#but i also just feel like this game that could sell at 80$ on shelves and some of these very games don't offer more than 40-60h of content | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

beebfreeb · 3 years ago

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how did you make ur neocities website and how do you come up with comic ideas?

HEHEHE THIS GOT LONG <3 WHOOPSIE <3

hm hm... basically i just looked at w3schools.com HTML and CSS tutorials until i understood enough to feel confident enough to start sharing the site 😌😌😌 GKJLDFSH

plain HTML and CSS isn't really all that complicated for the most part!

they are markup and styling sheets so there's no actual programming involved but there is a lot of adjusting for CSS elements to make things look the way i want them ! i know neocities also has its own guides + links + tips and such somewhere!!

what is complicated is actually adding interacting javascript stuff which i havent learned yet 😔 i wanted the little email application to be more interactive and have functioning tabs + buttons so you could look at the other emails but i never got around 2 learning how 2 do that...

FOR THE COMING UP WITH IDEAS PART: man i dont know (JOKE MOSTLY) <3 my tip for just coming up with ideas is READ A LOT OF THINGS and THINK ABOUT THEM but in a writing sort of way. what did you like about it ? what DIDN'T you like? what made this story work or what pulled you out of it? what themes and patterns reoccur in the media that you like ?

then just let that roll around in your head + write down literally any vague idea that you have EVER somewhere to look at later.

i often see things and go haha i can do that Better (or at least, interesting to me specifically).

BASICALLY I MAKE THINGS THAT ARE INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING TO ME SPECIFICALLY. i see a neat idea and bat it around in my head like a cat.

how would i have done this idea? how could it have gone differently? how much of an effect does the setting and worldbuilding have on this? would this idea/character/thing behave the same in a different location? and so on !

my process usually comes from me seeing an element in Media of some sort and it lives in my head forever now. then i scribble out a character design or two based around said elements and themes, then try to build the basics of a world around them.

for example, i designed daisy, salesman, and k2 first! all of dreamland was originally informed by the designs and basic personalities of those three :-D! mostly it was just "i want a character who is just a REALLY regular, sorta dick-ish guy, trying to do errands in a dream logic vaporwave hell where people try to sell them things constantly and are incapable of sincerity"

then i let myself get really invested in the world itself and started just. populating the setting with people who Live there and just try to go about their lives, before i went back to refining the actual story/plot !

that is just my process of making stories and it may not work for everyone, but that is usually how i do things <3

i make the basics of the major characters, start to detail the world they live in + background elements, then go back to working the main plot!

just, dont be afraid of being unoriginal! nothing exists in a vacuum, basically any idea has been done in Some way before. things get rearranged and reused constantly. dont be afraid of shelving ideas to look at for later, or cutting things from stories completely! feel free to rearrange and reuse your Own ideas !

also get into weirder or more obscure media. get into media that Kind Of Sucks Bad and dissect it like a bug. play free rpg maker games. watch animated childrens movies from the 80s but the ones you never watched as a kid. look at weird abandonware games! youtube web series with only 4 episodes!

let yourself Dislike Things and analyses Why you dislike it, but also look at what it does good or interesting! what made some things intriguing and what made some things fall flat?

even with things you do like a lot! what could it do better? what felt unsatisfying? why did it feel unsatisfying?

and by god. write it down <3

#funny talking tag #long post #feel free to ask follow up questions i will answer them LATER

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ask-marios-apprentice · 3 years ago

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Sorry

I haven't updated in a while.

It's because Mario's Dad has finally made a return to the Kingdom.

I haven't been able to sleep at night because I have been helping him try to find a record.

You see. Back in the 80s, Mario had this record that he really liked. Unfortunately Luigi threw it into the fire while he was trying to read a book.

As a birthday gift, JumpMan (I'm going to be calling him that now because it feels is a little bit weird to call Mario's dad Mario's dad) was going to give him that record as a belated birthday gift.

Unfortunately. It turned up the one that he had already gotten was actually a bootleg that broke almost after one playing.

Because he didn't want anyone to ruin the surprise. He actually asked me to help him.

Here is what happend recently

At the canopy market at the docs

The docs are a place where a lot of things happen, Sea Shell Necklaces, Over priced caricatures, and a shady underbelly.

I know this because that is where we ended up finding the record.

After entering a 3 and an eighth record stores (one also was a thrift shop where everything smelled really awful.)

We are about to give up until we Heard a dolphin noise,

???: Dolphin noise

We followed it and found our selves underneath the docs.

The black market.

There were a few people there

A kid repeating "Hey fat boy, You wanna fight" to any passer by.

That Bob guy trying to sell his mix tapes.

There was a Goomba in a blue cap sitting on a bar chair who look like he had a pint too many.

He was eating ice cream flavors that wouldn't be on the shelves for a few years and yelling about the game Paper Mario.

To the right, we saw a dolphin in a leather coat. They were selling a large marked container of fruit drink powder to a Yoshi in a tank top and gold chain.

???: I see you two are looking for a record.

JumpMan: Uh. Yes. I guess we are.

Loan dolphin: well you've come to the right place. Call me Loan Dolphin, I've got "legal" merch.

And in your case, iv'e got the record your looking for.

Garth: What do you mean by "legal".

Loan Dolphin: Shut up kid. I've gotten stuff from Awesome-Mix drink powder that's been off the shelf for years, autographed photos from people both on Panko AND Earth, and even a couple pieces of ammo of the mob boss who was here in the 50s.

JumpMan: How about that record you mentioned, how much will that cost.

Loan Dolphin: How much you got.

We ended up paying him a large amount of coins.

I say we because I payed most of it.

JumpMan: Look, I'll pay you back.

Just as we were handed the record.

The Yoshi came back in and started yelling. Something about how his Awsome-Mix was not up to snuff and he needed a refund.

As we were slipping out, I'm pretty sure the Yoshi pulled out a Zapper and said he could stun him for a week if he didn't do something.

I don't know what that something was because we left as soon as things looked like they were getting bad.

This is where the story would end normally.

But I had one last thing to do.

After JumpMan delivered the record and caught up with his family.

I went to see him before he was going to take off.

Garth: I need you to take this back to Earth.

It was in the letter I wrote and a box of mementos from the mushroom kingdom.

It was for my parents.

Garth: This needs to get to Agridulce, to my family. I need to let them know I'm safe.

JumpMan: What, I can't take this. This stuff will probably get me arrested.

Garth: You said you would pay me back. And you will not get arrested, if you get caught your son can probably pull some strings.

JumpMan: ... Fine.

JumpMan: But if I get caught I'm blaming you.

He had reluctantly agreed.

I just pray that the letter find my parents well.

Garth hoping and signing off.

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katedoesntexist · 4 years ago

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Stay-at-home journal 2/6/21

Yesterday:

Work, super demoralizing, everything bad

Put together bookshelf

Made omurice bc we're running low on food

Put books away and drank cherry ginger beer

Finished another fic chapter

Played a little guitar

Today:

Clean up kitchen

Kind of just want to chill during the day

Maybe play some zootr

Prob should do some work at night

Start fic epilogue

Free space:

The bookshelf is disappointingly kind of low quality. I knew it would be bc it came from one of the chinese companies that steals photos of the original item and sells you a knock off. But i chanced it bc i guess shelves are just crazy expensive (this "cheap" one was $80), and at least i can return it to the store. The part im most worried about is that the piece of the shelf taking the weight of all the books is only attached by glue and small nails. It could easily just fall apart w enough weight. But i put my books on it anyway and hopefully itll be alright. I like the shape and depth of the shelf bc it fits my small reading room (closet) and also holds a good amount of stuff. I guess if it comes apart we can mod it to fix it. I just ugh didnt want to spend over $100 on this. Maybe i wouldve been better making it myself from scratch.

Speaking of, I've been toying w the idea of buying a jigsaw. Of course the blades would have to be project specific, but might be fun.

Writing is going surprisingly well. Im having fun. Its not a slog. I mean, it is an energy and time drain, but i feel good abt it. The direction these chapters went rly veered away from the outline, but i like that it falls into place better. It makes me feel like theres an alternate reality out there where the outline events did take place. Anyway, i actually cant wait to post and see ppls reactions. I haven't felt this hopeful abt sharing a fan work in like half a yr.

So we finally broke down and looked up one thing in the spoiler log, and it unblocked the game in a way that i could just skip two major dungeons and go to the boss right now. Its kind of idk disappointing? Like, the item weve been trying to get this whole time to unlock a bunch more content is finally in our hands, but we realized we didn't actually need all that other content. Not sure if we should play it just for 100% completion, but big sigh. We're at the end. And i have a rly hard time ending things. Ive spoken abt this before, but its like if i dont finish it will guarantee the characters and events are in a stasis. And they will always be there right where i left them. Forever gearing up to fight the boss, optimism and courage in their heart. I get this way with games and books. I dont want the adventure to end, and its more comforting to me to think that everyone is still out there doing their thing. Stories ending are like death. Not in a bad way bc death is natural and normal. But its still comes w loss.

Had some weird dreams. One was a row of bamboo lockers and some teachers had gone in them unbeknownst to each other, but the one on the end trapped you if you went in bc idk it was supposed to catch a criminal. Another part i was camping and saw a chimpanzee in the trees. I walked out to a railing (i was on some kind of decking) and watched him. He pointed and told me there were wolves in the area, and i was like oh shit thanks. I got in the cab of the truck and closed both doors just in time to avoid the wolves. I rolled down the window and a large bird outside told me there were dead animals on the roof of the truck that attracted the wolves, and I wouldn't be able to leave. There werent keys. I had to warn my dad who had gone out hunting for the day, but he hadnt brought his cell phone bc there wouldn't be reception in the woods.

#katedoesntstayathome #katedoesntdream

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t-wanderer · 7 years ago

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Rant About White Wolf

Okay I promised this ages ago, and I was setting up shelves last night and now I’m in the mood, so here it is, why I stopped giving White Wolf my money. For starters I want to say that I take RPGs very seriously, which is not to say I’m pretentious or exclusionist or fun-hating. I mean I spend a lot of money supporting my favorite games. Here’s my game shelf from a few years ago...

Here’s the collection now....

So, let me paint a picture here. I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in the 80s, but something happened in the 90s that changed how I run and play games. All of a sudden nobody wanted to play anything but Vampire. A pick up game at the comic shop, friends, cousins, it was impossible to run anything else. My choices were to run V:TM or not play. So I ran vampire, then mage, and honestly I’m glad I did. Vampire introduced me to the narrativist style of roleplaying. I met my wife LARPing. Mage remains one of my favorite games of all time. So I bought the books, then 2nd edition hit and I bought them again. Then 2nd ed revised. Sound familiar? Shadowrun, changed hands over and over again, new edition, re-buy all the books. 3rd edition, 3.5, 4th, now 5th, this is something that would happen consistantly for the next two decades. Companies trying to sell the same game, again. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing. A new edition can fix problems, expand the world, or even be a completely different game. Breath of the Wild was not Nintendo trying to resell Skyward Sword. But Skyrim on the Switch is the same Skyrim I already bought twice, you know? Okay, so early Noughties, my whole social circle are White Wolf fans, and the Wold of Darkness ends. The event meets mixed responses, at least in my groups, but whatever, it’s fun and we get to talk about all the big secrets revealed. Nobody actually runs a Gehenna game, or whatever, and as far as our games went, the world just continued. It’s weird that each book gives a couple versions of the cannon, but whatever, the whole thing is optional, right? So Mark Rein-Hagan leaves and there are all sorts of nasty rumors floating around, and Vampire the Requiem comes out and there’s push back because it's different, but I think, different is good, there’s value in different. So I buy them, and well, the quality has been dropping with white wolf’s game books for a while. By that I mean, the amount of actual game content has been dropping. White wolf books are already 30-40% short fiction and artwork at this point, so combing through them for things I can use in a game is getting harder. World of Darkness: Mafia was almost entirely real world history and almost no game content at all, which is like, there are other books on the mafia i can read if I’m doing research, right? But anyway, Requiem comes out and it’s a little weird, but not terrible. But they’re being cagey, teasing out details of their new world. It makes it a little hard to run a game, because we know almost nothing about the antagonists at this point. It’d be like if every book mentioned the Sabbat, but never explained who they were. Finally, the last straw. After teasing and build up and hints scattered through their books, they release the VII book. I’m like, okay, finally give me the rest of the setting so I can try to run this. The very first page of the book is this:

And that’s it. I go ballistic. I’ll be honest, I felt disgusted and offended and I’ll explain why. I was like, How dare you tell me that I’m the storyteller and I get to decide what the mystery is. I *KNOW* I’m the storyteller and I can decide whatever I want is true. What I don’t have to do is pay you, $30-$60 a book, to tell me to “make it up.” I can “make it up” for free. It was cowardly, like they were afraid to risk coming out and you know, writing the antagonist for the fantasy setting they were selling us, like maybe we wouldn’t like it as much. But the way it was presented? One of the things the fandom loved was piercing together clues and hints, catching the references hidden or scattered across the games. (great example, read the entry for Rasputin in Clanbook: Malkavian, Setite, Bruja, Tribebook: Shadowlord, Traditionbook: Cult of Ecstasy, and finally in Guildbook: Puppeteer. Can you name any other RPG company to take such a little detail and spin it into myth like that? ) People also liked using the games together, the systems were compatable, and a big diverse world of darkness felt cooler. But the min/max warnings started showing up, first as sidebars, then caveats in the introductions, and finally a page-long rant in Blood Treachery vilifying anyone who wanted to run a revenant mage. (a far cry from “it’s your game,” eh? Not that I’d allow one, but still.) And this New World of Darkness was deliberately segregated, different game lines might as well have existed in different worlds. So there was another way to see this, that White Wolf was saying, Fuck you for enjoying our game wrong. We’ll force you to play it right. You like cross overs? We’ll make them impossible. You like secrets? Fine, we won’t even tell you who the main antagonist is for the story we’re selling. I was furious. And I never bought another book from them. I still run their games, I’m running an oWOD dark ages game right now, and Mage remains on my top three games of all time. (Psychosis and Amber, if you’re curious about the other two.) But when you’re selling a game book, you’re selling content. I’m paying for the ideas you have that I wouldn’t have thought of, for the characters only you can write, the mechanics only you can invent. The idea that this is a “toolbox” is insulting. Look at GURPS, that’s a toolbox. If I buy the GURPS cyberware book it doesn’t tell me “I get to decide how cyberware works,” it gives me comprehensive, exhaustive rules for every conceivable kind of cyberware, AND it doesn’t try to sell itself to me as the “official cyber campaign setting.” Why is VII a toolbox, and not, say, the Toreador? Oh wait, I can just make stuff up for them too, right? Why am I paying them anything at all? I can just invent my own setting and never buy a game book again, right? Okay, this rant is getting long. The point I’m making is somehow, I feel White Wolf lost track of what made them good, of what made us love their work so much. Maybe it was the loss of the old blood, maybe once the decay set in, no one could stop it. (There used to be a periodic “mass-exodus” of disgruntled white wolf interns who would leave angry, start their own company and then immediately go under and vanish. I have a small collection of games like this, Immortal: The Invisible War and Everlasting to name a few. Fun ideas, terribly written and produced, almost unplayable in execution.) Anyway, that’s how I feel. It’s an opinion, based off of my personal experiences, so your milage may vary. @secretsofthemasquerade (As promised)

#FinallyGotAroundToThis #WhiteWolf #RPGs #Ranting #OldManInternetShakesCaneAtTheYouths

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isaiahrippinus · 4 years ago

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Can You Build a Successful Bourbon Brand by Trolling the Taters?

The labels are colorful, cartoonish, comical, and a bit grotesque.

There’s Tater Bait, depicting a woman with a massive head of 1980s hair cascading over a visor.

Smash Bill shows a poor man’s Rambo, armed to the teeth with an M60 machine gun.

While Waxx Dippz displays a bald-pated man with a Van Dyke beard, seemingly staring into your soul.

Though you might not understand the joke, each of these (and six others labels) seem to be blatantly mocking the modern bourbon geek, that sometimes vile species of obsessive who covets Pappy, clears store shelves of formerly mid-tier stuff like Weller and Eagle Rare, and even adulterates bottles with silly stickers and post-purchase wax coatings, often with a total lack of awareness for their inherent absurdity.

“I deal with these people all the time. Sometimes their lack of a sense of humor is a little alarming,” says Matthew Colglazier, a longtime liquor merchandiser and marketer. “Taking a piss (out of them), that’s part of the fun, I think.”

Catch ’Em All

Colglazier has regularly found himself in the orbit of these whiskey collectors after more than a decade in the spirits industry in various capacities. The Indiana man has been buying single barrels for liquor stores for years and been making trips to nearby Midwest Grain Products (MGP), the massive, former Seagram’s distillery in Lawrenceburg for nearly a decade — well before most drinkers were aware that it was supplying upstart craft distilleries like WhistlePig, High West, and Smooth Ambler with much of the bourbon and rye they were bottling.

Scouring store shelves, looking at the thousands of non-distiller bottlers, as well as the countless craft distilleries that have emerged, all trying to get a piece of the perhaps $10 billion pie, Colglazier began to wonder how a new American whiskey brand could possibly set itself apart.

“When it comes to creating something new and different these days, that’s really a challenge,” says Colglazier.

Feeling confident in his industry acumen, however, Colglazier and some partners decided to branch out with their own brand in 2018. A family member had alerted him to Krogman’s, a whiskey and brandy distillery that had existed in Tell City, Ind., from 1863 until Prohibition, and then ran on fumes until the 1960s. Searching through trademark filings, Colglazier realized that no one owned it anymore. And, just like that, Krogman’s was his.

“We don’t own a distillery, we don’t own a license or anything,” says Colglazier. He sources all his “juice” and lets partners like Cardinal Spirits, a top craft distillery in Bloomington, do the bottling.

Early Krogman’s releases would include Krogman’s Bourbon and Krogman’s Rye, sourced from MGP and packaged at 90 proof in opaque black and red bottles depicting a drawing of the old distillery that no longer stands. It’s a typical way to launch a new brand, by evoking an esteemed history that isn’t necessarily your own and has nothing to do with the liquid in the bottle. These releases sold all right, but they certainly didn’t become a sensation among consumers. Colglazier knew he would have to start tackling his branding in a different way.

“How much innovation is there in the bourbon category today?” asks Colglazier. “I started to think: It doesn’t just have to be about the blocking and tackling of history.”

Around then, Perry Ford, MGP’s sales manager and an old industry connection, sent Colglazier an inventory list of the single barrels he currently had available. Looking over the menu, Colglazier noticed that all nine of MGP’s whiskey mash bills were available in single-barrel form, everything from four bourbons and three ryes to a corn whiskey and even a light whiskey. The MGP mash bills you’ll most often see in single barrel form these days are the ubiquitous 95 percent rye or the “high-rye” bourbon favored by Smooth Ambler and recent darling Smoke Wagon.

As a whiskey drinker himself, Colglazier wanted to try them all, but he needed a good excuse. His first thought: What if he created a unique single-barrel release for each and every mash bill, and then turned all nine into a set? Since the whiskeys were all 3 years old — a little youthful for your average bourbon enthusiast — he knew he’d have to make the labels novel, interesting, and highly collectable if he wanted to sell them.

That would start with what he called each release, naming them after the insider slang (so often intentionally misspelled) that had become popular on secondary market buy/sell sites, private Facebook groups, and message boards over the last decade.

“I tried to pinpoint relatively specific things that people would know,” Colglazier says.

Thus, there’s Tater Bait, a reference to neophyte collectors who do exceedingly embarrassing things in pursuit of rare bottles. Flipperzz refers to people who buy allocated bottles at retail costs only to immediately “flip” them for bloated, black-market rates. Dusty Hunterzzz is a nod to those who comb through off-the-beaten-path liquor stores for vintage bottles that have lingered on shelves for years gathering dust.

“Your civilian bourbon drinker would have no idea what these things meant and would just think, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting label,’” adds Colglazier.

He tapped local designer Aaron Scamihorn for the label art. Scamihorn specializes in a bold, vintage comic book style, perhaps more befitting the skate decks and even craft beer labels he also designs than the sort of staid, regal branding we typically see in the bourbon industry.

“When we first discussed this project it was the first time I’d heard the word ‘tater,’” recalls Scamihorn. His labels are inspired by the beat-up VHS box covers for campy, ’80s movies you would have seen stocked on the bottom shelf at Blockbuster (Buyy it Noww! was surely spawned from 1980s “Harlequin”). That era tracks with the late-30s/early-40s demographic of guys that Colglazier sees as most into bourbon collecting right now.

At the least, these are the dudes who already have a deep familiarity with the most online and underground parlance of the American whiskey world (Unicorn! Maxx Profitzz!) needed to get many of these jokes.

“Some were really on the nose, others were a stretch,” says Colglazier. “Some barely make sense.”

Of course, whiskey fans have long had the “gotta catch ’em all” mentality that, in many people’s eyes, has turned the industry into a game of liquid Pokemon, and Colglazier is well aware of that. But Krogman’s reminds me more of another set of trading cards: Garbage Pail Kids, the 1985 series of depraved and deformed characters meant to mock the then-frenzy surrounding Cabbage Patch Kids.

“It pokes fun, but honors [these people] at the same time,” says Colglazier. “It makes it recognizable to that consumer. It’s kind of a tightrope, and I’m not sure everybody understands.”

No BS!

The trickiest part of the tightrope, of course, is that the same people the labels are mocking are inherently the only people who might possibly desire having these crazy bottles in their collections.

“Looks like they are poking some fun at the bourbon world in general, but actually just bottling ALL 9 MGP recipes at cask strength with no BS!” wrote one man on Reddit. “Kind of better than all the other brands who make up a bunch of back stories. [sic]”

And that’s exactly Colglazier’s point. Yes, the Krogman’s labels may be satire, but the whiskey is no joke — it’s all non-chill filtered and bottled at cask strength, catnip for the whiskey cognoscenti who don’t really care about a brand’s nonsense “origin” story.

The set was first released starting in late summer 2020, mostly at big box liquor stores in Indiana, though Tater Bait made its way onto Seelbach’s, an online whiskey retailer that has plans to sell a complete set of nine in the future. There were three to four barrels each of most releases, so fewer than 1,000 bottles per SKU. (For the completists, bottlings made for the Kentucky market had variant labels meant to poke fun at all the Booker’s Bourbon releases like Country Ham.)

They sold for just $32 a bottle, a remarkably reasonable price in an era that has seen other sourced whiskeys cost many times as much. Smoke Wagon’s 8-year-old MGP single barrels, for instance, sell for upwards of $700 per bottle on the secondary market. That’s why another Redditor agreed that it was an “exploitable niche” to sell barrel-proof MGP so cheaply, calling the entire series a “slam dunk.” “The Whiskey Vault,” a popular YouTube channel, praised the series as well, loving its execution and transparency.

“Not subtle!” joked co-host Daniel Whittington.

A Collectible in the Making?

You could argue that Krogman’s is the most honest bourbon brand of this crazy era. It may seem like a troll — and, of course, it partially is — but it’s one of the few MGP-backed bottlers offering unique releases and not trying to dupe consumers and generate high demand based purely on hype. While other bourbon and rye brands pretend they exist in a vacuum, clueless to online discussions and tater-driven market forces, Krogman’s has a keen self-awareness of the hyper-obsessive culture it is being released into.

Colglazier isn’t sure where the series will go next, but a part of me feels that while leaning so heavily into the scene, he’s unwittingly created something that, in a few years, might end up being one of the biggest collectibles of the era. Krogman’s may be seen as an economically priced prank right now, but could it one day be the American version of Ichiro’s Malt Card Series released between 2005 and 2014 — of which a complete “deck” of the 54 bottles in the Japanese series sold for $1.52 million in late 2020?

Probably doubtful, as Ichiro’s came from the shuttered Hanyu distillery and Krogman’s is certainly not as well aged of stock. But sometimes it takes a few years for these ahead-of-their-time ideas to pick up steam. Even the Malt Card Series had initially been consumed by buyers, not squirreled away and collected.

“People really want to see themselves reflected back in the things they buy,” Colglazier says of his bourbon. “In many ways, what we buy, what we collect, these are validations of who we are. People have used lots of consumer goods to validate themselves. This is just taking it to the next level.”

The article Can You Build a Successful Bourbon Brand by Trolling the Taters? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/krogmans-bourbon-trolling/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/656790305151057920

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robin-smith · 4 years ago

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Having but never doing.

Last night I spent a couple of hours looking at the sheer number of books and other media myself and my wife have managed to collect over the years. This collection has ballooned over recent years and I begin to wonder now why it is I’ve never had the time to truly enjoy much of this media. Why do I continue to lose so much time that could be spent enjoying the things I have in front of me? Or maybe it’s too late.

Last night I actually took the time to count each individual book, dvd, game and more sat on the many shelves in our home. After the monumental task of collating together everything I found that we had…

952 individual books across all types, from fiction to non, and practical to entertainment. 838 downstairs, 105 upstairs and a handful more in other places. This doesn’t take into account all digital books on memory cards and download services. Also, much like with other media on here, this doesn’t take into account if any doubles exist.

But 952… that’s quite a lot isn’t it. I don’t share this number as a point of pride, although it does make me quite content to have access to knowledge and stories of quite a wide range. We aren’t rolling in wealth, although the last couple of years has made us, less worried about struggling in the short term than we have felt in the past. Much of this number is primarily due to my wife’s love of the medium. It’s rare that I see her without a book in her hands.

Even she has bought wisely, paying out for 2nd hand, or books on offer. Although she does have a handful of titles that were bought new and with some quality in mind. For the most part they weren’t costly.

It’s much the same with other media, continuing the numbers there’s …

280 DVDs, 13 HD DVDs (yes really), 127 Blu-ray, 25 VHS, 7 Xbox One (plus 326 digital and 214 including game pass arriving at a total of 547), 43 Xbox 360 (I’ve not counted the digital ones here as many of those are on Xbox One… although there’s a few more digital titles that aren’t on there but are owned), 5 Wii, 1 wiiu (several digital there too), 6 switch (plus 44 digital, and you can include access to the 55 nes and 35 SNES titles as part of the Nintendo online).. 2 DS, FOUR 3ds (11 digital), 17 PS4 (plus 427 digital and 191 psplus), 16 PS3 (and again more digital), 29 ps1, 2 HD Blu-ray, 5 dreamcast, 7 PS2, 6 Xbox, 2 gamecube, 9 PSP, 6 megadrive, 2 SNES, 1 vita (several more, again, digital)…

I built up such a collection with the help of 2nd hand stores and pound saver style shops, you can get a good number of Blu-ray and DVD for less than £2. Sometimes as little as 20p.

With games, at least on the physical side it actually should be 7 times more, but years of trading and selling games to get by when times were tougher (games sell easy for OK money) have left me with regrets and empty shelves where there should have been more. We still buy cheap and digital sale are a great friend/addiction. Also, I have a terrible interest in BAD games. So the games I often pay for couldn’t be given away (think bullet witch or wet).

I think you get the idea of the sheer numbers with that. This obviously doesn’t take into account the number of digital titles on consoles I didn’t count, download video content, plus access to Netflix, Disney plus, Amazon video, nebula, curiosity stream… Or the unfathomable volume of items of all kinds bought on steam, itch.io, humble bundle, Gog, and other services.

It’s all just so much. Some of it is doubled, some not, but even cutting down much of this stuff Iv’e managed to engage with so little of it. I’m sure you are the same, lists of shame we love to call them, but it feels not like the content is shameful, all of it can potentially be enjoyed. My wife for example reads a great number of books, plays as many games as myself, and makes time for TV and films. It’s sometimes a challenge for her with some things, but I suspect she’s read over 80% of the books we own.

Why can’t I get to 5%?

You could argue that it’s the pressures of the capitalist society, working us to a death. I work over 37 hours a week. Less than some, more than others. This is before overtime and for less than £7.00 per hour (national minimum wage in the UK is £8.72 for those over 25 for reference). Is the loss of time and chance to actually partake in these things worth it. Or is it that I am just using this as an excuse. I want to read all sorts of books, watch all sorts of films, finish several games that I am enjoying. I just don’t seem able to.

Maybe it’s the sheer amount of choice? I just don’t know where to start, or I can’t stay focused.

Or maybe I just don’t have the will to try, that everything has the potential to be worth my time, but I don’t feel emotionally motivated enough to do it, as do I don’t, and then I get depressed, and that lingers, so I feel even less likely to. So it goes on.

I do want to make a good effort to experience more of these things though. I can easily watch a good film or show when I get going, read a book of reasonable size in a couple of days no problems. Even with the work time, I have the time free otherwise. So I want to make the effort to do so.

I have accounts on Letterboxed : https://letterboxd.com/seiibutsu/ , GG : https://ggapp.io/Seiibutsu , and Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/38668189-robin-smith , I encourage you to follow me there and hold me to account over the coming 12 months. I want to see just how much I can get through with a little focus.

I also encourage you to comment below if you can relate to this feeling and what you really should have taken the time to experience but still haven’t. Let’s get a conversation going.

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allisonswrittenwords · 5 years ago

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Previously, On Allison’s Written Words…

From families who engage in whitebread computer learning, to children and moms who internet, we’ve learned as much about mid-1990s computer technology and the internet as we could ever have hoped to learn. It has been a fun trip through a time when connecting to the internet involved a phone line, modem, and the AOL Running Man, when playing a game on the computer meant Minesweeper and Solitaire, and not Fortnite (though Peter Jamison preferred Duke Nukem). Searching the internet meant using Alta Vista and not Google.

Considering that we also lived that education, it is fun (in a weird way) to experience it all again, even if it is through cheesy training materials, as told by Training Video People.

I’m wrapping up 1990s Computer Learning Month by going corporate. Instead of training videos for the everyday computer user, we are going to learn how to demonstrate and sell (yes, sell!) a computer to the average person!

The year is 1992, the company is RadioShack, and their newest computer is a Sensation!

That’s actually what the model name is, Sensation! Yes, with an exclamation point.

Because nothing creates excitement (!) quite like an exclamation point in your product’s name!

Sansation Begins Where Ordinary PCs Stop!

Had to drive up the amount of times I use exclamation points in this article. Just because.

….

Yup.

The Tandy Sensation! was one in a long line of computers made by the Tandy Corporation, a leather goods company that entered the new and exciting market of personal computers in 1977. They created a buzz in this new market with their pre-assembled microcomputer, as computers at that time came as kits.

Starting with the TRS-80 in 1977, their computers evolved throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s, and were sold exclusively in Radio Shack stores, at a time when the market yielded very few computer stores. The Sensation! (replacing the model number system that all Tandy computers had until that point) made its way to RadioShack shelves in 1993, priced at $2398.95, it boasted the most features of its predecessors, along with new features that the competition could not offer!

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Wow. Gotta get to RadioShack for this amazing new computer!

Watch The Demonstration Of The Tandy Sensation!, and Learn How To Sell…The Sensation!

“Once you’ve seen it in 16 million colors, heard it in true digital stereo sound, anything else is just a computer!”

Tell me MORE, Tandy Sensation!

I’m convinced there’s more exclamation points (and mentions of them) than in any other article I’ve written.

Anyway, this tutorial, meant for the purpose of teaching RadioShack employees how to demonstrate and sell the Tandy, is everything you need in your 1990s Computer Learning Life! It lacks Jamisons, it lacks moms, but it has the feeling of professionalism!

For the next 14 1/2 minutes, let RadioShack’s Marketing Manager of Computer Products Michael Money, along with Sales Training Specialist Michael Dryden, teach you how to not only demonstrate the product, but how to sell it to your potential purchasers. The high-appeal features are at the forefront of this demonstration video.

You may get nostalgic for the days of computers like this…or balk at how expensive computers were in the 1990s!

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Those features!

Remember when features like this made a computer rise above the competition? This was coming far in the 1990s, but I bet no one ever saw what the future of computers would be like!

It’s all pretty cool, don’t you think? Even cooler, archive.org even has the Tandy Manual available to read! This is important information, friends. Very Important Information.

Tandy Sensation User Manual (Archive.org)

Does Allison Remember The Tandy?

I do!

I never owned a Tandy Computer, but my first computer was a custom-built, IBM-compatible computer, running Windows 3.1 in 1993. I do remember Tandy computers on display in the two RadioShack locations I frequented as a kid – the location in the local mall (which is now an Escape Room), and the one near the local grocery store where I grew up. I used to see the computers set up in the stores, but I didn’t dare touch them. I mean, you’re supposed to actually try out computers, but we weren’t buying on, and I actually listened when told “don’t touch anything!” I do remember the computers being very expensive for the time, as all computers were. At the time, we didn’t have one yet, and I hoped that we would have one at some point. 1993, it turns out, was that year.

These days, I have a Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 laptop and a Microsoft Surface Pro 6 – I use the Dell at home, and the Surface goes to work with me and anywhere I may need a laptop. I remember what desktop computers used to look like – heck, I remember what laptops used to look like – and to have the technology I have now, it always amazes me what I started out with.

The End of Tandy

Turns out, 1993 would be the last for Tandy-branded computers.

The Tandy computer, and all its models, were discontinued as a whole in 1993. The competitiveness of the market by that point made it hard for Tandy to turn a profit on its computers. RadioShack stores began selling other brands of computers at this time.

I guess it wasn’t so…Sensational?

I’ll show myself out.

And Now, You!

Do you remember the Tandy Sensation(!)? Did you own a Tandy computer, or better yet…what was your first model of computer? Sound off in the comments below, or be social on social media. If you know anyone who ever worked for RadioShack, and can shed some light on the Tandy computer, please send them in my direction! Remember, stories and personal nostalgia create an amazing atmosphere that is the heartbeat of this blog!

Next week, we’ll move into a new month, which means a new theme! I’m still planning the “new” part of it, but I’ll have that ready to present next week, in time for the new theme!

Have a great day!

Meet your desktop companion, the Tandy Sensation!

#1993 #Computers #RadioShack #Tandy Computer #technology

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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361 Days of Christmas - The New York Times

Deep in the huge stockroom of Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland, a holiday supercenter about 80 miles north of Detroit, a man named Jason was assembling a 17-foot Santa. Each body part, painted bright red and black, hung from a hook in the ceiling like a cow carcass in a meat locker. Wayne Bronner, 67, the chief executive of Bronner’s and one of nine family members associated with the company, stood next to the smiling, rosy-cheeked head — it was almost as tall as him — to explain that this model would be marketed through the commercial sales department.So somebody was going to buy this 17-foot Santa? “Oh, yes, definitely,” he said.That Santa is just one example of the Christmas bounty available at Bronner’s. A major node of what might be called the Christmas industrial complex, the store, in Frankenmuth, Mich., ships merchandise to every continent. It provides countless props to Hollywood. And it is open 361 days a year. Some two million visitors come annually to peruse the gewgaws and trinkets at Bronner’s — which boasts the square footage of two football fields and is marketed as the biggest Christmas store in the world — in addition to 20-something surrounding acres of trumpeting angels, Christmas trees and wise men on camels. (Santa is everywhere but also, obviously, on the roof.) “Oh gosh,” said Esther Reynolds, who had driven three hours from Fostoria, Ohio, with her friend Phyllis Chaney to visit. “I’ve been coming here since way back when, probably the ’90s.” The pair was shopping for Ms. Reynolds’s “great new grandbaby,” for whom they had collected, “a Christmas baby book, some nutcrackers and an Ohio State ornament.” Ms. Chaney was also getting ornaments for her children and her children’s children — “and my son has three new pets,” she said, “so I got each of them one.”

America Bavaria

Wally Bronner, Wayne Bronner’s father, entered the Christmas business in 1945, seven years before Wayne was born. He had been working as a sign painter and was asked to prepare some Christmas panels for a nearby town. The work was admired, so Wally started selling Christmas items year-round. “People thought he was kind of loopy,” Wayne said. Nevertheless, the business grew. In 1954, he opened a salesroom, and then in 1966 and 1971, two more.Around the same time, some business leaders in Frankenmuth, Wally included, decided they could attract tourists by emphasizing the town’s German heritage. “The town became Bavarianized,” Wayne recalled. They installed chalet-like facades on buildings and hosted large German-themed festivals. Other residents followed suit and now the town is something like a Bavarian amusement park, a kitsch German-American response to Colonial Williamsburg. It’s very merry and bright.“People like Christmas all year long,” Wayne said. “There’s nothing negative with Christmas. It’s all about family and friends and the love of Jesus Christ.”I asked if Christmas was ever ruined for him as a kid, having to mix it with business and tourism year-round. “It was desensitizing, yes,” he said. But he has a lot of good memories, like using a life-size fiberglass Nativity set as cover in games of hide-and-seek. “It was a great place to hide, behind the ox,” he said. And, ultimately, he learned to recognize the inherent business potential of the holiday. The store’s logo capitalizes each letter of “Christ” in “Christmas.” Its official motto is “Enjoy CHRISTmas, it’s HIS Birthday; Enjoy LIFE, it’s HIS Way.” And despite the fact that Bronner’s sells “many more Santa Clauses and snowmen and elves than religious items,” as Wayne put it, the store’s mission, it seems, is to reinforce the reason for the season. “We’ve always maintained that the Christmas celebration is about the birth of Christ, so there’s no secret,” he said.Above the sales floor is a mural that sums up perfectly the aesthetic he has honed: Santa kneeling before the newly born baby Jesus.No part of Bronner’s better exemplifies the store’s core values than the “Silent Night” chapel. Constructed in 1992 at the edge of the Bronner’s property, the structure is an exact replica of the Silent Night Chapel in Obendorf, Austria, which is, itself, a commemorative chapel, built on the site of the old St. Nicholas church, where, in 1818, the song “Silent Night” was first performed. The walk up to the replica chapel at Bronner’s is a celebration of Christian internationalism. As “Silent Night” plays softly over loudspeakers, guests pass plaques featuring the lyrics to the song in various languages. On one plaque: Assamese, Pidgin, Cebuano, Javanese, Kebu and Nias. On another: American Sign Language, Choctaw, Bhili, Dholuo and Rawang.It’s not the only thing giving Bronner’s a kind of “Joy to the World” aura. At each entrance are welcome brochures in numerous languages, including Arabic, Hebrew and Japanese. Bronner’s also throws internationally-themed Christmas parties for its staffers so they can “develop the knowledge of different international methods of celebrating Christmas,” Wayne said.

The Christmas Countdown

The Bronner’s stock room is like Santa’s North Pole, if Santa’s North Pole were a warehouse, and Wayne Bronner, in his bright red suit, is like Santa if Santa were a small-town Midwestern businessman.As red-vested staffers prepared orders for shipment, Wayne walked briskly by, addressing each one brightly by name like the mayor in a Hallmark movie. “Hi, Andy!” “Hi, Kathleen!”In one section of the stock room, rows and rows of staffers personalized little ornaments by painting messages on request. One staffer, Cathy, was working on a gingerbread-colored cat ornament. “What’s his name, Cathy?” Wayne asked. “Stan,” she said, “Stan the Cat.” Another staffer worked on an ornament that looked like a basketball backboard. The personalized note read: “Jenna, 2020.” Despite the traditional look of Bronner’s, the company must keep up with the latest trends. In June, Bronner’s started selling Bob Ross ornaments, and they’ve flown off the shelves. Particular animals trend, too. Four years ago, Wayne said, owls were huge. Now, it’s sloths.He chuckled warmly at the thought of those cute, slovenly beasts who have nothing to do with Christmas. He’s been in this business for practically a lifetime. He’s seen trends come and go. But Wayne is certainly not jaded. When he greeted me near the entrance of his office in late October, he said, “Welcome, and happy 58 days until Christmas.” We shook hands, and, almost flustered, he corrected himself: “No, it’s 57 days until Christmas. Fifty-seven.”Running a Christmas-specific retail business has been, for the most part, an uncontroversial occupation for Wayne. But there was that time, in 2014, when he donated a life-size Nativity to a Michigan lawmaker to put up near the state capitol. It was a response to a “Snaketivity” scene that had been erected by a group of “Satanists” from Detroit; their sculpture — of a snake wrapped around a cross, a book coiled in its tail — was a free speech statement. At the time, Wayne told the The Lansing State Journal that he fought back with his own Nativity because “Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus Christ, there’s no denying it,” and added, “It’s really sad, as I think back to when I was a child, these kinds of issues didn’t come up.”I asked Wayne if he feels sad about the state of Christmas today. “No, no, that was just a flash in the pan,” he said. And did he agree with the conservative refrain that there was a war on Christmas? He smiled and shook his head. “No. Just look at all the people who come to Bronner’s.” Read the full article

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badwitchgame · 6 years ago

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Busy with Blender

Thanks to Grant Abbitt’s tutorials on YT (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFUrFoqvqlN8seaAeEwjlw) tutorials, I’ve picked up a few quick skills. Until he makes the part 4 of the tutorial with the texture painting, I decided to hit WoW and made a few screenshot about objects and houses and tried to make them in Blender.

First attempt: Barrel and cart:

I really liked this one, despite the fact that it’s super low poly, it is quite obvious what it is and even with basic shading, it looks very good.

2nd Attempt: House in Evelynn forest:

and the reference screenshots:

It had some very strange angles The house normally would just straight up but as they made this “cartoonish” in WoW they distorted the house from the sides:

Also it was not super obvious how the walls go. I think they are double sided planes, not actual geometry, at least around the windows for sure. I don’t know how to do that yet. Also as I was studying the structure from all sides, I noticed a few optimizations as well. The geometry was not really obvious, since the texture painting created a lot of “illusion” geometry, it was hard to tell what is shape, and what is texture painting sometimes.

In any case, it was a good exercise and it kept me pumped so I ended u modelling a few more things in Blender:

A signpost:

and a bed scene:

Without texture painting these all look a bit plain, but I think I make good progress in understanding and creating simple models.

I also bought Portia on PS since it was reduced price. I thought it’ll be different but after playing it for a day, I can’t say I’ve seen a more snowflake friendly game in my life. There’s absolutely no conflict in it in a meaningful way. Everyone is nice, the weather is pretty, whatever you are tasked to do is super easy, the whole game feels like a safe place simulator..

Regardless, I bought it because of the art style. It was quite OK, although the lack of texture painting results in a very low quality models some places. I’m positive I could make 60-70% of the models I’ve seen so far. I don’t know about the programming aspect or game systems just talking about models of houses, walls generic objects around the world etc. Some are surprisingly badly made for a fully released product, but it was quite consistent in execution. If nothing else, the game gave some hope that I can make a game one day, since if they could release and sell this quality of assets, it is absolutely doable to make something with similar quality (or better) solo.

The more I dig into game making, the bigger the task seems to be, but so far I’ve not seen anything I couldn’t solve (maybe bunny fur on the “official” blender Udemy tutorial, but that’s useless anyways.). Models can be made with blender. repetition and level design can be learned from WoW, and how they re-use parts of their models and textures to build variety in the scenes without actually making new models. Sound design and music theory can be learned from Udemy tutorials and programs like FL studio or that strange midi generator can make music. Concept art and drawing can be learned, I bought a complete drawing tutorial on Udemy as well. Eventually I will be able to make models, concept art and music. Animation I have a book on that I can read. UE4 I have a complete course as well as an UE RPG course as well. All I need is just the game idea and execution. After seeing some ideas I still have more idea on what I don’t want to do than what I do want to make. I liked the wider game design of Portia, but that conflict-less blank characters are just creeping me out. I liked the huge sunsets and the ancient ruins on the horizon, I like how bright the game is, although it does terribly miss dark areas and creepy, evil places etc. As I played Portia, all I thought was maan, this is TOO cheerful, this is TOO happy. This game is like Stardew Valley on drugs for overly sensitive people. For those who cannot deal with conflicts so they need their game too to be without real confrontation. Portia surely doesn’t follow the typical “Hero’s journey” since there’s nothing heroic in it. nothing to overcome or learn from, nothing to challenge. FFS the first dungeon doesn’t even have enemies and the game is proudly presenting it as a safe place to explore. I expected some reaction from the bus driver when I started axing the rainbow lamas everyone was just watching cheerfully as those nightmare monsters went off with a puff and dropping a nicely folded leather.

I definitely don’t want to do that. I want extraordinary creatures like in FF and PoGo, I’ll probably want companions like pets etc.

About what the game would be.. Probably a journey with many easter eggs and side quests. Something where decisions shape a world state, Regions are similar size as WoW areas with similarly packed with small towns, areas of interest etc. Something that can be explored, and quests would lead to the next areas. Player can choose where to go from similarly hard areas.

I do want some form of building in the game and regarding that I had the idea of a player building their house, either as freeform building like in Conan exiles or upgrade it and have fixed attachments added to it like Skyrim or WoW garrisons. I can restrict the building area in each region and the player can cast a spell to “pick up” their house and move it to the next area or build more and travel between them. Like in NMS. NMS building system is good, just the building pieces are not good enough.. All the buildings look like cubes.

Both building systems (upgrade with fix pieces or free building from parts) have its charms. Pre-made parts probably easier to make. I potentially would like to end up with a “howl’s moving castle like monstrosity where towers and planks are sticking out. The pre-made and upgrade system can also be combined with shelves and furniture so people can customize it. I do enjoy free building better though, free building is one of the cornerstones of Conan exiles, without it I’d probably not played it for this long. The idea that you can just set up shop anywhere on the gigantic map and build a massive base, castle, whatever you want is pure imagination. You see a place or a cliff side and you have an idea what could look good there. Or you just settle on a random place and follow along what the world gives you, build inside a cliff side, or set walls along the vulnerable openings. You can climb a mountain to get a good vista or a cool sunset and start building there. Originally I wanted something like that, but I admit I have no idea how to make it work well. It works for Conan because it barely has a story. remove the bracelet, fill the shopping list and no ending.

The problem with Conan’s ending is that it’s non-existent and I realize now that it was a conscious choice. During my first play-though I thought it makes no sense to remove the bracelet. By the time you can do it you are king of the world, you have a palace, you have an army of thralls, you have many beasts following you, you own an oasis, you conquered all bosses and enemies in the game. And you cannot die. Why would you want to remove the bracelet and become mortal again and walk into the desert? So it makes sense that the developers don’t want you to finish the game. 80% of Conan exiles is building. it’s not about finishing the story. This is a strange relationship between what the game tells you and what it is actively trying to force you to do. By story they want you to remove the bracelet, but every game elements wants you to stay and keep building on new locations. Conan exiles still pulls me back occasionally just purely to build and make a new base. There’s nothing in terms of story in the game for me, I’ve seen every corner of it, yet when new building pieces came out, I feel encouraged to go back and build a new base because of the free form building.

Things that can make a game infinite:

- Random levels to play on (Diablo’s Rifts)

- Free building where you can build any house you want (Conan exiles)

- Character customization (Maple story 2)

- Free form crafting (Paper life)

The problem with these is the more random a game gets, the harder it is to write a consistent and freely explorable story to it. The more random the game is, the more possibilities are for the player to miss / skip story either by accident or by simply going towards something that is more interesting on the map. You can either write a main story arc or small hubs with mini stories perhaps? Maybe you can have mandatory quests and optional quests as in other games.

What I aimed for at the very beginning was 2 states for each areas. For example you have a woodland forest, and depending on your actions it will be a trade hub because you made it safe or a bandit hub if you selected certain choices. This can result a “World state” that can be used for New Game +. You go through the game, make your choices, and that results a world that has less or more problems. When you finish, you have the choice to restart, but the world is in the state you left it. If you left the woodland that became a trade hub, in NG+ you find a rich area that have a set of problems coming from being rich (eg attacked by bandits). If you left the area in the main play through as a bandit hub, you have quests to liberate it or profit off it etc. Liberating the bandit hub results a trade hub, neglecting or exploiting a trade hub results a bandit hub. If all areas have 2 states, you can play through the game at least 2 times.

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auroraaboraaborealis · 6 years ago

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The New York Times

The Queen of Change

With “The Artist’s Way,” Julia Cameron invented the way people renovate the creative soul.

By Penelope Green

Feb. 2, 2019

SANTA FE, N.M. — On any given day, someone somewhere is likely leading an Artist’s Way group, gamely knocking back the exercises of “The Artist’s Way” book, the quasi-spiritual manual for “creative recovery,” as its author Julia Cameron puts it, that has been a lodestar to blocked writers and other artistic hopefuls for more than a quarter of a century. There have been Artist’s Way clusters in the Australian outback and the Panamanian jungle; in Brazil, Russia, the United Kingdom and Japan; and also, as a cursory scan of Artist’s Way Meetups reveals, in Des Moines and Toronto. It has been taught in prisons and sober communities, at spiritual retreats and New Age centers, from Esalen to Sedona, from the Omega Institute to the Open Center, where Ms. Cameron will appear in late March, as she does most years. Adherents of “The Artist’s Way” include the authors Patricia Cornwell and Sarah Ban Breathnach. Pete Townshend, Alicia Keys and Helmut Newton have all noted its influence on their work.

So has Tim Ferriss, the hyperactive productivity guru behind “The Four Hour Workweek,” though to save time he didn’t actually read the book, “which was recommended to me by many megaselling authors,” he writes. He just did the “Morning Pages,” one of the book’s central exercises. It requires you write three pages, by hand, first thing in the morning, about whatever comes to mind. (Fortunes would seem to have been made on the journals printed to support this effort.) The book’s other main dictum is the “Artist’s Date” — two hours of alone time each week to be spent at a gallery, say, or any place where a new experience might be possible.

Elizabeth Gilbert, who has “done” the book three times, said there would be no “Eat, Pray, Love,” without “The Artist’s Way.” Without it, there might be no adult coloring books, no journaling fever. “Creativity” would not have its own publishing niche or have become a ubiquitous buzzword — the “fat-free” of the self-help world — and business pundits would not deploy it as a specious organizing principle.

The book’s enduring success — over 4 million copies have been sold since its publication in 1992 — have made its author, a shy Midwesterner who had a bit of early fame in the 1970s for practicing lively New Journalism at the Washington Post and Rolling Stone, among other publications, and for being married, briefly, to Martin Scorsese, with whom she has a daughter, Domenica — an unlikely celebrity. With its gentle affirmations, inspirational quotes, fill-in-the-blank lists and tasks — write yourself a thank-you letter, describe yourself at 80, for example — “The Artist’s Way” proposes an egalitarian view of creativity: Everyone’s got it.

The book promises to free up that inner artist in 12 weeks. It’s a template that would seem to reflect the practices of 12-step programs, particularly its invocations to a higher power. But according to Ms. Cameron, who has been sober since she was 29, “12 weeks is how long it takes for people to cook.”

Now 70, she lives in a spare adobe house in Santa Fe, overlooking an acre of scrub and the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. She moved a few years ago from Manhattan, following an exercise from her book to list 25 things you love. As she recalled, “I wrote juniper, sage brush, chili, mountains and sky and I said, ‘This is not the Chrysler Building.’” On a recent snowy afternoon, Ms. Cameron, who has enormous blue eyes and a nimbus of blonde hair, admitted to the jitters before this interview. “I asked three friends to pray for me,” she said. “I also wrote a note to myself to be funny.”

In the early 1970s, Ms. Cameron, who is the second oldest of seven children and grew up just north of Chicago, was making $67 a week working in the mail room of the Washington Post. At the same time, she was writing deft lifestyle pieces for the paper — like an East Coast Eve Babitz. “With a byline, no one knows you’re just a gofer,” she said.

In her reporting, Ms. Cameron observed an epidemic of green nail polish and other “Cabaret”-inspired behaviors in Beltway bars, and slyly reviewed a new party drug, methaqualone. She was also, by her own admission, a blackout drunk. “I thought drinking was something you did and your friends told you about it later,” she said. “In retrospect, in cozy retrospect, I was in trouble from my first drink.”

She met Mr. Scorsese on assignment for Oui magazine and fell hard for him. She did a bit of script-doctoring on “Taxi Driver,” and followed the director to Los Angeles. “I got pregnant on our wedding night,” she said. “Like a good Catholic girl.” When Mr. Scorsese took up with Liza Minnelli while all three were working on “New York, New York,” the marriage was done. (She recently made a painting depicting herself as a white horse and Mr. Scorsese as a lily. “I wanted to make a picture about me and Marty,” she said. “He was magical-seeming to me and when I look at it I think, ‘Oh, she’s fascinated, but she doesn’t understand.’”)

In her memoir, “Floor Sample,” published in 2006, Ms. Cameron recounts the brutality of Hollywood, of her life there as a screenwriter and a drunk. Pauline Kael, she writes, described her as a “pornographic Victorian valentine, like a young Angela Lansbury.” Don’t marry her for tax reasons, Ms. Kael warns Mr. Scorsese. Andy Warhol, who escorts her to the premiere of “New York, New York,” inscribes her into his diary as a “lush.” A cocaine dealer soothes her — “You have a tiny little wife’s habit” — and a doctor shoos her away from his hospital when she asks for help, telling her she’s no alcoholic, just a “sensitive young woman.” She goes into labor in full makeup and a Chinese dressing gown, vowing to be “no trouble.”

“I think it’s fair to say that drinking and drugs stopped looking like a path to success,” she said. “So I luckily stopped. I had a couple of sober friends and they said, ‘Try and let the higher power write through you.’ And I said, What if he doesn’t want to?’ They said, ‘Just try it.’”

So she did. She wrote novels and screenplays. She wrote poems and musicals. She wasn’t always well-reviewed, but she took the knocks with typical grit, and she schooled others to do so as well. “I have unblocked poets, lawyers and painters,” she said. She taught her tools in living rooms and classrooms — “if someone was dumb enough to lend us one,” she said — and back in New York, at the Feminist Art Institute. Over the years, she refined her tools, typed them up, and sold Xeroxed copies in local bookstores for $20. It was her second husband, Mark Bryan, a writer, who needled her into making the pages into a proper book.

The first printing was about 9,000 copies, said Joel Fotinos, formerly the publisher at Tarcher/Penguin, which published the book in 1992. There was concern that it wouldn’t sell. “Part of the reason,” Mr. Fotinos said, “was that this was a book that wasn’t like anything else. We didn’t know where to put it on the shelves — did it go in religion or self-help? Eventually there was a category called ‘creativity,’ and ‘The Artist’s Way’ launched it.” Now an editorial director at St. Martin’s Press, Mr. Fotinos said he is deluged with pitches from authors claiming they’ve written “the new Artist’s Way.”

“But for Julia, creativity was a tool for survival,” he said. “It was literally her medicine and that’s why the book is so authentic, and resonates with so many people.”

“I am my tool kits,” Ms. Cameron said.

And, indeed, “The Artist’s Way” is stuffed with tools: worksheets to be filled with thoughts about money, childhood games, old hurts; wish lists and exercises, many of which seem exhaustive and exhausting — “Write down any resistance, angers and fears,” e.g. — and others that are more practical: “Take a 20 minutes walk,” “Mend any mending” and “repot any pinched and languishing plants.” It anticipates the work of the indefatigable Gretchen Rubin, the happiness maven, if Ms. Rubin were a bit kinder but less Type-A.

“When I teach, it’s like watching the lights come on,” said Ms. Cameron. “My students don’t get lectured to. I think they feel safe. Rather than try and fix themselves, they learn to accept themselves. I think my work makes people autonomous. I feel like people fall in love with themselves.”

Anne Lamott, the inspirational writer and novelist, said that when she was teaching writing full-time, her own students swore by “The Artist’s Way.” “That exercise — three pages of automatic writing — was a sacrament for people,” Ms. Lamott wrote in a recent email. “They could plug into something bigger than the rat exercise wheel of self-loathing and grandiosity that every writer experiences: ‘This could very easily end up being an Oprah Book,’ or ‘Who do I think I’m fooling? I’m a subhuman blowhard.’”

“She’s given you an assignment that is doable, and I think it’s kind of a cognitive centering device. Like scribbly meditation,” Ms. Lamott wrote. “It’s sort of like how manicurists put smooth pebbles in the warm soaking water, so your fingers have something to do, and you don’t climb the walls.”

In the wild.CreditRamsay de Give for The New York Times

Ms. Cameron continues to write her Morning Pages every day, even though she continues, as she said, to be grouchy upon awakening. She eats oatmeal at a local cafe and walks Lily, an eager white Westie. She reads no newspapers, or social media (perhaps the most grueling tenet of “The Artist’s Way” is a week of “reading deprivation”), though an assistant runs a Twitter and Instagram account on her behalf. She writes for hours, mostly musicals, collaborating with her daughter, a film director, and others.

Ms. Cameron may be a veteran of the modern self-care movement but her life has not been all moonbeams and rainbows, and it shows. She was candid in conversation, if not quite at ease. “So I haven’t proven myself to be hilarious,” she said with a flash of dry humor, adding that even after so many years, she still gets stage-fright before beginning a workshop.

She has written about her own internal critic, imagining a gay British interior designer she calls Nigel. “And nothing is ever good enough for Nigel,” she said. But she soldiers on.

She will tell you that she has good boundaries. But like many successful women, she brushes off her achievements, attributing her unlooked-for wins to luck.

“If you have to learn how to do a movie, you might learn from Martin Scorsese. If you have to learn about entrepreneurship, you might learn from Mark” — her second husband. “So I’m very lucky,” she said. “If I have a hard time blowing my own horn, I’ve been attracted to people who blew it for me.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/02/style/julia-cameron-the-artists-way.html

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kyaranflowers · 6 years ago

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pisati · 5 years ago

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I don’t remember too much about my birthday last year, besides having to work and mom taking me out to the cat cafe and the brewery. but despite having a pandemic birthday it was actually pretty nice.

I finally got 3 days off in a row. I did tell my friend Cassidy that I’d help them take their stuff to the UPS store to ship it back to CA, but I honestly thought it would only take part of the day. I didn’t mind grabbing lunch and also staying for dinner, but I didn’t really want to have to be driving all over that part of the DC area all day. which was what happened. I didn’t end up getting home til 1am, and while I DID tell them I could help, it kind of felt like a wasted day. wasn’t really an off-day. BUT Cassidy did cover all my food, got me a lovely birthday cake, and gave me some coloring book-style postcards and a little stuffed brain cell. plus a literal fuckton of crafting supplies they didn’t feel like hauling back to CA. I asked how much they’d want for it; they did say I could just have it but seriously that haul has got to be worth at least $150. there were 6 bottles of resin/hardener and those ALONE have got to be worth $80 at a minimum. they said they’d just ask $40 and like... shit, sure. that’s a goddamn steal.

they also sold me their 4x4 ikea kallax shelf; I remember helping them put it together when they first moved to MD. we took it apart and I had my brother come over sunday to help me carry the pieces upstairs. then put it together entirely by myself, which... I probably shouldn’t have done? I made it work, but that shit is Heavy and also very difficult to put together on your own. even the manual says you should have two people. every muscle in my upper body is incredibly sore now, and I managed to bruise both arms in multiple places (not even doing anything seriously injurious, I’m just an overripe banana). but in making room for it in my living room I rearranged the couches, relocated all my yarn to the new shelf from my old craft shelves (and it took up 12/16 of the cubes 🙃), re-sorted and organized the remaining craft shelves, took the two 1x3 shelves up to the rats’ room (and now they’re being used as towel storage), and actually cleaned up my living room area. my dining room table is sewing-machine-free for the first time since march. I just moved it to the craft shelves, and now I actually have the room there for the machine to just sit. the accessories have their own shelf bin.

mom wanted to do dinner sunday night instead of today, and I guess that was okay. but it didn’t leave me much down time since I spent all day cleaning and organizing. but it was nice anyway. I got home and mom had blown up some balloons, and she had RHCP playing all evening. I’d requested homemade mac & cheese rather than noodles & co this year, and she found a pretty good recipe. she also made a cinnamon sugar doughnut bundt cake, which was good, though maybe a little dry. but served with ice cream it was better. mom told me she had another piece today and it was more moist today somehow.

mom and my brother had ordered me a bunch of things off my crafting wishlist on amazon, and those had come in during the week. my brother ordered the animal keychain molds, a mica powder dye set, black/white alcohol inks, and a silicone mold kit. mom got me a coaster mold set, another resin/hardener set, and a bunch of the sandpaper with the different grits that I really needed. I was kind of surprised she’d ordered me more things, since she already got me the huge rat cage. and she even told me today I should be getting another coaster set tomorrow, this one with 4 of the same size; the other one she ordered had 4 or 5 round molds but they were all different sizes. I can still make coasters with them, but the biggest one is small-tray sized and the smallest one is like... coin-sized, honestly. it’s tiny. and I can only make one at a time, so a set of 4 of the same size would take 4 days at a bare minimum; longer than that possibly if I were doing layers that needed to cure first. so with a set of 4 I can whip up a whole set at once.

mom’s boyfriend got me things too, which was super nice of him. they saved it for the dinner night, so I got to open it there. he got me a geode coaster mold, the set of animal butt shaker molds I put on my wishlist kind of as a joke, but also I thought they were silly and adorable. I’m so excited to make those little shakers. also got a set of 3 trinket box molds with molds for the lids, and a little bag of snake charms I’d added so I could use the charms for mold-making; I could make my own little snake charm earrings!

so yesterday was a long day. and then I slept like garbage and woke up early this morning, but I at least got a few things done before Charlotte came over. we planned on a lazy day but since I’d wanted to make yesterday my craft day and never got around to it, I wanted to do that today. Charlotte I guess didn’t have the same idea, but she’d brought her laptop so she could play this video game she and her brother and husband and so on had played together. we ordered five guys for lunch, which is always nice. she brought me homemade cinnamon sugar cupcakes, and gave me a hand mixer, a few bath bombs, and some face masks as a birthday gift. she was right, I really do need my own hand mixer, ha.

I finally got to work on my silicone molds, and it was super messy. I didn’t realize how much worse it would be than resin. but I tried my best to mix it well. I’d accidentally bought a $25 kit at michael’s a few weeks ago, because I’d picked it up from a clearance section and wanted to price check but forgot and forgot it was in my basket when I checked out; didn’t even realize I’d bought it until I was already back in my car looking into the bag. oops. but I ended up using the whole thing. and I had planned to make a crochet hook mold, so I was excited to try it. mom gave me an old tennis ball can that I cut up, and I used hot glue to seal it and position the hooks. I felt SO bad that it used up almost all of the silicone kit my brother got me; that shit is NOT cheap. and I was terrified I didn’t stir it well enough or mix the parts well enough because that would’ve been such a waste. but I demolded it after the few hours’ cure time and it came out beautifully. I cut slits in it with an xacto knife, so that way I can at least coax the hooks out more easily when I go to demold. it did seem like kind of a waste of a lot of the silicone, since I didn’t use up all the space, but hopefully I can sell enough crochet hook sets that I can maybe buy myself more. I’m nervous about those pours, because they’re not going to be easy, but I’m also excited bc I have a gorgeous, usable mold, and I got a ton of resin for [almost] free that I can experiment with.

after that I finally got around to some of the resin I’ve been meaning to do. my friend in PA requested some resin earrings; she’s bought so many masks off my etsy for herself and family that after this last order I offered her a resin or crochet thing at no charge. so I’ve got to do some moon earrings; too bad I don’t have more than one moon mold. also my brother babysat some kids the last few weeks of summer and he’d taken them out to gather wildflowers for me to put into resin, so I offered to make them little resin keychains. I got little transparent letter stickers, and I’m super glad they worked as well as they did; the transparent stickers don’t show their borders in the resin so it almost looks like the letters are printed in it. I decided to make letter keychains with each of their initials, and I spelled their names with stickers in the letters. for the girl’s keychain, I added some of the flowers. I’m not sure what to put in the boys’ keychains quite yet. I’m told they’re harry potter fans, so maybe I’ll do some kind of transparent blue with gold glitter or maybe star glitter or something. I also had leftover colored resin from the moon mold so I added them to the J for my mom. nothing like the scramble for appropriately-sized molds when you’ve got extra resin. I also made another set of cat earrings, and I’ll see how those end up. I tried a drop of gold alcohol ink, and hopefully the white helped it sink. otherwise I’ve just got some weird looking cat earrings.

(update, they turned out weird. gold doesn’t sink :/)

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I wasn’t quite ready to go back to work today. I had a pretty good weekend, all said. don’t get me wrong, I enjoy what I do. but I feel like I need another gap year. I just want to stop existing for a while. stop having to go out and be around other people. having to talk to other people, all day almost every day. I’m tired. my brain is tired. my last gap year didn’t help with that, so I’m not sure how much good another one would do me. but I just... I need a damn break.

I have another therapy appointment tomorrow. it may end up being my last one for a while. I already can’t really afford the copay, and I’m switching insurance to one she doesn’t take. my credit card bill this month is incredibly painful. not going to be too upset at not having to spend almost $100 a week to just ramble to someone I barely know. she’s pointed out a few things to me that I didn’t really notice I do, which is nice. but is it worth $400 a month? not right now. not when I’m about to lose my insurance and have to pay for my own. my rent is already half my pay, and now I’m going take a pay cut of somewhere around $100 a month for fucking health insurance. I hate this. I fucking hate the concept of health insurance. insurance in and of itself isn’t bad; property insurance is helpful. but having to pay money for other people to pay money for your healthcare? and you still have to hit a deductible somewhere in the thousands before insurance will even start covering your shit. and even then they can decline coverage or only cover parts of your expenses. literally what is the point

back to worrying I guess.

I’ve started a kind of ridiculous undertaking at work as a side project, now that I’m done scanning all the files that were up front. I printed out the list of all the clients in our system that had physical folders, and I’m going through the scanned records and making sure the active ones have new client paperwork and the hours disclosure attached. the head receptionist asked me to start with the ones my former coworker had scanned in, and there are a lot of disclosures missing. some are missing both. I don’t know if he just didn’t scan them or if they didn’t have them at all or what. but I’ve been putting alerts in charts so people know that they need to give the forms to the clients when they come in. we had one client get kind of mad that he’s been coming to us for 10-some years and didn’t want to fill out the paperwork again, even after we clarified it was for our records and for legal reasons. but whatever.

I don’t know how many physical folders there were, but the list is very long. the folders go from 0 to somewhere in the 8000s I believe, but thankfully a lot are missing. missing as in possibly inactive, so there might only actually be 1000-2000 or so. but I’m going through every single one of them. I made myself a little system with highlighter colors: yellow means the client is active and they need something filled out (and I mark on the sheet what they need), purple means they’ve been seen within 3 years but more than 1 year ago, and they need to fill out something, pink mens inactive, and orange is kind of a catch-all for things like active clients who have recently moved (not sure whether to mark those as inactive). so far, since starting this a week or so ago, I’ve managed to get through 4 pages and a little bit on a 5th. many, many more to go.

the head vet wants to turn the back room into a little employee lounge area of some sort, but we want to get rid of those shelves first too. which means I have 2 big shelves of folders left before I’m officially done. thankfully the files in the back should *mostly* be clients that are inactive, but I still have to go through all of them to make sure. I know I’ve gone back there a number of times to find a folder for an active client because I wasn’t sure whose phone number was whose and I knew it would be in the record.

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I’ve been writing this post over the last two nights but I keep falling asleep while I’m writing. I did a lot more resin stuff last night, so I ended up going to bed pretty late. I wanted to finish up those keychains but I’m bad at gauging how much resin I’ll need for things so I ended up with a lot of random extra pours. I’m excited about a few of them; I poured a few into the new molds I made so I’m looking forward to seeing how those turn out.

not really sure where I was going with this. not really sure where I’m going in general. I’m just going. trying to keep up with work, trying to remember doctor appointments. trying to keep the rats happy and as healthy as I can get them, trying not to let the cat get on my nerves too much. trying to do crafts. trying to remember to talk to people, but I don’t know. I feel lonely sometimes but since I’ve been working so much I kind of just want to be alone. I don’t have the energy for conversations a lot of the time.

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hm. maybe another post for therapy thoughts. I was asked to think about a few things.

#fdhsjkh

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shirlleycoyle · 5 years ago

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Amazon’s Disposable Tech Is Waste Even as It Leaves the Factory

Kevin Purdy is a writer at iFixit, which teaches people how to repair their things and is pushing for right to repair legislation. A version of this story was originally published on its website .

Amazon offers a flotilla of “smart” devices to replace your microwave, kids’ nightlights, wall plugs, and, coming soon, rings and eyeglasses. But almost all of these products are disposable, and the company's lackluster efforts to recycle or help repair these products is costing our planet a whole lot. The retail giant has the resources to do so much better.

And that’s before we even talk about Fire tablets.

Amazon doesn’t repair its own products for customers outside its return or warranty periods. The company doesn’t make parts available. Need a new battery for your old but still functional Kindle Paperwhite? That’s too bad, Amazon doesn’t sell them directly (though you can roll the dice on a number of third-party vendors). The same goes for microwaves and nightlights. And even after you’ve given up on fixing something, Amazon’s recycling and trade-in programs for its own products exist, but they’re drastically under-promoted.

The impact of Amazon’s cheap, hard-to-fix gear is ignored or obscured at every level. The company’s environmental report talks about a “circular economy” mostly in the context of refurbished goods customers can buy. Customers, it reads, “may discover” a device recycling program or trade-in programs (we had no idea either existed, and you likely didn’t, either). An iFixit staffer who twice received a keyboard with a missing part was told by different Amazon customer support reps to “just simply thrown into trash” [sic] and “just [give] it to garbage man, they will separate that.”

That this goes overlooked is odd, as Amazon’s impact on everything has gotten attention lately. The human cost, danger, and small business pinch of “free” delivery, the mire of fake reviews, the privacy invasions of Ring video doorbells or Alexa/Echo devices, even the impact of Cyber Monday cardboard: we’re all starting to think more critically about Amazon’s all-consuming reach.

Yet at the same time, way too many of us are okay with buying, gifting, or recommending cheap Amazon tech as disposable, good-enough solutions. Tech review sites with otherwise critical eyes regularly recommend underwhelming Fire tablets as kid’s toys or streaming screens, eagerly announce when Echo devices go on sale, and never mention where all those cheap devices end up when they age, break, or become obsolete.

In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson noted the company’s pledge to be carbon-neutral by 2040, but its own workers say the company hasn't gone far enough, and the company continues to help fossil fuel companies extract oil. Refurbishment and trade-in programs have “kept millions of devices from ending up in landfills in 2019 alone,” and many Amazon products are still in use after five years, the company said.

“While we have been focused on sustainability for many years, such as through our recycling, refurbishment and trade-in programs, we know we have more work to do to allow our customers to make informed choices and to provide transparent information about the environmental impacts of devices through their whole life cycle,” the Amazon spokesperson said.

But nobody seems to be asking of Amazon the same kind of device stewardship that we ask of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and even smaller brands. Maybe it’s due to the largely transactional relationship people have with the mega-store. Maybe it’s because people simply tolerate Amazon’s tech gear, rather than truly enjoy it, even when it’s new.

The New, Already Outdated Fire Tablet

Fire Tablets are low-end Android devices optimized for Kindle reading, streaming video, Alexa commands, and simple games. The goal is to feed you Amazon’s services and make your $120 yearly Prime membership seem worth it. Inside the current 7- and 8-inch versions ($50 and $80 respectively, though they’re often on sale for less) is a MediaTek MT8163V/B all-in-one chipset. That chip is actually slower than the one in Samsung’s Galaxy S5, released in early 2014.

There are loads of cheap, underperforming tablets available, but Amazon’s aggressive pricing, tie-in services, and outsized brand power have a reality distorting effect on buyers and otherwise critical reviewers. They’re cheap, the thinking goes; even cheaper with ads on them. At such prices, you can toss it in your bag to watch videos while traveling, or let your kids beat it up. Most people wouldn’t clutter their home with a no-name, underpowered Android tablet bought on a whim, but they’ll take one from Amazon.

Wirecutter states the HD 8 is “great for consuming Amazon-provided content, but it’s not as flexible as a full-fledged Android tablet.” But at $95 ($80 with lockscreen ads), it’s “a tolerable trade-off when you need a media-consumption tablet on the cheap.” The Verge gives the newest $150 10-inch Fire a seven out of 10, but notes it “feels as cheap as it costs” and is “slow for a 2019 device.” This is not to single out those two sites; they’re reviewing products in a particular reader-service context. Many other tech sites push cheap tablets with far less pondering.

But the net result of this very slick sales funnel is a lot of rare materials pulled from the earth, energy used to make tablets already past their prime, fuel used to ship them, and then, when they can’t be fixed or efficiently disassembled, a huge pile of shredded plastic, circuit boards, and, more than likely, hazardous batteries.

I called a local store in a national repair chain to ask if they repaired Kindle Fire tablets. “I’m gonna be honest with you, the price of repairing that is going to be equal to or more than replacing it,” an employee there told me. “Like $50 or $75?” I asked. “Last time I looked, it was $100,” the employee said. It’s not surprising that Amazon can make, pack, and ship me a tablet for just a bit more than the restocking fee on an iPad. But it’s not helping our growing e-waste problem.

Throwing ideas at the wall and shipping them

Amazon’s flotilla of always-listening Echo products is expanding rapidly. Review and tech sites are always a little skeptical, but they also link even the weirdest products with affiliate codes.

The Kindle parts that we sell at iFixit are sourced from an electronics recycler because that is literally the only place we can find them. And those parts don’t exactly fly off the shelves. It’s hard to blame people for not wanting to fix or upgrade a tablet that often costs $35.

If the door handle on your Kenmore microwave breaks, you can probably get the part and repair instructions through Sears Parts Direct. If any part of your AmazonBasics Microwave (Works with Alexa!) breaks, you have to pray that someone dismantled one and put the parts on eBay. While an Amazon spokesperson emphasized that Amazon devices regularly receive updates that require no action on the owner’s part, we wonder how many years an Amazon microwave could expect to receive security updates, and whether customers could actually fix wayward software.

Free, easy shipping for costly, tough waste

Amazon has a poorly advertised recycling program for its non-working electronics and trade-in offers for working devices (that mostly provide discounts on newer devices). Your entry to the recycling program is a kludgy form where you type in the raw number of Amazon devices you have in each category—e-readers, tablets, TV sticks, Dash buttons—and get a shipping label. There are also currently 10 U.S. locations where Amazon will accept discarded electronics.

Amazon claims that millions of devices have been saved by its refurbishment and trade-in programs. Most people simply don’t know that Amazon will trade, refurbish, or recycle their stuff. As a result, the cost of recycling cheap products lands on local municipalities, most of them already overburdened with e-waste. But even if Amazon’s mail-in recycling were wildly successful, recycling should be the last resort for electronics. We should be making products that stand the test of time, and can have multiple owners.

Not all devices need to be top of the line, and buyers should have more options than a brand-new iPad. But it would be nice to see the realities of buying and recommending cheap devices acknowledged in product reviews. Even better, mention that there are many good markets for quality used and refurbished tablets and other devices out there: Apple and Samsung have refurbished offerings, or Swappa and Back Market provide nearly as much assurance at normalized prices. And for the deal hunters, Craigslist, OfferUp, and Facebook Marketplace are great local options.

Activists like us at iFixit pressure the makers of expensive, useful devices when they fail to design for reliability and a sensible afterlife. Sometimes it pays off. Apple is pushing the envelope and developing recycled sources for challenging materials like rare earth metals, and puts trade-in and recycling options in front of their customers. Microsoft redesigned the Surface Laptop 3 to dramatically improve its repairability. Amazon, meanwhile, is selling loads of electronic devices at artificially low prices, and their product responsibility policy is, at best, a quiet and very mixed message.

It’s high time that we demand better. Let’s hold Amazon to the same e-waste standards as the rest of the industry.

Amazon’s Disposable Tech Is Waste Even as It Leaves the Factory syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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ginnyzero · 5 years ago

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A Retrospective Look at My Self Publishing Journey

I was asked again lately about why I chose to be an indie author. And I’ve discussed my self-publishing journey before, mostly in the moment when I put out my first book. But the true answer to why I ended up self-publishing came a lot in hindsight and some examination of the very uncomfortable truths of the publishing industry. Especially the part that I am into, the speculative fiction section.

So, while I’m going to say that this is true in general that it will not hold true in all cases and that if an agent really loves your story and your voice, you will still get picked up. It is all very subjective. The fact I have to make this disclaimer feels ludicrous but here we are.

It’s been over three years since I first published the Lone Prospect. My sales have not been great and my dad is my biggest fan along with a girl in France. And I love both of them and am grateful to them. And as time has gone by, I have learned that there are bigger problems in the publishing sphere than “my book is too long.”

Now, that’s not to say that the Lone Prospect isn’t too long for a traditional publishing debut. It is! For traditional publishing, the Lone Prospect (and Rodeo’s Run) are twice as long as they should be. Supposedly.

There were also other factors at play. Factors that I wasn’t aware of as a hopeful baby novelist who wanted a traditional contract with some money to go into the bank. And most of them are simply outside of my control.

Big issue number one is that series are no longer highly sought after. Things have done a radical one eighty in the past decade, decade and a half, when it comes to series versus stand alones. Series are no longer being sought after by agents. Agents want stand alone novels that if they do well can be turned into series. Oh, they want the next big thing to make them big money. They just don’t want the next big thing to submit a first in a series novel.

This is a nice thought. A lot of times though, a lot of crucial long term arc building is started in the first book of a series. The first book of the series is like your foundation corner stone for your entire work. And if you don’t put that work in at the beginning of the series, the later books are going to fall flat on their face. Especially if your contract goes from three, to seven, to thirteen and so on.

And the reason that series are no longer being sought after is that several big name authors aren’t fulfilling their contractual obligations to finish their series. Publishers no longer want to take the risk of giving out an advance and a contract and not getting product in return. So, saying you’re writing a series is almost like a death nail in the coffin.

I write series. There is no sugar coating this fact. Yes. The Lone Prospect, Rodeo’s Run and Serpent’s Smile are all written as stand alone adventures. They are also part of a series. So, this was really factor number one and it’s a pretty big one. Most of my ideas are for series! Not stand alone novels. I’m a big arc, character interaction type of writer.

Publishers aren’t big on risks. They are a business. Risks must be managed to as little as possible.

There is a major risk factor especially with the Heathen’s series. (Dawn Warrior just might have been a bit too much of a retread idea.) Heathens is squarely in speculative fiction. It’s not straight out Science Fantasy like Star Wars. It’s not true blue science fiction like Star Trek. It’s not kitchen sink urban fantasy they solve crime like half a dozen series I could name. And it’s not textbook dystopian/post apocalyptic like Mad Max. It’s also not a Western or a Military or an Action Adventure.

It’s Speculative Fiction.

I hate that term. I really do. But to be fair, agents might not know how to sell the books. Now, I can understand this. I can! I have a hard time selling the books. I mean it takes more than three words and some people don’t like that. I want to say “it is biker werewolf adventures.” And be done with it, but that doesn’t really say if it’s urban fantasy or science fiction or what. I can say it’s Sons of Anarchy/Expendables for Urban Fantasy and possibly be closer. But that still doesn’t include the post WW3, advanced technology setting.

(And I have my reasons for that so assume another post is coming.)

Yeah. You could call it Speculative Fiction and put it in the science fiction/fantasy shelves, but in reality, it’s a mix of several genres and it’s just too risky. If no one knows what it is, why will they buy it?

I don’t know. Bikers and Werewolves and Explosions? A touch of romance. Family style humor? Put Savannah on the cover with her floating motorcycle in biker leathers and do you think anyone is really going to care what genre it is?

It’s reasonable that if I was a writer don’t know how to sell it outside of the very generic “speculative fiction” label, then why should an agent know how to sell it. Especially when I’m not rigidly following genre tropes and rules when it comes to urban fantasy, werewolves, dystopian or post-apocalyptic fiction. (Though how they could tell that from the first five pages is beyond me.)

I call it science fantasy primarily because werewolves are fantasy lore, I have science fiction style technology and a scientific explanation for lycanthropy (like the first Universal movie before they went full out curse mode) and I use action/adventure tropes which are a huge deal in science fantasy aka Star Wars. I’m not using the Heroes Journey as my framework, because I’m writing adult and for adult audiences that has been done to death. (At least, I’m not doing it consciously, maybe subconsciously but I’m not planning it that way!)

But here is where the disclaimer comes in. If an agent loves your concept and your voice, even if you aren’t following genre tropes. They will pick you up anyways.

It’s a crapshoot. That’s why I recommend even if you don’t want a traditional publishing contract to try querying because, you never know and it’s good experience for summarizing, blurbs and other such things.

All right, so, the Lone Prospect was too long, it was the first in a series and it didn’t fit into a clear little non-risky box.

There are several other things going on in the industry right now. Own Voices is big. I’m not a minority and my sexual identity isn’t a huge facet in my life that I’m going to write a whole book around it. Another large issue is that speculative fiction aka science fiction/fantasy isn’t a huge seller. Not like romance, so they tend to pick up less new authors in that genre per year, if any.

So, let’s talk the elephant in the room. Gender.

I’m a woman. And in a post Pern, Harry Potter, Twilight and Hunger Games world, I see absolutely no reason to hide this fact. In fact, I’m not 100% sure that one could hide this in today’s social media age. It’s not worth my time and energy to pretend to be a guy. Because as a reader, and most readers I know, the name on the cover doesn’t matter. It is what is between those covers that matters.

Now, if you go and look at science fiction and fantasy shelves, you’re going to find a rather huge dichotomy represented on those shelves. Science Fiction is almost exclusively written by men. Urban Fantasy leans strongly towards female authors. And fantasy I want to say is about fifty-fifty because women cornered the market on “romantic fantasy’ and “paranormal romance” ages ago back in the 80s.

And a lot of science fiction on the shelves is still stuff written back in the 1960s and 1970s during the end of the Cold War and Vietnam. They are science fiction “classics” and nothing I’d recommend to a newcomer to scifi. Entire shelves filled with Bova and Sanderson and Asimov and Heinlein and Herbert (and the licensed fanfiction of Dune) is not a great look for modern science fiction. I’m not even sure I’d recommend Weber at this point. Adams and Phillip K. Dick are great, but I’d steer a newcomer towards Robert Asprin’s satirical stuff before stuff written fifty years ago!

When reading the old Expanded Universe of Star Wars, I could count on one hand the amount of female writers that were allowed to play in the universe in comparison to the amount of male writers. Thus, why most of the books were exclusively about Luke, or Han Solo, or Boba Fett and Leia got shuffled off pretty early on to do her diplomatic thing and be “mom.” The book between Episodes V and VI where she courted Black Sun to get the contacts to actually get into Jabba’s palace was a pretty rare exception and that was written by a man.

And you’d think, being it was 2015/2016 and that I was submitting to female agents that me being a woman pushing into the realm of science fantasy wouldn’t matter. (There are strong Starship Trooper’s vibes to the opening chapter of the Lone Prospect on purpose!) But apparently it does, especially if you look at the shelves and turn the books around that are written by older white men.

With the first chapter giving off the Starship Troopers vibes, it is pretty clear that I was writing an action adventure type of story. Action adventure stories are once again considered the playground of men.

So, even if they could get past the length, past the fact it’s book one of a series, past the pushing the boundaries of genres (look, I can comp Dredd and Minority Report here, don’t tell me that Heathen’s is totally out of left field,) and I’m not a minority and not someone writing about the LGBTA+ journey, I’m still a woman in science fantasy action adventure.

Despite the fact women founded science fiction, that women made science fiction popular and that in the past some of the celebrated authors like McCaffery, Norton and Cherryh were women. Men have come to love the science fiction, science fantasy, fantasy genre and we now must all cater to them and their wants and needs ignoring the market that got us to this point originally and still exists.

Now, I didn’t know most of this when I queried. Or, I was hopeful and chose to ignore it. I had hopes that The Lone Prospect had enough Urban Fantasy trappings to slide under the radar of risk. And while I may have a growing pile of ideas to write now, I had to get the Lone Prospect out there in order for those ideas to appear. I’m indie. I’m happy with it because it means I have a few people reading my books and loving them.

And I can hope that someday the industry will change enough where risk isn’t as much of a factor, pushing boundaries is embraced and women are welcomed back to a genre they created and popularized.

#self publishing #self-publishing #personal #personal story

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tsukifairy · 6 years ago

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