#my goal is to have a finished first draft by sunday and i'm well on track in that regard

[sol-flo]

btw the masters project is going very well actually! i'm at around 1.5k words and pandoc is outputing in the proper expected format. still plan on writing a bit more about the theory side of things because i haven't read shit and wanna make clear that i intend to find something to read. bataille will be unavoidable i fear.

[writingquestionsanswered]

"Probably one of my biggest writing-related takeaways of 2023 was the brain science behind being overwhelmed by writing. So often, we put so much pressure on ourselves to meet goals, and get so frustrated with ourselves when we fail, that we end up making writing time something that fills us with anxiety. So our brains perceive that activity as a threat, which makes us want to avoid it."

I'd love to learn more about this cause it's my biggest problem when it comes to writing. The avoidance of the task, but it also manifests also as feeling overwhelmed by writing a long story/novel.

Some Brain Science Behind Avoidance

I encountered this idea of fear-based avoidance in a few workshops and summits over the past year, but I have to give a shout out to author/coach Monica Hay whose "Overcome Writer's Resistance Bootcamp" explained it the best. I can't find my notes so I'm going from memory here, but the gist of it was that our brains are hard-wired to avoid things that make us feel fearful or uneasy. This is an evolutionary throwback to when those instinctual feelings helped us steer clear from danger. As I remember Monica putting it, "Don't go that way, there are cheetahs there that will eat us."

So... how does this apply to avoidance of writing?

When we heap unreasonable goals and deadlines on ourselves, and berate ourselves for falling short of them, we inadvertently turn writing into a stressful activity. So, when we sit down to write, our brain picks up on that stress and says, "Don't go that way, cheetahs will eat us," and your gut instinct tells you to avoid this stressful activity at all cost. And then it becomes kind of a vicious cycle because you feel even worse because you're avoiding writing, and that makes you feel more overwhelmed and makes writing more stressful, and well... you can see the problem.

The solution? De-stress the writing process for yourself as much as you can. Start by de-stressing yourself when you sit down to write... take a relaxing walk first, do some yoga or a meditation exercise, or try some grounding techniques. See if you can do some things to make your writing environment more relaxing and inviting. Put on some soft lighting and relaxing music, use your favorite method to lightly scent the air, grab your favorite drink and snack. Then, just try to move the needle forward in any way you can.

My suggestions: try editing a sentence. Maybe see if you can add a paragraph or two. Don't think about deadlines or word count or what others are doing. Just focus on adding something to the page, even if it's changing a word or adding a sentence. Don't push yourself. Congratulate yourself on whatever progress you made. Ultimately, if you do this every day, the stress should start to melt away and writing becomes an activity that your brain no longer tells you to avoid.

Another suggestion: try to avoid setting arbitrary deadlines, or if you have to set a deadline, take a look at your schedule/calendar and be really honest about how much time you actually have to write. Because so often what happens is we say, "I want to finish this 80k word draft in eight weeks..." but the reality is we're not going to write all 56 of those days. In fact, when we take an honest look...

-3 days per week for days with both class and work = 32 days -5 days for a cruise next month = 27 days -1 day for bestie's birthday celebration = 26 days -Sundays because that's hiking day = 18 days Suddenly, that eight weeks is actually only 18 days... and that's not even taking account things that come up unexpectedly. But, let's say you do get to write all 18 days, and let's say you know you can commit three hours a day to writing but you'll probably take two ten-minute brakes... so 48 hours worth of writing. But here's the problem: you know on a good hour, you're probably only going to write 1200 words. And guess what: 1200 words per hour over 48 hours is only 57,600 words... far short of your 80k goal... and that's assuming you get to write all 18 days and hit 1200 words every hour you write. In other words... you've set yourself an impossible deadline, and when you fall short of it without understanding why, you're going to be disappointed in yourself. And that's why it's so, so important to be honest about the time you have and how much you can reasonably accomplish within that time. Also: just don't be hard on yourself. It will never make you write faster, more, or better.

I hope you can use this to overcome your own resistance to writing! ♥

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[comesitintheclover]

Six Sentence Sunday Monday 📚📜🖊️

Thank you so much for the tag @bookish-bogwitch! your chart is awesome!

I will remember to try that/ a similar thing if I keep having issues with this fic I'm writing (but I should at least try to slog through a first draft of my trouble chapters first - i just get so anxious that I will fuck up the funny-conflict and make it miserable or something when it's 'perfect' (but vague af) in my brain and has been that way for 4 years...).

And thank you everyone who has tagged me in the last months/year <3 @nausikaaa, @ileadacharmedlife, @monbons, @supercutedinosaurs, @brendughh, @rimeswithpurple, and anyone else if I missed you because my tumblr notifs won't go that far back 😭💗💞💖 I love you all! Thank you for including me in the community even when I haven't been writing for a while! It's been so inspiring seeing what you all have been up to and I've finally started writing again so yay!

My goal is to finish this fic I've been writing for four years (i've written what I'm estimating is 50k words freehand and am transcribing and editing them onto my laptop and I still need to write the other half ... hahahaha 😅. But I love it. ) called *The Long Summer*, within a month (the first draft at least, I'll come back and edit it at a later date. I want to post it on ao3 over a summer so hopefully I will be ready next summer! I need to write it while I still love it!), and then I want to write the first draft of an original story for a month or so/NaNoWriMo, and then I will pick one of my Carry On WIPs to work on (hopefully just in time to celebrate snowbaz's anniversary!)

(The Carry On WIPs in question: I'm thinking I will probably pick my soulmate au fic called Meet the Parents/When You're an Adult You'll Understand, or a trans au called Fraternity house, orrrrr this magical Agony-Aunt fic called Basilton Grimm-Pitch’s 10 Step Plan for Getting Over*(letting himself be in love with) Simon Snow ).

And I'm planning to interact more with wip-wednesdays and six-sentence-sundays from now on to keep me motivated and accountable! (hopefully this works, battling my motivation is like trying to wrestle a fish or something... i'm constantly at a loss with my brain - oh why won't I do things that I love and have time to do??)

....Oh and I want to make some Carry On animations.... (this is probably why I don't do things... Too ideas many and hard to pick. I tried to make a schedule last night that included everything I wanted to do in a day and it was 35 hours long... oops).

*The Long Summer* is a harry potter fic, and since I know all of you lovely people from Carry On, and I know lots of people avoid hp stuff for obvious reasons (JKR is wrong! Trans liberation now!), I will keep the rest of this under the cut <3

here are the first six sentences from my 💗beloved fic💗:

Ron Weasley wasn't an introspective soul. By the time something actually rolled around to happening he would probably have had twelve chances to predict it, if he was Hermione. He presumed something like this would never have happened to Hermione. Summers were probably a lot more quiet in the Muggle world, as an only child, with parents who weren’t - well Hermione was so smart she probably already knew, no there was really no reason to write to her. And Harry - well he didn't want to write to Harry about it either.  Honestly, it would probably be better if he never found out.

(I wrote these when I was 16 and they may need editing but that's for future me to worry about - rn I'm trying to push out a first draft as fast as possible...)

Thank you to anyone who read this far!

Hi!'s, tags, and hand-hearts to everybody 🫶 @stitchy-queerista, @umdiasujo, @carpeosculum, and open tag to anyone who wants to be tagged! <3

[starlightkun]

sorry if you've gotten this ask before aljrksjd

you don't have to answer this, but I just wanted to know how you write longform fics or just long pieces in general. it's one of the things I've struggled with as a writer, and I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how I could go about it or do it.

I'd be so grateful if you could provide some advice or suggestions 🥹🥹

i want u to know that i saw this ask when u sent it, but i had a 5hr drive today and wanted to make sure i had time to answer this!! it's under the cut bc i yapped a bit <33

so one thing that i feel the need to say up top is that i never go into pieces with a "goal" length/word count (often times my fics end up being longer than i expected/intended). because i never really write with the goal of a specific length in mind, these are things that i think have helped me write more cohesive and narratively fulfilling pieces in general, which tends to make my fics longer

my first thing is planning/outlining!! i used to just write my fics start to finish in one go with little to no planning, and since i've started slowing down and taking my time outlining/planning beforehand (and even during the drafting process i continue adding to my outline), i've seen the average lengths of my fics go up a lot. you don't have to have every single scene, moment, and piece of dialogue planned out before start writing (lord knows i never do), but you should have a pretty good idea of the major story beats, character dynamics, and any important conflicts, and make sure it's written down in a way that's easy for you to refer back to while you write. never think you're gonna keep it all in your head

build out your characters' lives!! i love introducing a good b-plot involving the main character's friends (see: strawberry sunday) that doesn't take too much attention away from the main plot that it seems out of place, but instead complements the main plot and allows there to be space in between those major plot beats for the readers and the characters to breathe. it also helps make your characters feel more well-rounded and real to the readers if you throw in a scene of their daily life at school or work or with their friends/family both to add texture to them but also to your world. it can also be good to use an establishing scene towards the beginning of their daily life, then a similar one towards to the end that shows any character development, or some other impactful change that happened during your story. instead of just telling us that everything in your character's life changed, show us how it did (or didn't! or maybe it only changed a little, but the little change was important, too)

in a similar vein, build out your world!! im not saying to spend ten pages describing an intricate magic system to us that has little bearing on the plot itself, but feel free to weave in extra details about where/when we are and how the characters interact (or dont!) with the world around them (even if its our normal old world in the modern day)

and i mean i guess my last thing that's really helped me is just sort of getting out my head when it comes to writing? like, not forcing myself to write everyday, not having any sort of word count goals, no posting schedule, etc. just letting myself sit with my ideas for a while and really play around and have fun with them. it's made writing fic something that i look forward to doing when i come from work, or when the weekend is approaching, and i genuinely am making probably my favorite things that i've ever made right now. and they happen to be pretty long!!

i've talked some more about my writing process in some other asks (x, x, x, x, x, x) and i have a writing tag where i post about more general writing stuff if you want to hear me yap some more

[at-thestillpoint]

40 questions meme: 11,13 and 37👀

[forty questions!]

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

I don't really think of writing as a passion or a hobby. Rather, it's something I feel compelled to do. (I realize this is incredibly self-aggrandizing phrasing. I don't mean that I feel called to it, but rather that there are questions or scenes or potential worlds I'm moved by and can't get out of my head, except by writing them.) But also, I love words and language and picking apart how we put them together to make people feel things. I enjoy playing in that sandbox—the act of writing—and at the end of the day, I write because it's what I want to do most with my free time (and even more with my not-free time). So I guess, in that sense, it is both.

Though, really, is writing actually fun?

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Deeply paraphrasing here, and others have said this much more eloquently, but simply: You can't edit nothing. None of the other advice matters until you have that first, scrappy draft, so get it down on paper and go from there. (I am not taking this advice very well right now.)

37. Talk about your current wips.

My current WIPs are, unfortunately for all of us, the same WIPs I have been talking about for a good six months, plus a few more! Below the cut because I have SO MANY??? (Send help.)

We have on the TG:M docket:

The other FWB fic (love you like a lover should): The Google doc for this was created in March 2023! It is still nowhere close to being done! This is the story that started as a foray into Rooster/Phoenix and quickly evolved into an exploration of Hangman/Phoenix if Phoenix had an unrequited crush on Rooster but started banging Hangman instead.

The Olympics AU (no rules in breakable heaven): Exactly what it sounds like! And also a past lovers to exes/enemies to angry lovers to second chance romance fic. (How many tropes is too many tropes?) I had a good two-day run with this during NaNo, but then work knocked me on my figurative ass, and I haven't been able to make progress since then. My goal is to finish this before the opening ceremony this summer. This is looking less and less achievable.

The politics AU: This is mostly just vibes right now. It's very roughly outlined, but the words aren't flowing yet. I got the idea futzing around on Pinterest and realizing Glen Powell really does look Like That. I'm also just really compelled by different permutations of ambitious woman/arrogant asshole, and the political world is made for stories like that.

wreck my sundays: I heard Maggie Rogers's new single and needed to write something, because "My friend Sally's getting married / And to me that sounds so scary" resonated a little too hard, while "take my money, wreck my Sundays" wrecked me. This will have a spot of fake dating. I want to keep this in the 6,000-7,000 word range, which is ironically what's keeping me from writing it, because my deep-seated need to provide context and world build is making it too verbose, and that is not a rabbit hole I want to go down.

For other universes, we have:

the truth about dreams: A Sally-focused companion piece to i dreamed you a sin and a lie. For some reason, it's been a lot harder to write this one. (Some reason: Poseidon's POV is much more interior, because it's all speculative. To give Sally's POV justice, I actually need to build the world.) And yes, I did have fun looking up songs with "horse" in the title, because I am hilarious. What serendipity that Horses fits so well.

An untitled coda to The Artful Dodger that explores what would happen if Governor Fox gave Jack a pardon, from the Governor's perspective. Governor Fox's "my wife and daughters think I'm a simpleton, and they're probably right" got to me the same way Daisy Buchanan's "a beautiful little fool" line did. There is something there and it is incredibly compelling!

[tamtam-go92]

2023 Tumblr Goals

('cause this won't be just about simming)

No. 1 goal this year is to finish my part of the Somerset Legacy. I plan to be really consistend about playing now and play them every Wednesday after my fitness class. I don't know why I'm struggling so much with playing them. Maybe it's because I just don't play supernaturals much and the werewolfyness of the main family makes it really hard for me to play them... But we can do this!

2nd is to post about my new years resolution! I plan to read at least ten pages of a book each and every day (mostly right before going to bed). So far it's going great xD managed 31 pages up until now xD I have a whole shelf of books I once got from an eldery Lady that moved to a retirement home and since she knew me as a child when I would always have a book in my hand, she gifted me her whole collection of books. I didn't keep them all, since I didn't have the space but about 150 are left and I haven't read more than five out of those so far. I still think a lot about that Lady, don't even know if she's still alive... Well, I plan to post a little recap after reading 100 pages of the current book and a "review" after finishing it. The first book the randomizer gave me to read was "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck and so far I like it. I read another one of her right after getting those books from he Lady and really liked it.

3rd is about start posting about the Uberhoods I've been playing when I wasn't feeling like playing the Somersets. I already drafted some classic Uberhood posts but I refuse to post them until the Somersets are finished xD Also started that custom Uberhood I once told you about which I'm really enjoying! I plan to play those 'hoods on the weekends. Classic Uberhood on Saturdays and custom one on Sundays.

Lastly I would really like to finally play a Decades Challenge. I've been wanting to play one since 2021 and never managed to get into it, but it's my plan to really start it after I hand over ther Somersets. I have it all planned out, but really need to sit down and research on clothing and buildings and of course find the fitting CC... If anybody can help: I'm looking for American 1890's CC to begin with. I don't know how this eara is called for the US so that makes searching even harder.

And that's it! I try to keep it low this year xD I can't keep up with my own standarts anyway if I make it too high performance xD So again, I wish you all a wonderful year 2023 (today is the last time I'll say this) and see you all around!

[bookshelf-in-progress]

It's a good thing I put in the surprise bonus short story category, because that's all I wound up finishing this month. Four flash fiction fairy tale retellings! (Kind of five if you count my edit of "A Day Late" to see if I could get it down to under 1,000 words.) It was a fun and useful writing exercise--it was nice to have stories that I could whip up in a couple of days, and it gave me a chance to fulfill one of this year's goals of editing my fiction (lots and lots and lots) instead of immediately posting first drafts. One of the pieces is one of my favorite retellings I've written, and I very much like the other three (though one of them needs some work in the believability department). It was so much fun to come up with fairy tale twists and then write them so quickly.

I did want to try to whip up a "Tattercoats" or "King Thrushbeard" in the last couple of days of March so I'd have something to post for Easter, but "King Thrushbeard" turned out to be a jumble of two incompatible ideas that didn't translate well into prose, and I just ran out of time for the "Tattercoats". I do have several ideas for that fairy tale I'm focusing on right now, and I'd like to see if I could finish one by next Sunday.

I think the window for "Maid Maleen" might have passed, though. I didn't have time to write when I was excited about it, and the enthusiasm faded, and now I can't bring myself to read the original draft.

"The Twelve Dancing Princesses" could be an easy project to finish, if I could just buckle down and do it.

Potential March Writing Goals

Complete at least two of the following:

Finish and post the Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling

Write a Tattercoats or King Thrushbeard retelling

Edit the Maid Maleen Retelling

Surprise bonus short story (because I know how my process works)

[yvesdot]

Since that zine got all the stretch goals reached, will you be releasing that vampire as liberation essay? I wanted to buy that zine so bad, but my own financial issues came up at the same time so I couldn't. But, I'd love to read the essay.

Good question! And my apologies for being silent on this-- though I asked about the orders (WE HIT 100!!!) shortly after the sales closed, I've been so busy that I haven't had time to look over the essay (originally written for a university class [ew]) yet. Since I work so sporadically, I didn't want to give a specific date and risk not meeting it.

Also, don't worry about not being able to buy the zine! I completely understand. I personally bought two extra copies so that people who know or meet me IRL might be able to buy one in the future if they weren't able to do so this run. Something Weird I Heard About Rebecca will ALSO go up for free on this blog once the zines have been shipped and are arriving with buyers, so don't worry—you'll still be able to read the story!

It's also really sweet of you to express interest; I often have no idea who is reading my work (or whether anyone is) so every ask like this is a big flare in the night, letting me know that readers are out there! I also know how intimidating it can be to send in asks, so another big thank you for inquiring (●´ω｀●)

tl;dr it's going to happen ASAP and thank you for asking!

However, if you want to hear more...

Disclaimer that this is not to make you feel guilty about my having a lot of work!! I just want to clarify what on Earth I've been doing this week to make it so busy. I will admit that some of my being 'behind' on things is due to a few days of sheer terror over unexpectedly testing positive for COVID (despite being a/low-symptomatic, thank God). Also, I just enjoy talking about my writing, so there's no pressure to read this if you're not interested in Everything I Am Working On Right Now.

With that said, if you are interested, here's the current list of priorities.

Patreon gets planned in advance and executed the week each post is 'due'. Done with everything for this month but the Newsletter, which I won't have to worry about for a week now (until the 24th, basically).

HOUSE RAINIER is a Choose Your Own Adventure x RPG x word crawl event I am running for Camp NaNo. I know from experience that I need to finish writing it ASAP, or I will not have time to get feedback or edit it by the time Camp begins... and I need all of it to be done, 100%, by the time I run the event. So I am finishing that this Sunday or Monday, if all goes well.

Patterned Seats and In Her Arms critique. I got critique on Patterned Seats this last week. I got critique on In Her Arms... let's not talk about that right now. The point is, I never organized these into usable feedback documents, so I have to do that before every individual feedback letter immolates itself.

YOU ARE HERE! The Vampire As Liberation. This is next on the list. Tragically, HOUSE RAINIER is a 20-page document, and the critique thing is moving slowly as a result.

LIT198A-02 students, put your hands up! I'm teaching a creative writing class, and I wrote a demo outline to show people... how to outline. Now I have to look it over, ensure it's readable, and figure out whether it's too long to assign as reading (vs. assigning some portions). This is 'due' by January 24th.

I recently got edits back on a piece submitted to a magazine, and they want another draft back in ~2 weeks. So: roughly before February begins.

I'm also in a workshop. Aren't I always? For this one, I'm writing a piece called Lend a Hand, Or a Knife, because we are writing fresh new things for workshop. This is the first time I have ever mentioned it on this blog. Fortunately, it's only a bit at a time, so I can work around it.

I'm still reformatting Exhaustively for print, and I recently hit a stumbling block with the subjectivity of How To Format. This is not a priority in the sense that it has to happen in some time frame, but I promised it to Max @goose-books, so I am going to get it done. Making books takes time...

Does anyone remember Forest Castles? I haven't edited it in a really long time—over a month, what with December's housekeeping and January's rush with the COVID and the sudden Camp NaNo planning.

I never finished the KAY outline. I worked on it during #10Kin1Day, and I got a lot done (10,000 words!), but there's still more to do. I'd like to do it. You can probably imagine from this list why I haven't done it...

I also wanted to edit my WIP pages to make them more comprehensible and accessible, and I have some pieces to submit hanging around my Drive. I even know where to submit them-- I just haven't had a minute to sit down and send them out! Hyeek!

I'm also realizing this schedule might look a little daunting... it doesn't feel that way! At least, it does not feel negatively daunting. It feels inspiring! I've got a big mountain to climb, which is just the way I like it. If you'd like to see me chip away at all this, come by a Twitch stream!

And, on behalf of everyone who might have been wondering what I've been working on lately but was too afraid to ask... thank you for asking!

[herdeepesthoughtsblog]

Life Lately

Hey guys! So this was supposed to be TSC 5th, but I didn't posted last week because, well, you know life happens.

I had a lot to do and even though I am really setting aside time to pause and reflect, write for myself, it's just that... stuff pile up pretty quickly and after crossing one to-do's, there's another one that I forgot to do way back two weeks ago.

See, procrastination deteriorates your productivity. So never again! If you have something you can do right now, at this very moment, do it right now.

Besides, if it's important to you, you will MAKE THE TIME.

Well, lesson learned. This safe haven of mine, my tumblr blog is important to me. Not only bc it makes my head clutter-free but also bc this is my only way of a creative outlet for now.

So, not gonna promise, but I'll try to be at least consistent here in this space. As if someone's reading here or stalking me or anything but, I could care less.

Curious? Let's get this Sunday rollin' baby!

CURRENTLY

READING: The Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I need a quick escape from my last reading, The 4-Hour Work Week... Still haven't finished it yet! Although I'm on the last part of the book, I need to desperately drag myself just to get by to one chapter a day. I don't want to give it up yet but Idk, I'm not in the right motivational space to continue either. I've been meaning to buy new books from my TBR, can't believe it's been two months and I'm still on the shelf-control and book buying ban phase.

WRITING: My pending article from my writing gig (hope to finish even just the rough draft tho!) I'm a week late but well, great quality writing takes time, yes?

LISTENING: Lady Marmalade (brushing my basic knowledge of the romantic language, French) yet I speak like a dummy 5 yrs old.

THINKING: A lot of things. It seems like every drawer on my highly-organized mind is open wide and I can't even proceed on how and where to start, what to share or whether what is okay to share.

SMELLING: Hand sanitizer neutral scent and my freshly clean furr balls!

WISHING: For extra hours beyond the 24 hours a day?

HOPING: That this coming week will be full of fulfillment, accomplishment, joyful intentions, good news, and abundance + blessings.

Well, I have one good news to share! I got the job offer!!! Still can't believe it. Idk, it seems surreal, I'm still in that shookt stage. But this is real, it's actually happening. I have accepted it and signed. I'll be committed into this.

I am ethereal grateful for all the opportunities that came my way, and God answering my prayers. He really does listen.

So it means that, this is it! This is the one big shot I've been chasing all my life and I can't wait to start working soon!

I've already secured and achieved my main goal for this Q1. I'm forever thankful, blessed, humbled, and happy. Patience is really something I got to work out! But in the end, it all turned out fine.

I feel like everything is now falling perfectly into place. I am contented in my life and glad about the little things. Even just having a warm cooked meal makes me melt.

This is it! This will be my stepping stone towards achieving that career.

I also hope that I'll be able to process the pre-employment requirements within this week. I'm just a bit nervous because of all the waiting game, the time it would take to get cleared and verified identification, all that stuff. I hope I can start afresh, renewed, and at my best. No more follow-ups, I hope I'll be able to complete it this week!

WEARING: An oversized sports tee, with comfy shorts.

NEEDING: More assurance, I guess? But where else I could have it? I have to train to calm my mind first and don't be a fucking nervous-wreck.

I also need a new haircut! Maybe I'll cut my hair short because new job, new look! And also I'm inspired by Aileen Xu of Lavendaire about cutting hair can also means cutting those old energies that are holding you back.

This will be a perfect opportunity for me to start fresh and confidently, of course. I think I also need to spice it up a bit by hair coloring. Any suggestions?

FEELING: Stoked! I have a lot to look forward this week and can you believe after that, we're on the 3rd month of 2022?

Today's a cool day anyway, 02-20-2022

A lot of 0s and 2s.. My boyfriend notice.

So anyway, looking back at the past week, I do enjoy our Valentine's. We eat out dinner at this aesthetically pleasing fishing vilage resto near the area. We exchanged gifts and we celebrated in love and peace.

It's also the week I received the best news in my life and I received a huge opportunity that I can't pass. I don't want to screw it up. No pressure because, I'm just plain happy, I got my dream/ideal job, it was offered to me, they were keen in selecting me. I was humbled by the experience, I don't want it to stay too much in my head.

What I'm really overjoyed is that this particular job is at the top of my list and all the parameters I set, it even exceeded my expectations of that. Location wise, career or job role wise, etc.

Dreams do come true, do they?

IDK anymore, all I know is this is it! I'm commited to this, I'll do my best. God let me have this once in a lifetime opportunity for a reason. The right reason.

My ticket to thriving career and successful life. Parents, friends, pi, self, I'm gonna make you all proud. This is all for you!

Another highlight of my week is we finally got the vaccine booster shot. Thankfully we were given a choice so I chose Pfizer, bc why not?

But then it made me weak for one whole day, my right arm swelling in numbness and internal pain. Some sort of mild side effect. But I'm cleared and all good!

So, I hope you had a great week and more amazing days to come.

I hope that whoever has read this, I hope you're in a perfectly fine condition. You are healthy, you're safe and I genuinely wish you all the best in life.

Let me leave with you this life verse of mine.

Psalm 37:4: Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Be patient, God moves in a very mysterious way and He uses people to get to you. Have faith that He will give what's best for you. He knows what your heart desires, now wait for Him to move in to your life.

Besides, if it's not meant to be, He will closed the door. Think of it as Him making a way to protect you from future pain. Trust that He knows better.

I'm not a religious freak but I believe in one certain high being. I know deep within that there's a more clear, calm, confident, and all-knowing voice guiding me.

Trust the universe and your intuition.

Believe me when I say that the universe couldn't care less about your shit. Get it together babe. No to conspiracy theories or whatever.

Happy and Blessed Sunday!

[thisnerdsadventures]

a summer to remember

hello friends, i definitely just abandoned this whole blog, now didn't i

well i am happy to report that i am still alive, and am thriving!

Here's a rundown of everything that has been going on:

[inserting a readmore because this is long af]

May

So in May, I was definitely just all over the place because I was 1) trying to finish a paper published in a conference!! it literally drove me insane. anyways, then i had to go and finish a 78 page thesis, which involved a really convoluted timeline because i had to finish it ~ a week before the actual deadline so my PI could read it over, but then i had to finish it a few days before THAT so my PhD supervisors could read it over, which meant that i had like one (1) week to write like. all of it.

Luckily I had most of the first half already written, during whatever shitshow April was (April was a lot of coding for the paper, and then not having time to write my thesis). But THEN i had to organize all the data from my own personal experiments, make figures, and draft the entire results section. AND i had like two final reports to do for my class, so my last weeks of academia looked like....

Of course, the day before my thesis was due, I pulled an all nighter, because, of course. What other way would I ever end my academic career. Submitted it though, and I graduated! [LINK TO MY THESIS]

Also! I got vaccinated and felt like death for a whole day, but then my friend came over and we ate fried chicken and watched this show called Miraculous, which is a kids show from France, but for some reason is actually hilarious and really entertaining. Then I felt better, so I proceeded to work on my thesis.

Also, I guess I should talk a little bit about the class I took this semester, which was an industrial organization economics class. We looked at things like how different markets are organized, why they are that way, what market concentration means, how mergers affect competition, and what kind of effect that may impose on consumers. For the final case study (which, I will say, I wrote like 2000 words in a single day, so . applause for me), I looked at the Nvidia-ARM merger and how that may or may not affect competition in the GPU market, the CPU market, and the mobile chip market. I think my analysis was a little bit more surface level, which was fine for me, since I'm by no means an economics expert or even remotely should have any expectations at all, but I read a lot and learned a lot and that's the goal!

So yes, my brief excursion into the field of economics was overall positive, I feel like I learned a lot and now I can read financial articles about the tech industry and not be completely lost, which, again, was the goal.

But yes, May was a lot of work, and once it wrapped up, I got to spend a lot of time with friends post-vaccination! After the 1 or 2 week mark after my second dose, I started going back to the gym, especially to play basketball with folks, which I had missed a lot. I spent a lot of time at my old dorm just hanging out, and got to have a cute salmon dinner over at my other friend's place. And we made cheesecake too.

June (MA->NY->MA->CA)

I finally went to visit my best friend in New York. I hadn't seen her in > 400 days, so it was really a very anticipated event, except we saw each other across the crosswalk, but then the light took like five minutes to turn green, so it was really anticlimactic. Anyways, we ended up bumming around New York and Long Island for a week, and it was nice to spend some time with her after such a long gap.

We spent a day at a vineyard and I fell asleep so

After getting back to Boston, my mom came back from Taiwan to help me move out of my apartment. It was a lot of finding people to sell things to, sweating because it was very hot that week, and praying everything would work out (it did). I also got to have a few final meals with various friends and my mom and I got to take one last lark down the Infinite, which I was really grateful for because it was the first time visitors got to go inside campus in over a year.

Also got into my school's MBA program! Yes i applied to a deferred program (which is like you get into a program, but you don't have to go for 2-5 years, as a way of getting in right after undergrad/grad school, but then accumulating some work experience first). It was hilarious, I was literally shopping in my campus store for a new sweatshirt and I got a phone call from the admissions office saying I got in. My mom had been pushing me to apply to grad programs, and I didn't tell her about it because I didn't know if I would actually follow through. But I got to surprise her with the news, and she was so happy she did the whole "calling all the relatives" thing again.

After flying home, I told myself I'd read more and exercise more, which I have been doing. I got a membership at Planet Fitness, which has been really good for me (going 3x a week), and I've made my way through at least 5 books this summer so far. My holds list at my local library is literally insane. (For recs, I recently read Normal People, which I absolutely devoured, and In the Dream House, which hit really hard for me.)

This summer was also really about reconnecting with high school friends. All three of us were unemployed, with plans to come in the fall, so we were all free to hang out all the time. We started out at the local library planning out a road trip, and we worked out a few times together, and a few coffee dates too. We took a fun day trip down to LA one day, and we visited Malibu, went to the Getty, hit up some local food places in the city. Driving down the PCH with Taylor Swift blaring and the windows down on a hot June day, just hits so different. There is nothing like it.

My friend's birthday was in June, so we put together a little video for her and bought some jewelry, and had a Zoom call to celebrate. Then I got BBQ with some friends and sat in the parking lot eating ice cream until 11 at night just trading stories from our pasts. It felt like the perfect summer life, just staying out until whenever, grabbing food wherever we wanted, with friends I had had for literally a whole decade.

It was already a really good summer, but then July. July was crazy.

July (CA -> MI -> CA -> NV -> CA -> WA -> OR -> CA)

So one Sunday morning, I woke up to a text

Actually, I'm going to do a separate post on the whole Michigan trip because that sh** was on another level of spontaneous, impulsive, crazy life stuff. But anyways, so July started off with a trip to Michigan to visit my friends, and then I came back for the 4th, had 36 hours of rest before my high school friends and I went on a road trip.

This road trip was a little ambitious. We hit spots all up California, from hiking in Sequoia Nat'l Park to Kings Canyon, driving up to Sacramento and visiting art museums, and then going up to Tahoe but staying in Nevada, going kayaking and hiking and sitting on the beach for hours. It was reallllllly hot, but luckily I don't think it ever broke 90 degrees. The views were beautiful, especially at Kings Canyon. The drive in, you're surrounded by huge rock walls, with a thin river rushing by next to you. The hike itself literally feels like you're in nature, like the trail is somewhat defined but not paved, there are no sounds of traffic, the path isn't heavily trafficked so we were the only ones there for the most part. We even saw a deer and washed our faces in the river. Throughout the whole thing, we climbed into so many waterfalls, trying not to slip on rocks.

I hadn't been to Sacramento in over a decade, but it was a cute day trip. There isn't a ton to do there, but it was a nice reprieve from the constant driving and nature. We visited the Leland Stanford Mansion, the Crocker Art Museum, and Old Town Sacramento. A good chance to get a nice coffee, a sit-down meal, and some air conditioning. At Tahoe, we went kayaking on Pope Beach, with the clearest water I have ever seen, followed up by a hike up to a beautiful view of the Lake.

On our way back, we stopped at a lot of interesting places, like small towns like Lee Vining, where we found an Upside Down House; Manzanar, the site of an old Japanese internment camp during the WWII era (which also hit hard); and Randsburg, a literal living ghost town. Overall, getting to travel with my friends finally was so fun, they were so much fun to be around for five days, and getting to explore so much of California was so fun - even though I'd been here for so long, I never knew these places existed.

So I came back and had around 48 hours to recover before my mom and I took a trip up to the Pacific Northwest!

I've always wanted to visit Seattle, and figured I'd hit Portland on the way too. We originally wanted to go to Hawaii but it got so expensive by the middle of the summer, so we decided to stay a little closer to home (probs the better decision bc I was already so tired by this point).

Seattle! Got to visit Pike Place Market many times, grab some coffee at the original Starbucks, see Mt. Rainier, and grab food with three friends! Also went to Bainbridge Island for a day which was SO cute - got to do an olive oil/balsamic vinegar tasting, which sounds so extra, but is actually really unexpectedly fun. At Starbs, I did a cold brew flight, which resulted in a rough night of tossing and turning for me, but I think it was worth it. Other things included the Pinball Museum, Space Needle, and Chihuly Glass Museum!

So I lowkey really wanted to visit Portland because I wanted to achieve a long-lasting dream of seeing an NWSL game in person. So I went to the Thorns Pride game!!

The Thorns fanbase is actually insane, I cannot express to you, like there's this whole fan section that actually did synchronized cheers and routines and was actually ROARING when they scored the entire game. I swear the audience was actually watching them at points instead of the match. Overall, the stadium was going crazy, like I thought I was at a tied Celtics-Bucks game with how loud it was in there. Also I swear, Ali Krieger made eye contact with me and waved.

In addition to that, Portland also has a huge rose garden, a nice Japanese tea garden, a lot of good donut stores and a huge bookstore, so all very up my alley. We also took a day trip to see Mt. Hood and more waterfalls!!

That's a summary of the SEA - PDX trip. Once I got home, my high school friends and I did not waste any time on reuniting to hang out - we went and played ball, grabbed lunch, and then coffee, and then did the same exact thing like two days later and watched a bunch of TikToks, and then spent a whole day at the beach to send my good friend off to medical school in Arizona. They somehow convinced me to go in the water and I got body checked by a wave.

Saw this sculpture on the beach and teared up a little

So proud of my friends for making it to med school, I am so excited to see them at their white coat ceremonies and beyond, I swear I will cry at every step of the way I'm so happy for them. Now that July is pretty much over, most of my fun summer plans are too, and I finally get a chance to catch my breath from that busy busy month. Spending a lot of time watching the Olympics and trying to muster up the motivation to start a fulltime job in < 1 month!!

Overall, I feel like I've been having a really solid summer given the year that was the covid year. I had a Lot of fun, literally probably two summers worth of fun consolidated into one. I think in the beginning of the year, I really wanted this summer to be good, and I didn't have a lot of set plans for the summer, even by the end of May. But somehow, things came together, like Really together, and I had the best summer of my life in this summer 2021. On top of that, I'm reading more than I have since probably middle school, I feel the most in shape that I ever have, I can DRIVE NOW. Only thing that would've made it better was if I got to go back to Taiwan to visit the fam, but unfortunately I can't go back because of strict travel restrictions there and they had a COVID outbreak too :/ I still got around 3.5 weeks of summer to go, so we'll see how the rest goes :)

[whipplefilter]

Can you make some kind of cute fic with Ryan Laney in it? I dunno, just something with him doing something cute like he is with those cute teal eyes!! (I'm using cute too much x3) I saw he is your new 2nd fav next gen after Jackson, so, I thought I'd ask! :)

The Next-Gens are all about their racing simulators, sure. But I love the idea of some of them playing like, distinctly nerdy non-competitive, non-action-based games. XD The game Ryan and his mysterious friend 2020 are playing in this fic is like… some weird cross between Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Star Wars, and Age of Empires. XD

Fic: 2020

Ryan Laney has a secret.

At 9PM on Fridays, Ryan winds down from practice by logging in to his favorite video game. It’s an MMORPG–and no, it has nothing to do with racing. At 9PM on Fridays, Ryan’s not a professional racer. He’s a moisture farmer on Tatooine.

His goals are simple: Farm enough moisture to make a decent living; maybe send his nephew to college. Find a girl. Level high enough to build that bomb shelter so he can survive the airstrike in Level 5 (something he has failed multiple times now).

“I’m telling you, I don’t think it’s possible to buy the Mega Drill and then have enough credits left over to not starve to death. You can’t get the shelter unless you co-invest. We need to team up,” he says over his headset.

“It’s possible. You just have to play a perfect game.” says another player–Hindsight2020. Right now it’s just Ryan and six other guys on Tatooine, and the other guys have their mics turned off. It’s not exactly the most popular game.

“Okay, but that’s stupid. Why would you run the same level for 50 hours just to figure out how to get a perfect score, just to get this dumb bomb shelter? If you give 500 and I give 500 we can just buy it right now and move on to Level 6!” Ryan counters.

“So perfection is stupid? That explains a lot about you.”

“I’m just talking about straight-up efficiency, man. Besides, we’re moisture farmers. The whole point is to work together.”

“You know that transport that crashed back in Level 3? I salvaged radioactive lead from it. I could contaminate your whole mine if I wanted to.”

“Cool,” says Ryan. “Go for it.”

Hindsight2020 farms some moisture. He re-tarps his garage. He adds a sand sculpture to his front yard. He doesn’t poison anything. Because if he takes Ryan out, it’s just him and six boring dudes–one of whom is building a sand castle so large he definitely has to be pouring real money into this dumb game.

Frankly, Ryan’s surprised Hindsight2020 hasn’t dropped some cash into it, just to show castle guy up. Ryan knows he’s got the finances, and he’s definitely not lacking for spite.

“Did you read the new rules package yet? The new aero specs look good; I’m pretty stoked,” Ryan says to 2020.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” 2020 replies.

“Okay.”

Ryan barters some moisture for clay from a neighboring planet. He’s planning to retrofit his well. If you’re gonna play a perfect game, he figures, he’s going to have to level up his well.

“Can I trade you for some of that?” asks 2020.

“Whatever,” says Ryan. But he flips to the trade screen to see what 2020’s offering.

500 credits.

For a bit of clay that’s probably worth half that, at best.

With an extra 500 credits in the bank, Ryan’s got his bomb shelter.

Ryan’s never really thought about what his fellow players look like, on their side of the screen. One of the things he likes about this game is that it doesn’t matter who you are: On Tatooine, you’re all moisture farmers. But he wishes 2020 could see his face right now. He doesn’t have words to convey his surprise.

He clicks ‘Accept.’

Within minutes, Ryan’s got the bomb shelter that will save his life about half a level from now, and for the first time ever, he’ll finally get to see Level 6. Rumor has it the Trade Ship starts selling new kinds of drillbits, which is exciting.

Ryan scrolls to the other side of the planet, where 2020’s farm is. He’s redone his roof yet again. With the clay, he’s made himself a patio painted xylophone colors. It’s…nice, Ryan supposes, but 2020 obviously knows it’s all about to be obliterated. He knows that air raid’s coming.

When 2020 notices Ryan’s cursor hovering over his house, he says, “Watch this,” and starts clicking the tiles. For the first few seconds, it’s just a mess of noise.

Then it’s Doo-DOO-do-do-do-DOOOO-do do-do-do-DOO-do dodododo-doooooooo. Which is still basically a mess of noise, but it’s a mess of noise Ryan instantly recognizes as ‘Star-Wars-theme-played-on-tile-xylophone.’ It’s pretty freaking awesome.

“What happened to ‘play a perfect game?’” Ryan laughs. “Dude, this is amazing! You’re amazing.”

“It’s just a stupid game,” says 2020.

Five minutes later, Level 5’s air raid comes and Ryan is safe in his bomb shelter and 2020’s xylophone house burns to the ground. Ryan doesn’t have to put the fire out–it’s a waste of water, frankly, and it’s not like it’ll bring 2020 back; Game Over in this game is Game Over. He does anyway, though.

On Sunday, Ryan Laney is racing for third. More specifically, Cruz is racing for third. Ryan’s caught in her dirty air, and is flopping all over the freaking place. Ryan can’t hear the announcers, but he’s sure they’re having an absolute field day with this. He feels more like a flag than he does a car that’s ever gonna win one.

Then something tags his back bumper. Just a tap at first, then sustained contact, shoving him up the field. The added momentum settles him some, and he finds his line again. His speedometer crawls 1mph faster, 3 mph faster. It’s not much, but it’s enough.

It’s Storm behind him.

The second Ryan noses past Cruz, takes the angle from her and drops her back to fifth, Storm lets up off Ryan’s back and passes him easily. But now that he’s out of Cruz’s air, Ryan’s got third in the bag. It’ll be his highest finish all season, and Storm knows it.

“Dude, what’s with you and Storm?” Bubba asks him after the race. “Lap 290, he was totally helping you out.”

Ryan brushes him off. “I dunno, man. He hates Cruz; I was a convenient prop. It’s not like it kept him from beating my butt afterward. Storm’s just a weird… weird strategic mastermind dude.”

“Whatever you say.” Bubba keeps an eye on Storm, who’s fielding an interview on the other side of pit row.

“You jealous?” Ryan teases. “Don’t worry. You’ll always be my #1, Bubs.”

It’s Friday again, and Ryan logs into his moisture farm on Tatooine again.

2020’s there, too.

“Hey man,” greets Ryan. “Thanks for the bump-draft the other day.”

“You keep saying stuff like it’s supposed to mean something,” says 2020. “I’m not your diary. I don’t care about your life. Are we gonna split the bomb shelter this time or what?”

Ryan grins. “Sure thing, 20. Can you do that xylophone thing again? But like, inside the shelter this time?”

“I don’t do encores,” says 2020. “Watch this, though.”

2020’s a freaking showoff, but Ryan doesn’t mind.

Ryan Laney has a secret.

[tenminutemisconduct]

Hi, I was just curious because I'm kind of still new to hockey and I don't really understand how the draft lottery works and I saw you answered an ask about expansion drafts that seemed pretty clear so could you maybe please do one about the lottery? (don't worry if you're busy or anything, but any help would be appreciated!)

This has been sitting in my inbox for forever because this semester has been kicking my butt, but I do think this is important info, especially with the shifts to accommodate the Golden Knights into the lottery.  

As with my explanation of the expansion draft (which you can find here), a lot of this has been modified from info provided by the NHL. My goal is to make this as clear as possible, but feel free to shoot me an ask or a message if you have any follow-up questions. 

I’m putting most of the break-down below the cut since this is gonna be long. 

THE BASICS: 

This year’s draft lottery is scheduled for Sunday, April 29th, 2017 in Toronto. The broadcast starts at 7:30 pm est, but the lottery itself is supposed to start “shortly after 8 pm est”. 

The lottery is used to determine the top 3 overall picks of the draft. The 2017 NHL Draft Lottery will consist of three separate drawings: the 1st Lottery Draw will determine the team selecting first overall, the 2nd Lottery Draw will determine the team selecting second overall and the 3rd Lottery Draw will determine the team selecting third overall.

Each team in the league gets 1 pick per round, so the lottery determines the order of the first 1/10 of the first round. In the grand scheme of that draft, that seems tiny, but as we know, getting to draft a first-overall player can make a huge difference in a team with solid pieces already in place (looking at you, McDavid). 

Which teams are eligible? 

The 14 teams that didn’t make the playoffs (e.g. the Carolina Hurricanes), plus the Vegas Golden Knights. 

Note: If a team traded their first-overall pick for this year to a team that made the playoffs, the team who acquired that pick is eligible for the draft in place of the non-playoff team. For example, if the Winnipeg Jets had traded their first round pick to the San Jose Sharks, the Sharks would get entered into the lottery even though they made the playoffs and the Jets didn’t. 

Okay, but how does it actually work? 

Basically, every team gets different odds based on how well they did during the regular season. The worse the team finished, the higher their odds of winning the draft. This doesn’t necessarily guarantee you the first pick, though. Let’s look at the 2015 Draft again. The Buffalo Sabres finished with the worst record in the league. However, they selected second overall, while the Edmonton Oilers, who finished 28th in the standings, won the lottery and drafted first overall. 

This season, it’s a little different because of the addition of the Vegas Golden Knights. The Knights are being given the same odds as the team that finished 28th overall (so third-worst in the league). They are also guaranteed not to draft lower than sixth overall in the first round, even if they don’t win any of the top three picks. 

Since there are now 31 teams instead of 30, that lowers the odds of all the teams in the lottery winning. 

Once the lottery for first overall happens, the odds for the remaining teams will increase on a proportionate basis for the 2nd Lottery Draw, based on which team wins the 1st Lottery Draw, and again for the 3rd Lottery Draw, based on which club wins the 2nd Lottery Draw. Basically, if you don’t win the first draw, there are fewer teams entered in the next draw (14 instead of 15, then 13 instead of 14). For example, if the Arizona Coyotes win the first overall pick, they can’t win the second or third overall picks, so the other non-playoff teams have a greater chance of winning. 

The 12 teams that aren’t selected in the Draft Lottery will be assigned NHL Draft selections 4 through 15, in inverse order of regular-season points. So let’s say that the top three picks go to the Arizona Coyotes, the Colorado Avalanche, and the Vancouver Canucks. which happen to be the bottom three teams from the season. After those teams, the New Jersey Devils have the worst record, so they would select fourth overall, followed by the Dallas Stars and so on and so forth. 

Here are the calculated odds for every team eligible for this year’s draft lottery: 

Non-Playoff Team(Fewest Pts. to Most)   OddsColorado Avalanche   18.0%Vancouver Canucks   12.1%Vegas Golden Knights *   10.3%Arizona Coyotes   10.3%New Jersey Devils   8.5%Buffalo Sabres   7.6%Detroit Red Wings   6.7%Dallas Stars   5.8%Florida Panthers   5.4%Los Angeles Kings   4.5%Carolina Hurricanes   3.2%Winnipeg Jets   2.7%Philadelphia Flyers   2.2%Tampa Bay Lightning   1.8%New York Islanders   0.9%

I know some of this is a little wordy and a little complicated, but hopefully this clarifies it at least a bit. Like everyone else, I’ll basically be screaming my way through the lottery, the expansion draft, and the draft, so I’m here if you have any more questions.