#every time i post one of these updates i lose a subscriber lol

[gerec]

My Future & Yours

Pairings: Erik Lehnsherr/Sebastian Shaw, Erik Lehnsherr/Alex Summers

Summary:

The island of Genosha offers sanctuary to mutants from all over the world; the chance to live amongst their own kind in a beautiful paradise. With no family left, Erik decides to travel half-way around the world to start a new life. He does not expect to catch the eye of one Sebastian Shaw - handsome, charismatic, and leader of the mutant nation - and end up forcibly taken as his mate.

Part 6 of Legacy of Sin

Chapter 4: Island Tour

Erik spends the day with Sebastian and they delight in their mutual attraction.

[isthatbloodonhisshirt]

So the other day I finished reading a fic you wrote a while back, and I thought to myself, “that was phenomenal, I wonder if they have any other great fics? This writing is amazing.” (It was the ‘What Fresh Twilight Bullshit is This?” And please don’t judge but it was my third time reading it lmao)

Lo and behold, you had OVER 180 FICS AND I HAD READ A GOOD CHUNK OF THEM NOT REALIZING THEY WERE ALL WRITTEN BY YOU. I lost my mind!! I couldn’t comprehend that you had been fueling my reading material FOR YEARS with your incredible writing. Every. Single. Fic. That I read by you was GREAT and so well written. I have slowly been tearing through your fics this week, completely unable to comprehend how one person could hold so much power in this fandom because let me tell you- you’re fics are probably my favorite Sterek fics, and they’re so well-received!

I just wanted to say thank you, thank you so much for sharing your writing with us.

Just a few days ago, (maybe a week?) I had subscribed to your newest one, (My, What Big Shoulders You Have) when it had 2 or 3 chapters, and I was ready to wait for weekly or monthly updates because, again, your writing is superb and your characterizations of Stiles and Derek are my personal favorites, when suddenly, throughout the week, I received multiple notifications of you updating?? You put out the rest of that fic so quickly, and I was losing my mind over it. You made my week!

Again, thank you so much for sharing your writing with us. I’m a huge fan, and I appreciate the time and effort you put into your storytelling. Sorry if this message sent twice, I think I accidentally sent a message instead of an ask and I have no clue which I’m supposed to send 😖

Hello o/ 

LOL Omg thank you so much XD I’m super thrilled to hear you liked Twilight so much, and that you’ve read it three times XD (And no judgement man, this is a judgement-free zone. I’ve read my fav book series upwards of 50 times so I am not in a position to judge anyone on their re-read habits XD lolol)

Thank you so much ;~; Seriously, that’s so amazing to hear and so incredibly kind of you to say, thank you!!! I’m really glad you enjoyed my stuff, and that you pulled up my name and noticed a few others you’d already read. It’s always really nice to know people come back to my stuff without knowing they’re all written by the same person, it’s encouraging XD For real, thank you so, so much!!!! 💕💕

HAHA I’m glad you liked the upload schedule for Shoulders XD lol I have this thing about hating WIPs personally when I’m reading them, and I know other people do too, but that fic was so long I didn’t want to dump 280k words in one day like I normally do for shorter fics so the compromise is posting the chapters daily instead XD Don’t misunderstand and think I wrote every chapter daily O_O I’m fast, but I’m not that fast lol XD 

Thank you very much, for real, you’re too kind ;~; And all good haha. I have to catch up on messages, I have been very mad about talking to people this year because of personal reasons so it’s been challenging feeling motivated sometimes |D I AM DOING MY BEST THOUGH!!! But for real, thank you so much <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3 

[dearmrsawyer]

its my first day back at work and i’m doing a lot of catch-up + prioritising the new/old things i need to do. i took a week off because i really NEEDED it, i felt like i was going a bit insane/losing my touch with reality, and it was wonderful!! i spent almost 7 days in bed, well earned, no complaints, enjoyed every second lol. and i’m feeling very refreshed, i still have all the same things on my plate plus many new things, but its okay! i think i’m sufficiently recharged and can begin to tackle everything that was really overwhelming me this time last week. the one thing i do not want to re-engage with is this new database that we’ve subscribed to, which is taking SO LONG to integrate into our system, our IT and the database team are just?? not communicating more than once a week?? we subscribed over a month ago, please hurry up wow. agh anyway! nothing i can do except keep asking for progress updates and hope i am enough of a nuisance that they do it to shut me up!

i don’t think i will be taking any more time off until the end of the year simply because there is TOO MUCH to do and if i take time off the library is basically out of commission 😅 in an ordinary year i could take a day here or there during the weeks with no class but with everything online, the sense of urgency amongst all our students and academics is like, unbelievably high lol, even in weeks with no class. 

i didn’t really have time to make this post LOL but i felt like i needed to, just to orient myself a bit. gonna go get ready to drop into campus so i can post all the books people asked for in the last few days 

[opheliakeeauthor]

Indie Author All the Way!

The publishing of Midnight Magic is coming to a close. I am waiting on Amazon to review part 11. This miniseries has twelve parts. The end is near. Part 12 will release next weekend. So that means that the full volume will come out in two weeks. If you have been waiting until all parts were published or you wanted only to read it as a novel, the wait is nearly over. If you pick up any part of the saga to read, let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you.

Draoithe: Dragons Come volume four has finally launched the 2nd edition as a 6x9 paperback. For those who don't know, I am pure indie and do all of my writing, publishing, and marketing on my own. When I first dove into the deep end of self-publishing, I had no idea what I was doing, but I could do it. I did it all wrong and made a ton of mistakes. When I could not figure out how to publish the books as 6x9 standard paperback book size, I decided to simply publish them as 8.5 x11. It was fine like that. I was learning. (They are kind of cool that way.) Only being a non-standard size meant that they were ineligible for expanded distribution and the wrong size for the book shelf. So I decided something needed to give and I had to break down and publish the stories as a second edition in the size they should have been. So as I go through the early stories and let Grammarly aid my editing for a cleaner story, I am also reformatting to release the stories in the proper book size. Volumes 1-4 and the Prequel are now complete. Just a few more to go. LOL. #don'tfearmistakes

Just the Facts

LINKEDIN.COM SELF PUBLISHING vs Publishing House - Look At The Numbers. This post is a follow up to a recent discussion I was involved in. IT IS I read this article on Linked-in the other day explaining the breakdown in earnings between traditionally published and indie published authors. Needless to say, indie authors earn way less than traditionally published authors. That's okay. Because it is offset by the fact that there is no need to suffer through query letters and rejections. As an indie author, I can publish as often as I like, as many titles as I want and best of all readers can simply read to their heart's content. There is no waiting until the publishing house is ready, or giving up any of my rights as the author to sell or promote my work however and whenever I see fit. So what if I don't get a big payout up front? I'm happy with waiting for my royalties. Advertising is entirely up to me and I don't have the added stress of needing to meet artificial deadlines or the potential hassle of losing the contract due to low sales or something else outside my control. It might not be the way to go for every writer, but so far, my authorwalk is still indie all the way. (Also I secretly enjoy publishing and the creative side of marketing even if I am not good at it and have limited marketing funds. LOL)

Mark the Calendar!

Weaver’s Tale Part 1 will be FREE October 15-19. Just in time for Halloween. Grab the first part of the 4 part miniseries, meet Araack Kniid, the warlock spider shifter, and Calvin Birchard, the wizard. Both men spend years learning and improving themselves in their desire to be worthy of a mate. Old lies and impossible fantasies must be overcome in order for them to finally have a life worth living. Step into the dream and meet the rulers of the Longest Purple. Author's note on Weaver's Tale: My mother said, "Just don't go adding spiders to the saga." Vampires and angels were okay, but spider shifters were just too creepy. Sadly, the scenes began to play out in my head immediately. I knew Araack Kniid and Calvin Birchard right away and sat down to write exactly what she said I should not. No disrespect, Mom. I had to write this novella length miniseries because until I write a scene that I see, I can't get it out of my head. Almost Noir, but not quite. This one is a fast paced read set in the Netherworld. Adult content and themes. Happy Halloween!

Updates!

Working on the video book for The Thread! Still no fixed release date, but I am super excited! The project is rolling along. I am hoping to have it up by Christmas. If you are not subscribe to OpheliaKee on YouTube, you might want to take a moment and hop over and set yourself up to get notified when the video books come out. Book trailers and ads are posted there already. Check it out and please give feedback. I love to hear from readers. Merch is still a big fat no go. GRRR.... I am not giving up, but the tech does sometimes seriously stress me out. Patience. My authorwalk has taken me in strange directions many times before. That's okay. I will prevail or die trying. Lol. So overdramatic. Debating a wikipedia page next too. So long as we are being extra...

Enough of the silly business. I gotta get back to writing, editing, publishing, and marketing. If you have questions or comments hit me up. As always if you read, please be kind and leave your review. Indie authors especially will love you for it. Be Careful! Happy reading, ​Ophelia Kee

[purplesurveys]

780

What was the last thing you posted on a Instagram? A photo of a plate of corndogs that my dad made me. Welp, I had planned to come up with one of those one-photo-a-day-for-a-year for 2020, but that plan is obviously ruined given the current situation. I tried keeping it up during the quarantine but everything has just been so fucking monotonous I’ve failed to update it since April 4th. Do you consider yourself a nature person? I do. I know I am, but I just haven’t been submerged in a lot of nature-y experiences yet. Like I’ve never legit camped in the middle of nowhere or climbed a mountain before, but I’m always willing to do those kinds of things. What kind of collection would you like to start? Wrestling memorabilia. I’ve always wanted to start collecting DVD sets, figures, and belts, and I hope I get to keep that goal up once I start earning my own money :) What helps you take your mind off your problems? SURVEYS, for suuure. The more problems I have, the more I take lol. YouTube videos also help and it’s my go-to website whenever I’m not feeling perfect. And hugging my dog. Who do you miss, if anyone? Been missing Gabie since March and it’s only gotten worse since.

What do you miss, if anything? Normalcy. I really hate how much I’ve had to adjust and even give up/miss out on because of the virus, like an eventful final semester in college or actually doing on-ground work for my thesis. I miss being stuck in traffic and getting shawarma with Laurice and regularly seeing protests on campus and everything else that came with university life. Do you prefer to live alone or live in a family? I would love to live with a roommate or two – basically, people who have vastly different backgrounds than I do that I could share stories and experiences with. This lockdown has made me realize that I don’t want to live with my family for long; and I feel like I’d eventually lose it if I lived alone so both of your options seem unattractive. What states have you visited, that you remember? None of them. What countries have you visited? China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. What countries do you want to visit? Thailand, Vietnam, India, Turkey, and Morocco. What states would you most like to visit? New York, Illinois, Utah, Colorado, and Alaska. What are five careers you've considered? Throughout my life, I’ve considered beinggggg a pro wrestler, a model, a veterinarian, an astronaut, and an author. Do you use a sunlamp when it's cloudy? No, I’ve never needed one because it’s super bright here 24/7, 365. Even if it’s cloudy you wouldn’t something as bright as a sunlamp. What's your latest discovery? People are assholes and will share jumpscare videos at 2 AM even if so many others have expressed their legitimate panic and anxiety over them.

What do you wish your hair looked like? Nothing, I’m happy with it right now. Which family member has your exact smile? Sometimes I’ll resemble my mom, but for the most part I don’t think I share my smile with anybody. Do you still feel anything for the first person you fell in love with? Yep, she’s remained very important to me this whole time. What's one thing you're behind on? Kdramas. Lol I get soooooo lazy when it comes to watching them because every episode is an hour long and I just don’t have the attention span for that. I’ve seen so many shows trend over the last few weeks and yet I’ve barely met any progress watching Descendants of the Sun. Who was the last person you called? Gabie. Do you take pictures on your phone? ...Duh? But yeah, I like saving my memories so I have a couple thousand photos in my camera roll at present. How old were you the first time you loved school? 19, I guess. I hated the culture in my first school and I hated my freshman year in college. I only started taking studying seriously in my second year, when I turned 19. How old were you the first time you encountered God? Idk, the second I was born. Have you ever hallucinated? It doesn’t really count as hallucinate but once when I was 8, I had a very high fever and I had a nightmare alongside it, so when I woke up to my grandma soaking hot water all over my body to treat my fever I was still in dream-mode and screaming out stuff to her that was within the universe of that dream. Does it annoy you when people share their ignorant opinions online? Sometimes it can be annoying but sometimes it can be entertaining too, just watching their ignorance unfold haha. Do you clean your place often? I wouldn’t say often, but I will tidy up my room occasionally. Do you struggle to get by? Not right now since I’m still dependent on my parents. But I suppose when I get my first job, my financial situation wouldn’t be rainbows and unicorns at first. What color is your wristwatch? I don’t have one. I stopped wearing watches after I realized I just lose every single one of them. :/ Who is the best looking male celebrity, in your opinion? Timothée Chalamet. Do you still miss a friend who betrayed you? No. How many subscribers do you have on youtube? 0. And rightfully so, I don’t post anything on it. If you'd like to share, what is your screenname on Instagram? Nope. Do you use Snapchat? Barely. I’ll use it for the filters sometimes, but otherwise I stopped using it as a social media since 2017. Do you enjoy typing? Idk, enjoy is a little loaded. I’m neutral about it, it’s just what I have to do to post text online lol. Are you a fast texter? I’d say that, sure. Would you rather text or call? TEXT do not call me ever Do you know anyone who has everything handed to them? Yep. I try not to think of those people because it’s such an unfair situation and it’ll just stress me out. Would you ever want to be a famous youtuber? Haha yeah, I’ve thought about making it as a vlogger. But the career is super unpredictable and it’s so easy to fall behind in it because so many people are getting into it and are just doing the same thing, so if anything it’s something I wanna do as a side project, and solely for fun. Do you know anyone who's colorblind? Not that I know of. What are three of your pet peeves? People who are late, people who don’t meet their deadlines, and people who don’t smile back or say thank you whenever a barista or a server serves them.

[writingdotcoffee]

#58: Constraints

(You can also read this post on my website.)

Welcome to another Writing Update—a weekly journal where I document the ups and downs of my writing life. When things don’t go well, it’s really easy to forget how satisfying writing can be when it goes well. It went really well for me this week.

I edited a chapter that ties the second act together before the major crisis of the entire book, the calm-before-the-storm moment, and I can’t wait to start editing the climax. That’s my favourite part!

I outlined two new short stories that I’m quite excited about. I was going to write one of them, but because of an important deadline at work, I had to come in on the weekend. That killed that plan a little bit, but it got me thinking about constraints and how to use them in my writing practice. Here goes the brain dump.

Five days a week, many of us have no problem waking up early for work or school. That’s just how things are. You wouldn’t think about skipping a day every once in a while when you don’t feel like going. Not showing up without a very good reason would make you lose your job or fail your grades.

Many of us consider writing more important than their job. And for some reason, we think it’s acceptable to skip a writing day here and there. I do that all the time, and it fascinates me. Because when you think about it, it makes no sense at all.

Of course, skipping work or school days will have immediate and very unpleasant consequences. The boss will yell at you and fire you in front of everybody. The teacher will call your parents, and things will suck.

Th thing is, the consequences are identical for writing. If your ambition is to write for a living, and you don’t show up when you have to, you will lose the job. Or not even get any in the first place! Why shouldn’t writers be at least as disciplined as gardeners or baristas?

Writing a book is an entirely self-motivated endeavour. And keeping yourself motivated on your own is extremely difficult. There’s no boss or headmaster to keep you in check. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t set up systems and constraints for yourself to create an environment that will keep you writing just as your boss keeps you coming back to work.

Maybe join a writing group? Set up some deadlines? Public accountability? Do you use/know of any other hacks to maintain your writing discipline?

What I am reading

I’m almost done with Tom Marcus’ Capture or Kill. I really like his direct writing style and the insider view he has of the British secret service. That made the book enjoyable, but not something I would recommend.

Next up, I’ll be reading I Never Knew That About Scotland by Christopher Winn. I loved I Never Knew That About New York from the same author when we went to NYC back in April. And it’s looking like we might be going to Scotland very soon!

Subscribe to my Newsletter

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Past Editions

#57: Taking a step back, September 2018

#56: Stuck in a plot hole, September 2018

#55: Pacing yourself, September 2018

#54: Getting Fancy, September 2018

#53: How to write a classic?, August 2018

[graveexcitement]

(1) Regular schedule is amazing, I owe my life to writers who post on a regular schedule. I'll still read WIPs without schedules, but if there is a schedule, then I am 😍 

(2) Actual day of the week doesn't matter; it just gives me something to look forward to on that day. (Right now Wednesdays are special/exciting for me because A Child Once updates most Wednesdays!)

(3) My preferred update frequency is probably in the zone of [twice a week] to [every two weeks]. Weekly is great. Every three weeks or monthly is fine. Less frequent than that is okay with the caveats that (a) if the updates are infrequent, it would be nice, though not necessary, to have longer chapters to make up for it (b) the less frequent it is (especially if it’s also irregular), the more likely I am to either forget the plot or no longer be invested in the story by the time it updates it again. (Or possibly no longer interested in the fandom if it’s been 6 months and I’m now hyperfixated on something else. If I’m invested enough in a story, I’ll still read updates even when my primary fandom is something else, but if the investment has faded I’ll likely unsubscribe.) 

As for “what time interval is too infrequent” — it really depends on my investment in the story. One series I follow, The Rigel Black Chronicles, updates around every 3-4 months (but sometimes longer), with chapter lengths commonly at 20-30k (sometimes significantly longer), and I am stoked for every new chapter. There are abandoned WIPs that I followed years ago that I would drop everything to read if they got updated. On the other hand, sometimes a fic takes a 3-6 month hiatus, and my attention span has already moved on, so I unsubscribe when it starts updating again. 

For me, I also have a threshold of too frequent — if a fic updates more than 2, maybe 3 times a week, and I’m not invested enough in the story, then I might put off a chapter until later and then quickly fall behind on the story. But my level of investment matters here as well; I recently was following a fic that updated every 1-3 days, and occasionally twice in one day (though I suspect that might have been on two separate days in the author’s timezone), which ordinarily would have annoyed me, but I loved the fic so much that I was eager instead of annoyed.

(4) The author having the entire thing already written definitely helps me feel confident that the story won’t be left hanging! And it often ensures the author can post on a regular schedule, which is great.

All of this is just like, my personal preferences based on my varying attention span, lol. When I talk about my “investment” in a story I mean how much I care about it, how excited/tempted I am to reread it, and how motivated/excited I am to read new updates. My somewhat low attention span and binge-reading habits combine oddly at times; sometimes I consume a chunk of [media or fanfic] in one sitting, then when my concentration/fixation is broken (say, by needing to sleep), I lose interest in consuming any more. With WIPs, sometimes if I binge read a WIP and subscribe to it, I’ve lost interest by the time it updates several months later. 

(This is also why my “sweet spot” for completed fic length is somewhere around 20-70k; long enough to be meaty, but short enough that I can read it all in one sitting.)

Hope this helps!

informal survey time: WIP posting schedules

When you're reading a multi-chapter work that the author is posting in installments, how much do you care:

Whether the author updates on a regular schedule (e.g., every Monday)?

Which day of the week the author posts?

How often updates occur (e.g., weekly vs. biweekly vs. monthly or longer)? Edit: what time interval is too infrequent, if any?

Whether the author says they've already got the whole thing written or not?

[proeticshadows]

Life Lately: Restarting in April

Hi all!

As usual, I am late again with my monthly life update post (lol). It’s hard to keep a blog these days for me because my everyday life schedules are getting crazier and everything just saps out my energy. Anyway, here’s a quick recap of my March and what I intend to do for April:

1. I failed my weekly journal, analogue writing before bedtime, and skincare routines BIG TIME. I still suck at keeping habits, I know.

2. Learned to love my company more - whenever my guy is not available for lunch because of his job, I chose more to just eat my lunch alone, in front of my work computer, and it doesn’t make me feel sad. In fact, it is very comforting for me.

3. My mood swings are the worst. I often throw them towards the direction of my guy, who gets showered with all the negativity that I have and it is not a good thing to do. :( But I’m still learning! I pray to become calmer, more understanding, and more rational.

4. My planner girl life is blossoming again and it makes me so happy! Creative planning boosts the happiness, confidence, and satisfaction in me that’s why I’m so thankful to be part of two planner-related shops’ PR teams! I have blogged about the first one before, and I’ll blog about the new one really soon! I’m so excited!

5. I realized more the value of money. When my Macbook had to go a minimal repair by the end of March, I wasn’t really prepared for it in financial terms but I really have to get it fixed as soon as possible, so I had no choice. Almost my whole savings got depleted but thanks to the power of prayers, the Lord saved me from poverty! Praise God because as of the moment, I am slowly but surely getting what I spent for my laptop back.

My plans for April

As the title of this post suggests, I want to start fresh this April because life feels so chaotic around me. Here are my plans:

1. I will organize myself better by using a new planner. It was so right on time that my main / personal bullet journal was running out of pages and I have a reserved planner that I got from one of my planner sisters because I badly need to have a clean slate for planning my life lately. I’m now trying the ring planner system for the first time and so far, so good for me. I’m having fun!

2. I plan to replenish my savings again. I think it is now time for me to immediately separate my money after I withdraw them from the bank every payday because my savings usually go as my last priority when it comes to my finances, which is wrong :(

3. I will exert more efforts when it comes to my devotions. When I started working outside, I had “neglected” my spiritual journal and did my devotions on my phone everyday. It was hard for me to keep up with all the entries but I really want to go back to the traditional style. This is why I had revamped my existing spiritual journal today. 

4. I want to read more again. Sadly, I have lost that fire in me when it comes to reading and it makes me both anxious and miserable. Reading has been a big part of me and I don’t want to lose it.

How’s your April so far? Share it with me!

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[thelionshoarde]

the magnificent @sabraeal got me, :3 :3

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

It’s from an unfinished short story I wrote back in 2014: It was awful business working in the Lion’s Hoarde Inn. I think I just enjoyed the sound of it, (:

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/favorites, follows/subscriptions, visitor hits, kudos)

Some Nights, my first Teen Wolf fic. People really love pack mom!Stiles, apparently lol.

3. What is your FFnNet/AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

O PUREST ONE. It’s from a fanart I’m still chipping away at. Because: it made @superhappybubbleslove go WAAAAHHHHHH MY HEAAARRRRTT and I enjoy making wonderful people suffer! :D

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

Things are about to get real lengthy, so...

@sabraeal, of course, is a dream come true, and is currently back at it with her long reviews, and BE STILL MY HEART. @superhappybubbleslove kicks ass every Saturday with her amazingness (and often is the only, or one of the only ones, to comment on a very particular thing that i really loved about a story or art, and i always fist pump whenever she does that hahaha)  @claudeng80 has given me some of my favorite comments, EVER, and I often have to take a day or more to process my emotions before I can actually respond coherently haha, I GET VERY EXCITED, OKAY. @hidetheremote is one of my most faithful and kind and generous commenters, I am always thrilled to receive them and she’s been showering me with encouragement since the beginning, so she has a VERY special place in my heart! I have a few commenters on my ot3 things that are incredibly kind, or people who have bookmarked/kudo’d almost all of them, and while I do not believe I know their tumblr handles, but I would sell my first born for you. :| special shout out to @vfordii and @stuffaeamade and @raediation who are always SO supportive of my obizenyuki feels hahaha! @youseimanami is a one woman cheer squad and AMAZING, so kind and so so sweet, and her comments always feel SO genuine, they just make my heart get all swelled up and fuzzy and warm, I love her! I know I’m forgetting people, but I LOVE YOU ALL, YOU ARE ALL MY FAVORITES D;

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

I cycle through over time. There are a lot of older, long fics in other fandoms that I occasionally go back to when I need a pick-me up lol. Currently, there is I KID YOU NOT a south park kenny/kyle fic that I’m in love with and have read 2-3 times in the last couple months since I first read it and I WILL PROBABLY INDULGE AGAIN, SOON. (gold digger, IT IS AMAZING, OKAY)

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

I actually never figured out how to subscribe! 8D I have 86 bookmarks, but it should be more. I went through a year long period I think where I never signed into ao3 lol.

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

MAGIC. In some form or another lol.

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

163 user subscriptions, and 2604 bookmarks. (some nights has 1912 bookmarks all on its own, okay, teen wolf is a v v large ocean of a fandom haha)

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

N O P E, i have no shame filter 8D .....ok, wait, the a/b/o one because it’s omega!obi and i’ve been a tad leery of the response i may receive for how very, uh, not your usual obiyuki dynamic in bed i want to make it. >_>

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

Hn, yes and yes and yes and yes. My big thing is: I want to learn how to finish lengthier things. I got into fandom to try and do that, and it’s my goal for this year, especially.

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

Rarepairs, I think! Even when I write popular ships I usually write them in the less popular fashion haha. But mostly, I just write whatever I want, which is often a myriad of different pairings!

12. How many stories have you posted on FFNet/AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

13 stories on ffnet, and a few of those were also on my livejournal. I don’t have an exact number for livejournal, but it’s over 100. I’ve started moving some of those fics from my livejournal to ao3, now, so I’m up to 40. Only 23 of my ao3 stories aren’t also on livejournal  at this moment lol. And there are a couple of things on tumblr I haven’t moved onto ao3 yet.

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

I am unwilling to go down that dark and dangerous path. :|

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

I try and write down whatever jumps in my head, because I WILL forget things, otherwise. But I’ll spend days mulling over an idea, sometimes, before I am able to sit down and write it.

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

Back in eljay days I wrote stories with other people on occasion. Sometimes it was just writing comment fic back and forth at each other. Or writing different scenes in the same universe that went together. Nothing big.

16. How did you discover FFNet/AO3?

I know I stumbled on ffnet myself, but I don’t remember for ao3. O: Pretty certain someone told me about it, but when I had livejournal I didn’t really use anything else.

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on FFNet/AO3?

Hm, I’ve never been a widely popular anything, though I was lucky enough to have some excellent fans on eljay, who would jump fandoms with me just because they wanted to read my stuff. And folk who were incredibly kind and generous with their praise no matter how many random things I churned out haha. I’ve always been thrilled if there’s just ONE person who enjoyed a story I put out! I’m pretty easy to please!

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

My darlings!

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

Anyone who writes is an inspiration to me. I see people putting up fic and publishing novels, and I go I WANT TO DO THAT, UGH. Because I’ve always been a writer, ever since I was teeny, and have never stopped wanting to do it. I’ve always been in love with words, and stories. (As I’m sure many others can relate: I used to get in trouble in elementary school because I would read as I walked, and it was EARLY elementary school, where you had to walk in lines with your class because they were afraid they were gonna lose you, and I could read while I walked because I would just follow whoever was in front of me to wherever we were going haha)

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

It’s 100% okay if you write something, and you’re really proud of it, and you go back later -- a week, a day, a month, two years, whatever -- and think: THIS IS THE WORST. That doesn’t ever really go away, because as creators we are constantly evolving and looking to improve, and often times something that is actually quite solid and gives many readers joy will be a thing that you facepalm over, later. Use that to keep writing, and try to remember that you are most definitely your own worst critic. At the end of the day, keep doing this thing because you love it. Your work IS worthy, even when you think it should be set on fire and scattered across the deepest ocean never to be seen again!

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

A combo! Sometimes, especially for shorter things, I just get an idea, and sometimes I just think about it for a little while, and then I open a doc and I just go to town until it’s finished. Other times I start off by writing out the thoughts and building off of that, and sometimes I slip into actually writing it and then back to outlining. USUALLY I start writing a thing because I have a tiny spark of an idea, or a situation/concept I find interesting, and I have no idea where it’s going, and I just write to see what happens, and THEN I start plotting things out as I go, which can be one of the MOST frustrating ways to write a story. Anything big I’ve ever written (and I’ve written several drafts of several novels) starts out like this, where I have a random idea and I sit down and I write out whatever scenes crop up in my head, and then I start filling in the blanks, later. A lot of my longer fandom things also are like this. heading for a small disaster was me just sort of sitting around and thinking about an entirely different story, and then I had like, a half-formed idea for a single scene in my head, so I sat down and started writing chapter 1 to GET to that scene, coming up with stuff as I needed it, and by the time I hit the end of ch1 I was no where near my original idea, and had a bunch of other ideas, and THEN I started plotting things out.

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

I’m sure I have! Though I haven’t posted fandom anything for a long time, so I don’t really remember. One comment I do recall was not a BAD comment, it was a comment about a bad thing I had done in neglecting to tag something, and then I got all defensive because I was younger and even more stupid than I am now, and I was an asshole, which I regret. ):

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

Action! Also, stationary scenes with multiple people that DOESN’T have action! Okay, ANY scene that has more than one person is tricky, though two people at least helps in pacing because it’s easier to intersperse dialogue, but you add one more person into a scene and I’m laying my head on my desk and CRYING. Transition scenes are also my bane, I have the hardest time figuring out how to move from point a to b. Basically: EVERYTHING IS DIFFICULT. That’s half the fun of writing something, though.

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

Too many, but I’m trying to focus on finishing up some longer things this year. Of course, despite that having been my resolution before the year even began, I have somehow found myself with two new longer fics than WHEN THE YEAR STARTED, ugh. disaster, magic!cowboy au, lyrias center, unicorn au, soulmate tattoo au, a second part to we can make our own way, the full version of back alley complete with smut and EMOTIONS, fight club au, ot3 modern day neighbors au, and all the christmas prompts I haven’t done yet, and I have like, two more chapters of picture perfect planned out that I just haven’t written yet, I AM HAVING A DIFFICULT TIME THINNING THE HERD, I 100% come up with more ideas than ever get written, as I’m sure most writers do haha.

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

HAHAHA

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

Nah, I almost never succeed at stuff like that, and I get pissy if I fail, so I’ve learned not to put myself into that position if I can, because it just hurts my writing. I just write when I want, or when I have time even if I don’t want.

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

Hopefully! Though posting old stuff to ao3 has made me aware that my vocabulary has actually suffered over time, and I’m hoping to fix that!

28. What is your favorite story(s) that you’ve written?

I don’t entirely love anything that I’ve written. There are aspects of many things that I love dearly, though none of it really wins out against another. I’ll say: three of my orig novels are probably closest to being no 1.

29. What is your least favorite story(s) that you’ve written?

There was this one HP fic I wrote when I was like, 14?? I don’t know, but apparently I was VERY ANGRY, and wrote some really messed up stuff, and I wouldn’t mind being able to bury that shit haha. But truthfully -- I probably grew a lot from it, as embarrassing as it is to me, now. ...okay, there was a LOT of HP fic wherein I was in my DARK AND ANGSTY years, that, whew! I’m glad I’m not that person anymore haha.

30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

Still writing, hopefully. :3

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

CRYING. Crying is very easy, and so is laying my head on my desk and despairing that I will ever figure out how to make things work.

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

WORKING THROUGH THE TEARS. It is very easy to give up, and mope, much more difficult to grit your teeth and wrangle a story into submission.

33. Why do you write?

Because I love the power of words. It’s magic. A written story is essentially an illusion spell. You put the right words on the page in the correct order, and behold! An entire world, with living characters, is born within the mind of a reader. And a single, minute change to any one of those words may shift the whole thing. It’s a constantly evolving formula, and full of surprises, and if you are particularly lucky and diligent you might even be able to spin an entire tale that grips people, shakes them up and makes them believe in something impossible, something that YOU created, from nearly nothing. That kind of power is pretty damned addictive.

[velkynkarma]

Get to Know the Author

@bosstoaster has been tagging me all night :P

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

I’ve had the name ‘Karma’ for about 17 years now? I don’t even remember where it came from. The ‘Velkyn’ got added a little over 10 years ago when I decided I wanted to get back into fic writing. But I was still in that phase where you think you’re supposed to ‘grow out’ of fandoms and writing fanfiction, so I didn’t want any of my friends to know I was doing it. I was embarrassed. It was silly. I picked a different handle, VelkynKarma, which actually means ‘hidden Karma.’ Later I just liked the name and also got over my embarrassment for fic writing and just started using it everywhere.

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/subscriptions/hits/kudos).

No matter what statistic you look at, Routine Maintenance wins across the board by a large margin. Parasite Knight only has 1 less subscription, though, so I guess it’s a fair contender on subs.

3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

Same as my tumblr icon, it’s one of my OC’s, Morrigu Lovel. He is a little smartass and I love him.

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

Oh for sure, there’s a few lovely readers that come back every time and always have something to say. I love you guys :) And a few others that don’t comment on every chapter or every work, but the comments they leave are always phenomenal and make my day.

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

Depends on my mood, and I don’t necessarily read the entire fic, just the paragraphs/scenes/chapters that really stick out to me. But yeah, I’ve got some favorites I return to a lot.

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

Oh geez. This one’s hard to say since I watch stuff on AO3 and FF.net. A lot? I think a lot of those fics are dead now though.

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

Mmmm I don’t really have a tendency to stick to any particular series or AU for very long? I guess in terms of general themes I’ve done zombie AU’s the most, between Age of Heroes for Young Justice and Road Trip to End Times for Voltron...something about zombie apocalypse scenarios just fascinates me, especially since it can be done so many different ways.

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

252 user subs, 444 work subs, 2039 bookmarks. I didn’t even know that until now, huh

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

There’s some character interactions that are such hot-button topics in the VLD fandom I’m cautious about approaching them because I don’t want to deal with people complaining or begging for things to get escalated. Like, I love Keith and Lance’s interactions in canon, but don’t have much fic centered around them because ship lashback is real.

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

Short fic. What is brevity even? I can’t do zines or commissions because I can’t figure out how to manage a damn word count.

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

Nope! I don’t write any ships at all. I just write platonic interaction. Though I guess I wouldn’t be adverse to a platonic ‘rarepair’ as long as I liked the characters’ interaction potential.

12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

So far, 25. 23 of those are Voltron, 1 is Young Justice, and 1 is Supernatural (experimenting with cross-posting on both of those last two, some fandoms are just hard to break into or not on certain sites).

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

Oh boy. In progress? I wanna say 3. Notes? A lot, lot more.

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

I jot down notes! Or email myself ideas if I’m at work/out and about. Or speak them into a little portable digital tape recorder I keep next to my bed, if it’s the middle of the night and I have an idea, but lack dexterity to type.

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

Not in a long, looong time.

16. How did you discover AO3?

Through TVTropes. Every time I finished a new series I’d swing by to read tropes pages and see if there were any decent fic recs. At first they all went to Fanfiction.net or livejournal but, over time, this ‘Archive’ thing kept showing up. I made an account to lurk or subscribe to things but didn’t actually start posting to it until at least a year later.

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3?

Moderately well known in the platonic corner of it probably assuming people know bosstoaster and I are not actually the same person lol but probably not well known outside of that. Once upon a time I was a Big Name in the One Piece fandom, but after the timeskip I fell out of the fandom and lost my pirate king throne. That’s okay, it was fun while it lasted.

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

No but you all are too kind

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

In terms of ‘official’ authors, Brandon Sanderson is everything I ever aspire to be as a writer, and I take a lot of inspiration from that. For fic? My buddy BlackFriar was super helpful during the Young Justice era. More recently in the VLD fandom, @maychorian was big for just...getting me to stay in the fandom at all? One of her fics got me hooked and I stuck around, and then felt compelled to write, instead of just drifting off to the next interesting thing. And the Think Tank ( @bosstoaster @butteredonions @ashinan @mumblefox ) have all been huge for getting me to keep writing, between writing sprints and interesting discussions and a lot of encouragement, so that’s been huge for me this past year.

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

At the risk of sounding like that one video...just do it. It’s scary to put yourself out there, but just do it. You learn by doing. You also learn by absorbing new things around you, so read a lot and try new stuff; you never know when something completely random or a personal experience might actually add a lot to your story. And finally, write for you, first. Write the stories you want to see. Writing for comments/bookmarks/reblogs only goes so far. It means your motivation is reliant solely on people liking your work, which means you start writing for other people and not for yourself...and if reception is lackluster, it can kill your ability to finish a project, which hurts your practice at follow-through. It’s a slippery slope and starts to make the whole thing a lot less fun and a lot more of a chore. Write things you want to read, and if you feel like sharing them after, other people might like them too, but it’s important that you like it, first.

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

Has to be plotted completely. If I try to wing it I meander or get hung up on trying to keep track of details. Turns into total garbage.

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

A few times, sure. Happens to everyone. Most often, it’s people begging, demanding, or insinuating that my platonic fics should include a ship, especially if the fic focuses on the interactions of two specific characters. Those are very frustrating because I’m always upfront about the fic being friendship only, and there are usually a million other ship fics already out there. Leave my platonic fic alone! I usually ignore the comments, or just politely remind people it’s friendship only and will remain that way. In one bewildering instance in a different fandom I had somebody who had been thoroughly enjoying the fic up until the climactic battle, whereupon they were furious at how it was resolved, and took great pains to tell me just what they thought. That one stung. I had to sit on it for a few days before I worked up the nerve to respond, and chatted with a few friends over it too. In the end I realized that it was more comparable to a fan really enjoying a canon work but being mad about a sudden twist that just didn’t seem right to them. It happens. I thanked them for reading, explained that I disagreed with their comments but did hear them, and thanked them for their time. Best I could do.

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

I am straight-up incapable of romance, period. Even so far as to slide into ‘fake’ romance (I once got prompted for fake marriage/dating and literally couldn’t envision how to do it? It’s just so foreign to me). Or flirting. I can’t even identify flirting IRL. Basically anything in that general area of writing is completely out of my league. I can write intense scenes that are intimate in non-romantic, non-sexual ways, but those are really difficult for me to do too and I’m constantly second-guessing myself in case it’s maybe too much.

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

If I told you I’d have to kill you. But no, srsly, I don’t like to share ideas in progress until it’s almost done, just in case. Sometimes I share and then immediately lose interest, but I’ve already raised peoples’ hopes, and that’s just a dick move.

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

I’ll have outlines, or sometimes need to plan around prompts. I don’t usually do series, so I never really need to plan too far ahead though. Sometimes if I’m plotting a crossover/AU I’ll obtain the source material and read/watch/play it to start gathering notes for that fic while working on a different fic, so that by the time I’m done writing the current story, the AU’s skeleton is plotted out and I have a place to slot in all the characters.

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

No. I’ve gotten better habits since working with the Think Tank but I still tend to be more of a ‘burst’ writer (no activity for days or weeks, and then suddenly word vomiting 100K in a month).

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

By a HUGE margin

28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written?

Oooh, that’s a toss-up between Phantasmagoria and Prince of Memory. The former because I love writing horror and it’s an idea I’d wanted to tackle for a while. The latter because it was a personal writing challenge to myself that I honestly wasn’t sure was going to go over all that well, but the response was stunning, and I was quietly surprised.

29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written?

Caged Bird, from a different fandom. I make it a personal rule to never delete stories that I’ve posted, but ooh man, I wanted to get rid of this one really bad. I was happy when LJ gutted it. I actually don’t have any real dislike for any of my Voltron stuff.

30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

Still writing because I’d die if I stopped. Like a shark. But with writing.

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

That flash of inspiration, when you get an idea and suddenly it’s building itself almost too fast for you to keep up. Dialogue. Action sequences.

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

Getting started. Titles. Editing. Research. Any particularly emotional moment.

33. Why do you write?

Because fandoms are fun but I have so many questions after. “What if X happened? What if Y was a factor? Why not Z?” I try to hunt down answers to these questions in fandoms and if the fic isn’t already written, I write it. Also to challenge myself to do things that haven’t been done in the fandom yet, or to tackle things I haven’t tried yet.

I think everyone’s been tagged already so...feel free to play if you want, I guess!

[celtfather]

St Patrick's Day and Month

Greetings Gunn Runner

And farewell February. Things might've run a little behind. But I made big progress this month. Especially with the release of my Kickstarter for Selcouth. I conquered my $5000 goal just a few days after it launched. It still has two weeks to go. So I'm feeling pretty good about it so far. But before we talk more about that, let's talk about...

Show #259

0:40 - PODCASTS

The Pub Songs Podcast is back with a vengeance. I am a podcaster at heart. I figured it'd be fairly easy to knock out completely live episodes of the Pub Songs Podcast to my Kickstarter every week. And I was correct. I recorded four new episodes so far. Which is good because in addition to promoting the podcast, it also allows me to keep to my initial schedule of how many episodes I want to release this year.

Plus, I love the format. I'm fine tuning it still. But it starts with a song. I go into some news, add a stories from the road, and a couple more songs. It feels good. Like something I COULD keep up every week. Though I don't plan to at present.

Stories from the Road is not getting ahead. But I have a lot of new content. So I'm staying on top of it. That's good because this is my Patron-only podcast.

I got ahead for the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast. But I already feel like I'm losing that lead I got. I want to try and knock out a bunch of summer episodes. But I'm stalling for St Patrick's Day. Sooooo we shall see. �� The In the ‘Verse podcast is coming. I apologize for the delay. But it's been crazy.

Course, that doesn't mean I didn't go ahead and setup the Cat Music Lovers podcast. The first podcast I ever published was the Cat Lovers Podcast. I created it to promote my Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers. But I ran out of time and had less interest in keeping it going. But I was still proud of that show. I was happy it was still available. Until I realized it was No Longer available. So I did a bunch of maintenance on the show. It should be back up on Apple Podcasts soon.

2:54 - VIDEOS

My voice is back. Which means Coffee with the Celtfather is back as well.  I feel like I've had some good shows. Though the attendance still seems a little lower than I'd like. Maybe I need to promote the show more.

That said, I am posting new videos on YouTube. And I'm working on a new strategy for the site.

My views have dropped dramatically since I deleted all of the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast videos. Now each video I post gets about 50 views. That's not too good. But it allows me to start over and decide what this channel will be.

So what will it be?

Family videos set to my music. I like doing videos of my family. It's extra cool when I can add in my own music to spice up the video. I haven't figured out how to name the videos yet. But these videos help me learn a lot about shooting and editing videos.

I have a new one featuring Inara. We went for a hike the other day. It was't too bad a video. My editing still needs work though

Travel videos. I recorded a lot of video these past couple o'years going on my Celtic Invasion Vacations. These are a great way to promote my trips. So I'm gonna keep editing these videos.

The sucky thing is that as I edit them, I realize I should've done this or that... Like in the latest video from The Fairy Pools on the Isle of Skye. I did a poor job filming. But there was enough footage that it's not too bad.

Song Performance videos. I thought I had recorded a lot of these videos. After reviewing my site, I realize I haven't. So I'm gonna keep recording me singing individual songs.

This is a great way to attract new followers of my site. So hopefully, you'll see more.

Celtic Geek Thoughts. I'm not yet sure how to do these videos or what content to put on them, aside from the Celtic Top 40 videos I wanna do. But I'll have to tell you when I figure that out.

10:26 - MERCH

My free CD offer went over GREAT last month. If you ever want to find out how many of your fans listen to physical CDs. Give one away. LOL. I had over a hundred that went out into the world. And of course, all you have to do is pay the shipping cost. You'll find a link in the shownotes if you want one.

Again the Kickstarter for Selcouth is going great. I'm $700 over my initial goal. Yes. My actual goal is to earn $7500. But at least my base expenses are covered. I CAN create a new CD. And I still have two weeks to go to hit my first stretch goal.

I ran into one interesting problem as the goal has started to stall out. That is, how do I keep up momentum. Seems like every time I post something fun or interesting, I get a spike. But I'm not the best storyteller I think. So that's making it tough.

I discussed this challenge with Andrew. He suggested that I bring people in on video to chat about it. I'm gonna try and do that the next couple o'weeks. Stay tuned...

12:06 - TRAVEL

The Celtic Invasion of Venice closed up. We have a very small group this year. And I can start planning for Scotland in 2021. But I'm excited to see what happens next...

12:56 - WEBSITES

With St Patrick's Day just around the corner, I started updating my Irish Song Lyrics website. I started this site years ago to promote my Celtic songs. Admittedly, I've done little with it the past few years, Except around St Patrick's Day.

But I decided to update it for two reasons. One, it's that time of year. And two because I want to get back to helping people learn these songs.

You see, the reason I started the site was to offer an incredible resource. How to play songs the way I learn them, by ear. There are just lyrics, chords, and music to listen to on the site. You can play along with me over and over again if you so desire. This makes it a lot easier.

I'm also trying to make it entirely about the user. I removed much of the advertising that was on the website. Now it's just the stuff you really want. It's an amazing, free resource. So go along with me.

14:15 - PROMOTION

I also had a new promotion idea I thought up recently using Facebook groups... Well, actually any online community.

I have two groups that I actively share to on Facebook: Celtic Geeks and Irish & Celtic Music Club. Most everything really goes to the Celtic Geeks group. If I find something I love, unless it's hardcore Celtic, I share it to the Celtic Geeks group.

That makes it easy. I don't use my personal profile. I share to an interactive community. It's awesome.

And that's the tip I came up with.

Instead of trying to share my music to your friends who may or may not share you interests, share to a group, where your interests definitely align.

I haven't seen many Gunn Runners doing that yet, well aside from Sarah, who sort of inspired this idea when she shared Selcouth to a Firefly fan group.

16:04 - SHOWS PLANNED FOR MARCH

I updated the gig calendar on my website. I'm using Google Calendars again. This is going GREAT for listing shows. You can see everywhere I'll be this year. And yes, it is fully up-to-date.

MAR 7: The Lost Druid, Decatur, GA @ 7:30 PM MAR 12: St Patrick's Day Internet Concert on YouTube @ 8:30 PM MAR 13: Interstellar Ginger Beer & Exploration Co, Alabaster, AL MAR 14: St Patrick’s Day at 5 Points, Birmingham, AL MAR 20-22: ConCoction, Cleveland, Ohio MAR 26: Tucker Brewing Company, Tucker, GA @ 6:30 PM

APR 4-5: Sherwood Forest Faire, Paige, TX APR 9: Internet Concert on YouTube @ 8:30 PM APR 11-12: Sherwood Forest Faire, Paige, TX APR 17-19: JordanCon, Atlanta, GA Weds 10:30 AM EDT: Coffee with The Celtfather, Facebook (Season 5!)

17:24 - STATS

Mailing list subscribers = 1038 is up from 1024 Celtic Music Magazine = 3963 is up from 3859 at the beginning of the year

YouTube Subscribers = 4441 is up 53 from 4388 YouTube Watch Time = 314.8K is up from 19.0K and 32.1K min from the month before YouTube Views = 8.5K is down from 8.8K

Facebook Likes = 3667 is up from 3666 FB Page Views = 501 is up from 392 FB Reach = 9214 is up from 8839 FB Video Views = 9485 is up from 8466

Spotify Latest Single Stats: "Slainte Mhaith Christmas": 3347 is up from 3310 is up from 3238 Spotify Latest Single Stats: "The Last Jedi Drinking Song": 832 is up from 696 Spotify Latest Album Stats: I Will Not Sing Along: 1.4k streams, "One Note Concerto in G" has the most streams

Spotify followers: 1476 is up 31 from 1445 # Number of listens on Spotify: 3266 is up from 2224 Most-popular songs on Spotify: Wild Kitty (1.6K), The Widow and the Devil (1.2K), Doctor of Gallifrey (567), When Kitty Eyes Are Smiling (331), Furagone's Wake (320), Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster (289), Reavers, Malcolm Reavers (264), Hero of Canton (224) Don't Go Drinking With Hobbits (162)

Top Irish & Celtic Music: 431 is up from 426 Firefly Drinking Songs: 103 is up from 101

PATREON

Patreon Subscribers: 155 is up from 151 Patreon Monthly Income: $1050 is up from $977

Thanks as always for supporting my music. Remember. You can help me create and release more music. Join the Gunn Runners Club to step behind-the-scenes with bonus podcasts, new music, videos, and live concerts. Slainte!

#CFMonthly

Check out this episode!

[chrisaldrich]

Domains 2019 Reflections from Afar

My OPML Domains Project

Not being able to attend Domains 2019 in person, I was bound and determined to attend as much of it as I could manage remotely. A lot of this revolved around following the hashtag for the conference, watching the Virtually Connecting sessions, interacting online, and starting to watch the archived videos after-the-fact. Even with all of this, for a while I had been meaning to flesh out my ability to follow the domains (aka websites) of other attendees and people in the space. Currently the easiest way (for me) to do this is via RSS with a feed reader, so I began collecting feeds of those from the Twitter list of Domains ’17 and Domains ’19 attendees as well as others in the education-related space who tweet about A Domain of One’s Own or IndieWeb. In some sense, I would be doing some additional aggregation work on expanding my blogroll, or, as I call it now, my following page since it’s much too large and diverse to fit into a sidebar on my website.

For some brief background, my following page is built on some old functionality in WordPress core that has since been hidden. I’m using the old Links Manager for collecting links and feeds of people, projects, groups, and institutions. This link manager creates standard OPML files, which WordPress can break up by categories, that can easily be imported/exported into most standard feed readers. Even better, some feed readers like Inoreader, support OPML subscriptions, so one could subscribe to my OPML file, and any time I update it in the future with new subscriptions, your feed reader would automatically update to follow those as well. I use this functionality in my own Inoreader account, so that any new subscriptions I add to my own site are simply synced to my feed reader without needing to be separately added or updated.

The best part of creating such a list and publishing it in a standard format is that you, dear reader, don’t need to spend the several hours I did to find, curate, and compile the list to recreate it for yourself, but you can now download it, modify it if necessary, and have a copy for yourself in just a few minutes. (Toward that end, I’m also happy to update it or make additions if others think it’s missing anyone interesting in the space–feedback, questions, and comments are heartily encouraged.) You can see a human-readable version of the list at this link, or find the computer parse-able/feed reader subscribe-able link here.

To make it explicit, I’ll also note that these lists also help me to keep up with people and changes in the timeframe between conferences.

Anecdotal Domains observations

In executing this OPML project I noticed some interesting things about the Domains community at large (or at least those who are avid enough to travel and attend in person or actively engage online). I’ll lay these out below. Perhaps at a future date, I’ll do a more explicit capture of the data with some analysis.

The largest majority of sites I came across were, unsurprisingly, WordPress-based, which made it much easier to find RSS feeds to read/consume material. I could simply take a domain name and add /feed/ to the end of the URL, and voilà, a relatively quick follow!

There are a lot of people whose sites didn’t have obvious links to their feeds. To me this is a desperate tragedy for the open web. We’re already behind the eight ball compared to social media and corporate controlled sites, why make it harder for people to read/consume our content from our own domains? And as if to add insult to injury, the places on one’s website where an RSS feed link/icon would typically live were instead populated by links to corporate social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In a few cases I also saw legacy links to Google+ which ended service and disappeared from the web along with a tremendous number of online identities and personal data on April 2, 2019. (Here’s a reminder to remove those if you’ve forgotten.) For those who are also facing this problem, there’s a fantastic service called SubToMe that has a universal follow button that can be installed or which works well with a browser bookmarklet and a wide variety of feed readers.

I was thrilled to see a few people were using interesting alternate content management systems/site generators like WithKnown and Grav. There were  also several people who had branched out to static site generators (sites without a database). This sort of plurality is a great thing for the community and competition in the space for sites, design, user experience, etc. is awesome. It’s thrilling to see people in the Domains space taking advantage of alternate options, experimenting with them, and using them in the wild.

lol, I agree #domains19 pic.twitter.com/aMdwJlhogr

— Lauren Brumfield (@brumface) June 10, 2019

I’ll note that I did see a few poor souls who were using Wix. I know there was at least one warning about Wix at the conference, but in case it wasn’t stated explicitly, Wix does not support exporting data, which makes any potential future migration of sites difficult. Definitely don’t use it for any extended writing, as cutting and pasting more than a few simple static pages becomes onerous. To make matters worse, Wix doesn’t offer any sort of back up service, so if they chose to shut your site off for any reason, you’d be completely out of luck. No back up + no export = I couldn’t recommend using.

If your account or any of your services are cancelled, it may result in loss of content and data. You are responsible to back up your data and materials. —Wix Terms of Use

I also noticed a few people had generic domain names that they didn’t really own (and not even in the sense of rental ownership). Here I’m talking about domain names of the form username.domainsproject.com. While I’m glad that they have a domain that they can use and generally control, it’s not one that they can truly exert full ownership over. (They just can’t pick it up and take it with them.) Even if they could export/import their data to another service or even a different content management system, all their old links would immediately disappear from the web. In the case of students, while it’s nice that their school may provide this space, it is more problematic for data portability and longevity on the web that they’ll eventually lose that institutional domain name when they graduate. On the other hand, if you have something like yourname.com as your digital home, you can export/import, change content management services, hosting companies, etc. and all your content will still resolve and you’ll be imminently more find-able by your friends and colleagues. This choice is essentially the internet equivalent of changing cellular providers from Sprint to AT&T but taking your phone number with you–you may change providers, but people will still know where to find you without being any the wiser about your service provider changes. I think that for allowing students and faculty the ability to more easily move their content and their sites, Domains projects should require individual custom domains.

If you don’t own/control your physical domain name, you’re prone to lose a lot of value built up in your permalinks. I’m also reminded of here of the situation encountered by faculty who move from one university to another. (Congratulations by the way to Martha Burtis on the pending move to Plymouth State. You’ll notice she won’t face this problem.)  There’s also the situation of Matthew Green, a security researcher at Johns Hopkins whose institutional website was taken down by his university when the National Security Agency flagged an apparent issue. Fortunately in his case, he had his own separate domain name and content on an external server and his institutional account was just a mirrored copy of his own domain.

If you’ve got it, flaunt it. —Mel Brooks from The Producers (1968), obviously with the it being a referent to A Domain of One’s Own.

Also during my project, I noted that quite a lot of people don’t list their own personal/professional domains within their Twitter or other social media profiles. This seems a glaring omission particularly for at least one whose Twitter bio creatively and proactively claims that they’re an avid proponent of A Domain of One’s Own.

And finally there were a small–but still reasonable–number of people within the community for whom I couldn’t find their domain at all! A small number assuredly are new to the space or exploring it, and so I’d give a pass, but I was honestly shocked that some just didn’t.

(Caveat: I’ll freely admit that the value of Domains is that one has ultimate control including the right not to have or use one or even to have a private, hidden, and completely locked down one, just the way that Dalton chose not to walk in the conformity scene in The Dead Poet’s Society. But even with this in mind, how can we ethically recommend this pathway to students, friends, and colleagues if we’re not willing to participate ourselves?)

Too much Twitter & a challenge for the next Domains Conference

One of the things that shocked me most at a working conference about the idea of A Domain of One’s Own within education where there was more than significant time given to the ideas of privacy, tracking, and surveillance, was the extent that nearly everyone present gave up their identity, authority, and digital autonomy to Twitter, a company which actively represents almost every version of the poor ethics, surveillance, tracking, and design choices we all abhor within the edtech space.

Why weren’t people proactively using their own domains to communicate instead? Why weren’t their notes, observations, highlights, bookmarks, likes, reposts, etc. posted to their own websites? Isn’t that part of what we’re in all this for?!

One of the shining examples from Domains 2019 that I caught as it was occurring was John Stewart’s site where he was aggregating talk titles, abstracts, notes, and other details relevant to himself and his practice. He then published them in the open and syndicated the copies to Twitter where the rest of the conversation seemed to be happening. His living notebook– or digital commmonplace book if you will–is of immense value not only to him, but to all who are able to access it. But you may ask, “Chris, didn’t you notice them on Twitter first?” In fact, I did not! I caught them because I was following the live feed of some of the researchers, educators, and technologists I follow in my feed reader using the OPML files mentioned above. I would submit, especially as a remote participant/follower of the conversation, that his individual posts were worth 50 or more individual tweets. Just the additional context they contained made them proverbially worth their weight in gold.

Perhaps for the next conference, we might build a planet or site that could aggregate all the feeds of people’s domains using their categories/tags or other means to create our own version of the Twitter stream? Alternately, by that time, I suspect that work on some of the new IndieWeb readers will have solidified to allow people to read feeds and interact with that content directly and immediately in much the way Twitter works now except that all the interaction will occur on our own domains.

Seeing good examples of existing domains is crucial for showing students what is possible in creating their own domain, says @CassieNooyen #domains19

— Mo Pelzel (@MorrisPelzel) June 10, 2019

As educators, one of the most valuable things we can and should do is model appropriate behavior for students. I think it’s high time that when attending a professional conference about A Domain of One’s Own that we all ought to be actively doing it using our own domains. Maybe we could even quit putting our Twitter handles on our slides, and just put our domain names on them instead?

Of course, I wouldn’t and couldn’t suggest or even ask others to do this if I weren’t willing and able to do it myself.  So as a trial and proof of concept, I’ve actively posted all my interactions related to Domains 2019 that I was interested in to my own website using the tag Domains 2019.  At that URL, you’ll find all the things I liked and bookmarked, as well as the bits of conversation on Twitter and others’ sites that I’ve commented on or replied to. All of it originated on my own domain, and, when it appeared on Twitter, it was syndicated only secondarily so that others would see it since that was where the conversation was generally being aggregated. You can almost go back and recreate my entire Domains 2019 experience in real time by following my posts, notes, and details on my personal website.

So, next time around can we make an attempt to dump Twitter!? The technology for pulling it off certainly already exists, and is reasonably well-supported by WordPress, WithKnown, Grav, and even some of the static site generators I noticed in my brief survey above. (Wix obviously doesn’t even come close…)

I’m more than happy to help people build and flesh out the infrastructure necessary to try to make the jump. Even if just a few of us began doing it, we could serve as that all-important model for others as well as for our students and other constituencies. With a bit of help and effort before the next Domains Conference, I’ll bet we could collectively pull it off. I think many of us are either well- or even over-versed in the toxicities and surveillance underpinnings of social media, learning management systems, and other digital products in the edtech space, but now we ought to attempt a move away from it with an infrastructure that is our own–our Domains.

[mishipcm]

One of the things that I love to do the most now is working out! I used to be so active when I was younger, but as I grew up due to so many responsibilities I let that go. I talked before on how unhealthy I was, and the things that I used to do before becoming lazy to not even wanting to walk for one minute. Back in the day I used to swim, belly dance, martial arts, yoga, ran, speed walk, danced in my room for hours, and I used to even lift weights. Also, I used to weigh 118 if not 120 so basically when I saw that I was at 120 I would rapidly go back down to 118. 

The question now is: How in the world did I bounce back to the lifestyle I had? I will be honest, I am still getting back to the old me one step at a time, and it is NOT easy. It takes a lot to wake up at 6 am, meditate, and get ready to leave by 8 am to work out till 11 am. Also, the things that I now eat is a night-mare even though I spice things up because I hate food that is not tasteful. I used to eat so many veggies, fruits, and I used to drink only veggie juice (disgusting) but with an apple…. it made a difference. However, I needed to find my motivation, and that is a few special events going on this year.

I won’t go into much detail because little by little I will be telling ya’ll what is happening, and not only is that my motivation but it is also the health that I have now. I hardly get sick, I get very active in the morning, I finish my tasks quicker, and by the end of the day I do not feel tired at all. There are days where I just want to be lazy, not do nothing, and zone out in my own world and that is okay! Being alone is also amazing because you get time for yourself, and reboot! My question is: What is your motivation? try to find something that motivates you to get up and going! 

A few things I do to get ready for my day are:

1. Meditate. 

2. Read my bible.

3. Put some bomb worship music.

4. Write my tasks for the day. 

5. Get my drinks ready. 

6. Eat: my meal preps.

7. Pray before I leave home. 

  That is all I do and before I forget here are some pictures that either my girl Nat saved, or I took out from memory lane. Maybe it is not a Thursday for #tbt but it sure is #MM which for me is: Motivational Monday!

    Now the next picture is a bitter sweet one because it was not only an amazing day, but also broke my heart into two. There is a big story behind the following picture which was where I started gaining weight. My cousin is with me in this pic (don’t we almost look the same though?! lol!). When I am ready I will tell the story to the stage of my life in which I was having while this picture was taken. 

In ALL of these pictures presented here were up to the age of 22….22 ya’ll!!! From that point on I started to completely lose myself each second at a time. It took me just a few years to be unhealthy, lose who I really was, and much more. However, I am thankful for each year, each experience, and every time I would get so mad because if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t be the person that I am now. 28 years old going on to 29, bouncing to the stage where I was good, and most of all getting myself back together in every aspect in my life. 

I can’t wait till I post up before and after pictures though!!! I have been only putting up pictures of my face instead of my whole self, but trust me I will soon. My body is slowly changing, clothes are starting to fit, and much more! Even my confidence has boosted up like how it was before. I remember walking into a room with low self- esteem, and not believing in myself due to the things I was going through. Now that I am more connected to the Lord, have the friends that were meant for me, and an incredible boyfriend everything is possible. Won’t he do it?! 

If you are struggling through something, and want to talk to someone send me a message I would be happy to help you out. Keep an eye out tomorrow because I will either put up blogging tips, singing tips, or even meal preps! Stay updated and do not forget to subscribe to my blog. 

Love ya’ll. God bless. Peace.

Michele C.

Motivational Monday One of the things that I love to do the most now is working out! I used to be so active when I was younger, but as I grew up due to so many responsibilities I let that go.

[crochetonthebrain]

As the past week progressed, I found myself full of ambition and drive to get things done on the blog. Like I keep mentioning, I have so many ideas that I want to implement. I can happily report that those things are (slowly) happening now!

Yesterday I tried numerous times to get on here and finish writing my Weekly Update. I did get bits and pieces of it done, but having a toddler means not always being able to do what I want to do, when I want to do it. Never fear though, I am here now 🙂

I’ve done some changes, both big and small, to the blog this week. The biggest change, I think, is its appearance. If you haven’t seen it yet (you’ve only read my posts through the Reader, for example), please do check it out (crochetonthebrain.com) and let me know what you think. I’m hoping that one of these days I’ll be happy with the look of it for more than a couple of months, lol. In addition to it’s appearance, I changed the tagline. It no longer reads “…and sometimes knitting too!”. The tagline now reads “…all the time!”. Since my knitting posts have become very few and very far between, I thought I’d just put all the focus on crocheting. This doesn’t mean that I’ll never publish a knitting related post, however. There will still probably be knitting posts occasionally.

I have also been trying to reach out to more people on more social media platforms. As of now, you can find me on

Facebook (the Fan Page  and my Personal Profile ),

MeWe (my Personal Profile …I’m still thinking of creating a COTB group there),

Pinterest (I have many boards there of all different topics, not only crochet click here to follow me ),

Google + (my Personal Profile and the Crochet On The Brain Community),

Ravelry (my Personal Profile , which you can follow to get to my designs page, or just click here),

and Tumblr (my Personal Profile).

As I get more time, I will try to set up more accounts on other social media platforms. I need to make sure, first and foremost, that I have the time everyday to check into all of my current accounts! Some days I never even get a chance to get online!

For now, it seems that Monday’s and Tuesday’s I don’t publish anything here, with the exception of today because I didn’t get a chance to publish this Weekly Update on it’s normal day yesterday (every Sunday). I seem to be using these two days for site maintenance, and of course, working on my WIP’s. I’m trying to figure out what I can regularly post on Monday and Tuesday, to keep the content coming in, fresh and new, to keep readers interested (and to get more readers, of course).  I would love to publish new patterns EVERY DAY, but it’s only me here and I just can’t work that quickly!

Wednesday’s are now “WIP Wednesday”, Thursdays I re-blog old posts (I guess making it “Re-blog Thursday”?), Friday’s I’ve been trying to publish new patterns (but like I said above, it’s only me here and I can’t work too quickly), Saturday’s I’ve been posting Round-Up’s, and of course Sunday’s are my Weekly Updates.

On my last WIP Wednesday I showed the progress on my “Grenadine” doll design.  Since then, I’ve made a fair bit more progress. In fact, she is almost done. She needs some more hair, some loose ends tied in, and a few decorations and embellishments.  Olivia can’t wait for her to be done, so she can play with her (and not get in trouble for it!). Here’s the most current photo of “Grenadine”:

A couple of days ago I also started re-making and tweaking my design for Olivia’s Kitty Cat. I let Olivia look through my stash of Red Heart Super Saver, so she could pick out the color to use, since this cat will be added to her toy box as well. Of course, she picked the brightest color, lol. Here is a pic of how the new cat looks so far (using the color “Flame”…orange):

It was very difficult to get a decent photo to show off the color. In the first photo I took of it, the orange was so bright it was blinding. So I put the cat infront of the window, using the natural lighting, and it dulled the brightness a bit.

On Thursday I re-blogged an old pattern, Ssstuffed Sssnake, which I created almost 3 years ago. Olivia loves playing with it (almost all of the toys I make find their way into her toy box, lol).

Friday I published a new pattern, Multi-Purpose Cotton Mesh Bag, which I originally began creating so I could wash crocheted face scrubbies in the machine, without losing them all. I’m thinking that maybe I should post a pattern for face scrubbies?

Also on Friday, I sent out a mass email to the Monthly Newsletter subscribers, dealing with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). I still plan on sending out the first monthly newsletter on June 1st, but as per the new regulations I need the subscribers to re-consent to being on the subscription list.  I lost a handful of subscriptions due to bouncing email addresses, and had a couple of people unsubscribe from the planned monthly newsletter. I was feeling a bit down in the dumps about it, but I’ve received some new subscribers since then, so I’m feeling much better 🙂 If you are on the subscriber’s list, please check your email folders. Not everyone has opened the email yet. I will, of course, resend to the list before June 1st when the planned newsletter gets sent out.

A new Round-Up was published on Saturday:  15 Free Tote & Bag Patterns. There are so many beautiful bag designs out there, I wish I could’ve included them all! I do enjoy creating these round-ups. It’s interesting finding all of these wonderful and unique designs! And it’s very inspiring, providing me with ideas for future patterns to make!

On a personal note, the weather has been great (as usual in this neck of the woods, however, there IS a small chance of much needed rain in today’s forecast), and so we have spent much time outdoors. Here is a variety of photos of Olivia throughout the week:

And I think that about wraps up this Weekly Update!

Enjoy your Monday, and Happy Hookin’!

~Amanda~

Weekly Update- May 20, 2018 As the past week progressed, I found myself full of ambition and drive to get things done on the blog.

[candyspices]

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