/writing for the blog/podcast, yard work, and housework/organization. Which leaves me fairly tired at the end of the day, but I've been trying to avoid going to bed early because somehow I've started waking up around 5am and I simply don't feel like getting out of bed that early.
I think the rest of May will play out similarly. I have non-routine events scheduled almost every day for the next week and a half. No chance to feel at loose ends yet.