#one time somebody made a comparison about the blog and walking through a garden and it made me weepy i can't even lie

[crossbackpoke-check]

nosy anon again making a return because i think what my brain did was read that i helped find some kind of writing and then did not fully process what the writing was?? but upon rereading i am very intrigued if you ever get the urge to share i will be all eyes/ears/senses required to enjoy things!!

I GET TO DO WIP WEDNESDAYYYYYY!!! the writing exists mostly in the form of a tag (fantastic! 'verse) and also a thirty-two page doc of snippets and planning, so the sense you will be using most is imagination:

don't think i have ever actually formally written out anything about fantastic! 'verse but! the tl;dr of it is that it's a semi-college au: joel is still a hockey player for the lv phantoms, but morgan is a college student-athlete. it's incredibly relevant to the plot that joel falls in love with morgan in the check-out line of a wegman's, lies a little bit, and ends up going back to get his degree.

most of it is just good fun about college kids growing up, but i think there's a lot of parallels between making your way through a development system where traditional "success" isn't always guaranteed (ahl -> nhl, completion of higher education -> pursuit of a career) because that development system isn't always designed for you to "succeed" or have opportunities. heavy quotation marks around success because part of that struggle is learning what you want in life and how you define success. are your dreams achievable? are they still the same dreams you always used to have? it's infinite branching universes of would you still love me if i was a worm (ahl player forever) (a college dropout) (a college graduate) (older) (realizing the fallibility of your body) (uncertain of the future) (human).

silly little snippet:

[philly-osopher]

C, H, N, P, U! (I hope you're done working for the day cause I don't think this is what "yelling at you if I see you post" looks like tbh.)

C: Which character do you identify with most?

So here’s a thing that may come as a surprise to readers of this blog: it’s not John Laurens, although I love him very much. I am far more pragmatic and less angry than he is, and I self-flagellate much less. I am also not as stupidly reckless– in fact, I think of myself as very cautious. But I admire his idealism and his bravery a lot, even as I can see where the extremes of those traits lead him to tragedy. That sense of such great potential, along with all the details we have on him due to @john-laurens​‘ fantastic and tireless research, is what draws me in.

Okay so I explained it’s not John. I definitely projected a lot of my mannerisms/ quirks, especially anxiety-related ones (memorizing data, making lists, talking to myself, getting really insistent and precise with words) onto Macaroniverse Alex. That said, musical!Alex doesn’t really have those traits. But in terms of his ambition to Be Somebody in his field and his willingness to work really hard to do it, sometimes to the detriment of… uh… everything else in life? The way he likes to plan? The enjoyment he gets from discussing ideas and constructing arguments? Those things definitely speak to me.

H: How would you describe your style?

Versatile! I try to adjust my style to what I’m writing, and I’m pretty proud of my ability to switch because it’s something I’ve worked on a lot. Even between third person Alex and third person John in Macaroniverse, the voices are different; Alex gets longer sentences and more looping/ leaping, while John is very concrete and linear and pretty bad at noticing his own emotions. For example, John:

The plastic bag inside the box slides out and he spills Cheerios all over the floor. Then he can’t work broom and dustpan at the same time, so he ends up picking up all the spilled Cheerios and throwing them in the trash one by one. Then he can’t get the milk carton open. He almost gives up, because Cheerios without milk are just not fucking worth it, but something in him refuses.

Hemingway might approve, if not of the content, then at least the sentence length and structure. (Actually I kind of like the Hemingway comparison because his is the Stoical Manpain voice and John def has a little Stoical Manpain going on in this story, the silly dear).

Versus Alex:

And even though he trusts Herc to be careful with his pins, and not to judge him for the enormous quantity of free dental dams and condoms he steals from the table outside his door, and to help him discriminate between normal-sick and dangerous-sick… he doesn’t trust him with this yet. He should—he really should.

One, Herc owes him for agreeing to serve as his mannequin after his poor sweet Thimbleina was stolen by a bunch of giggling tri-Delts on a scavenger hunt. (Not that Alex minds getting to model Herc’s edgy, sculptural creations every once in awhile. They make him feel badass. Particularly the poison-green women’s blazer currently taking shape on his shoulders.)

Two, Herc’s also first-gen, he was born in Nigeria, he knows what it’s like to stick out like a sore thumb. Alex frowns. Does that metaphor make sense? Why do sore thumbs stick out? Are they swollen or something? What happened to Herc’s poor sore thumb? In this case, was it sore from the hammer-blow of class, racial, and native-born privilege?

See how he likes to make lists? And starts running with sentences and just kinda… keeps going with them? And how he gets distracted and goes off on mental tangents and has to loop back to the topic? He’s not disorganized to himself, he just has a different system. With his stories sometimes I struggle to get in-voice and sometimes I have the opposite problem of keeping everything from exploding into the confetti shower that is Alex’s inner monologue.

For canon-era stuff I try to use a totally different voice, which isn’t authentically 18th-century but has absorbed approximately that flavor from all the Patrick O’Brian I’ve read. From the rivers/ guns sequel I’m working on:

On the mudded-out track through the endless woods and rolling hills of central Pennsylvania there walks a woman—young, clad in widow’s black, the heavy fabric falling round the gentle swell of her belly. Her black hood is cast down to shield her face from the wind; her head is bowed but her back straight. Before her the sky is clear and blue in all the glory of early fall; behind her it is ink-black and uncanny, and uncanniness clings to her skin like the smell of death clings to men off the battlefield. No band of brigands dares accost her; no friendly washerwoman inquires if she is well, if she needs a bite to eat, what business a woman in her state has on the road. The uncanniness holds them back—well, that, and the creature that scuttles along at her heels: low-slung, many-limbed, panting and coughing and drooling ink from its gibbering mouths.

I count three semicolons, one colon, two em-dashes, and 22 adjectives. Hemingway no longer approves. He’s coming for me with a big knife. If you never hear from me again, you know whose ghost to blame.

N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?

Yes, but thank god @herowndeliverance​ is writing it already.

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

Here’s what happens, most of the time. I get an idea for a passage of dialogue or a premise or an ending to a fic. I’m nowhere convenient to write (usually walking somewhere or at work) so I write it down in the notes to my phone and then think on it obsessively for the rest of the day, trying to turn it into something story-shaped. I get home and try to capture what I thought of. Inevitably something isn’t working and I have to talk/ appeal to someone to get the idea loose. Mostly I do this by shouting at my friends in messages and then going back and copy-pasting the whole conversation into the document.

So, I think I end up planning quite a lot, even for shorter stories. Even if I don’t deliberately outline, I’ve at least gone through the story several times in my head before I start typing.

For longer stories, like the rivers/ guns sequel excerpted above, I outline before I get started, but inevitably things will change and evolve as I’m going. Sometimes when I garden too much my inner architect has to tear out the gardens I made because they’re in the wrong places or they don’t match the house, which is always a sad process. In fact, as I’m writing I’ll actually tell myself when something isn’t working, like Philip thinking, this is so dumb, why am I acting like this? when I was trying to take a plot shortcut that unfortunately led to Bad Characterization. That’s a sign more planning needs to happen.

U: A pairing you might like to write for, but haven’t tried yet.

I’m not naturally inclined to do much in the way of shipping, and my Lams obsession is actually very out of character for me. But I’d love to do more of Laurens and Lafayette interacting, because whenever you think about their characters, there’s some very clear compare-and-contrast you could do. @your3fundamentaltruths has also convinced me that there’s a lot of potential with stories featuring John and Angelica, although I can’t ship them because I headcanon John as Kinsey 6 100% Gay.

I also haven’t written any Mariliza, even though I think there could be potential there. Obviously not in the canon timeline, because Eliza would probably rather slap canon!Maria than just about anything else, but in an AU where Maria and Eliza meet before Maria and Alex do? You could see Eliza being the Concerned Mom Friend when James Reynolds is being terrible to Maria, and being moved by how hard Maria tries to protect her little girl (maybe Little Eliza and Susan are friends in preschool and Eliza and Maria start talking when they set up a playdate?), and wanting to help her. Actually, you know what, I don’t really ship this but if somebody wants that premise it’s up for grabs :D

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by Pat Henry on The Prepper Journal.

Cliché alert!!! – Someone once said (don’t really care enough to google who) that “You should only look back to see how far you have come”. A lot of what we do in the world of prepping is a comparison and contrast. We look at what the guy writing the blog has and turn to look at our own survival preps and judge some of our worthiness/readiness on how we add up. It’s a different take on keeping up with the Joneses but I think most of us still look to others as a yardstick to see how we measure up.

//

I know that I certainly looked at the stated supplies of others when I first began to get into prepping and maybe that is a natural trait of us humans – some extension of our social or survival instincts. Imagine a caveman walking around and he sees his buddy walking around with a new saber tooth tiger pelt wrapped around his hairy butt and thinks to himself, ‘hey, I could use one of those’. Then somebody thought of putting Molle pouches on that pelt to hold the caveman’s fire making stones and Boom, the survival market was born.

And maybe there is nothing wrong with comparing yourself to other people, at least as long as you don’t feel inferior if you don’t have what someone has or covet what they have in order to take it from them. I personally see gear I would like to have all the time and have since I started prepping, but I don’t compare myself to other preppers as much anymore. I don’t feel like I have anything to prove when I discuss my personal preps. Maybe it’s because I know you can never win that game.

Lessons from a Prepper

I thought of this topic today, like I do so many other topics in a completely random fashion. Sometimes I have to ponder several hours or days for an idea. Other times, like today, they just pop into my head walking down the hallway. I thought that maybe it might be of some value to share some prepping lessons that I have learned in my personal preparedness journey that hits 10 years old this year. It is my hope that some of these lessons will resonate with you and give you comfort, ease any disquiet you have or maybe a laugh. If all else fails, you can look at how silly I am and feel better about yourself. Caveman!

The world is not ending tomorrow

Preppers and survivalists (small S) come to this site and the subject of Preparedness/Self-Reliance for a lot of reasons, but I will propose that most reasons for prepping have Fear at their root. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t consider fear a bad thing at all. We are given the gift of fear so that we will be cautious when we need to. We have a sense of danger that warns us and I have relied quite successfully on this many times in our life. I prepare because I don’t want bad things to happen to my family. Now, that doesn’t mean I walk around scared but it did prompt me to action. You should take whatever motivation you have and act on it, but relax more often that you are uptight. I lived with the near certain expectation of doomsday, economic collapse or government tyranny for the first few years and guess what? We are still here. Don’t get so wrapped around the axle that you alienate family or make bad decisions. Chances are you have plenty of time to get ready.

Unless it does

But, now that I have said that – it’s easy to fall into Analysis Paralysis. For those who don’t know what that means, it is taking too long to make a decision or take decisive action. You have to poop or get off the pot. I know some preppers who have made extremely lengthy and detailed spreadsheets with tabs broken down in all the categories of their prepping supplies – hundreds of rows long. They have calculated the difference from one item to the next in price (shipping included) over 4 vendors. What’s worse is they keep this spreadsheet updated frequently but never purchase any of those prepping supplies. They know what they need to start with, but can’t seem to pull the trigger. The prepper that has nothing but a really great plan won’t be much better off than the person who is caught completely by surprise in a disaster. I recommend starting small, but obtain the basics you need to weather bad events and build as you can. You don’t have to purchase 3 years of freeze-dried food on day one, but don’t sit there and wait for that awesome survival knife to drop another 55 cents. You need to ensure you have the basics.

‘Two is One’ is a clever saying to get you to spend more money

And since we are talking about purchasing prepper supplies – you have all heard this one before: Two is One and One is None. That just means if you only have one of something, let’s say a headlamp, and that goes out or is lost, you have nothing to fall back on. Logic says, that makes sense, right? Redundancy is another word we love to throw out there which means essentially the same thing and I am not saying you don’t need redundancy, or even more than one headlamp. What I am saying is that you shouldn’t apply this to your bug out gear. I have a YouTuber that I really like who shall remain anonymous, but his bug out bag weighs 65 pounds!!! Why? Well, for one thing he has A LOT of redundancy in there. Many knives, saws, clothes, methods of food preparation, etc. Use your judgment on this.

Your Bug Out Bag does not have magical properties

And speaking of Bug Out Bags, they are not a get out of disaster free card. A bug out bag in a best case scenario just gives you options. Simply having a bug out bag doesn’t mean you get to live and everyone who doesn’t have one dies. I fully expect many preppers to have their bug out bags taken off their lifeless bodies because they got cocky, or just unlucky by some opportunistic soul if the worst happens. Bug Out Bags are a means to an end, not the end all be all. Prepare with them, but take their life-saving properties with a grain of salt. They can only hold so much and real disasters suck no matter what you have on your back.

You will never have enough stuff

I wrote a post a while back titled, Are you Ready for the End of Prepping. It’s basic message was that no matter how much water you have stored, how many pallets of MRE’s, tins of survival seeds or cans of Beanie Weenies you have stocked under your bed – eventually it all runs out. If we really go through a real-deal SHTF incident, your supplies are only going to last so long – so the smart money is on planning now to live without all your food storage, electrical tools, generators and anything else you won’t be able to maintain without the assistance of outside help. Yes, start prepping with the basics you can purchase at the store. Begin with a week, but I don’t think you need to sink a year’s salary into food. Start planning a garden instead or look at taking that money and buying a piece of land far outside of the city.

Prior military service doesn’t necessarily make you better qualified to survive

And this is coming from someone who is ex-Army. Yes, when you enlist in the service you get different types of training and much of this has ties into the world of prepping. Depending on the Service Branch, you learn marksmanship, weapons maintenance, team tactics, first-aid, navigation and how to generally break stuff and blow it up. That doesn’t make you a survival expert and doesn’t make you a natural leader. I know some preppers who like to lean on their past service and we aren’t all created equal. Would you give someone who never saw combat the same authority on ambush tactics for example as someone who did 4 tours of Afghanistan? No. But on the flip side, that soldier that did 4 tours (thank you) might not survive any easier than the single mom who is prepared. Different skill set? Absolutely, but that doesn’t guarantee survival or that they know everything. Now, would I love to have 4 Navy seals in my personal circle of friends if SHTF? Of course, but don’t believe for a second that you can’t survive because you have now “official” training. Personal will is a HUGE factor in survival. If you have that, you are in good shape.

Plan on self-reliance, but don’t turn away help

The Lone Gunman is the image a lot of you think of if some disaster happens. You will walk stoically out to the small clearing overlooking the smoldering ruins that used to be the city you live in, taking in the scenery you will turn and walk into the bush – those fools didn’t know what hit them. It’s a good movie plot, but as a society we survived by banding together. Yes, you can survive on your own for a while, but in order to thrive you will need others and it’s better to learn to start playing nice now. Think about how you can survive with as many people as possible. You will be stronger, more capable and you will have more people to talk to when the internet is gone.

You will never know as much as you should and maybe that’s OK.

If I was independently wealthy and didn’t have a wife or kids, or a dog I could devote myself to learning every day. There are so many subjects I wish I had the time to learn. Maybe it’s an excuse, but with a job and simple responsibilities of mine, free time is a luxury I don’t get much of. But, just because I can’t take Krav Maga classes 5 days a week, compete in a CrossFit marathon, learn Morse code and small engine repair while I practice the finer art of leatherworking and blacksmithing in between classes for my EMT certification – that’s OK. I have a pretty good bit of life ahead of me and I have time to learn as much as I need. I won’t get hung up on what I don’t know because I won’t compare myself to other survival experts.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Prepping is a lifestyle, not a destination. You can never be Prepared as if that was a mythical position you could obtain. Can we all be more prepared for a wider array of things? Yes and can that mean the difference between life and death? I think so. But you can’t buy the complete package of Prepping on Amazon. It’s a journey we are all waking and it will take forever to get there.

I’m glad you are with me. Let’s keep looking forward.

The post A Prepper Looks Back – 10 Years of Prepping Lessons appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag