Jen

I feel like I ought to have more to say, but the last week has been more of the same: making bread (experimenting with sourdough, mostly hydration ratios, though I did do at least one pass at the cranberry walnut loaf and while it wasn't perfect it was good enough that I'm going to keep trying, it made excellent toast), noodling at writing stuff, and — well.

Last week, Maximo was like, "oh I'm not sick, it's just allergies" as he became, in short order, Very Goopy.

"I don't think that's just allergies," I said (helpfully! I am helpful). "You sound like a frog."

He rolled his eyes, but — well, dear reader, I was correct, it was a rather nasty headcold, one which he kindly passed on to me. It's been going around his work, evidently — everyone's negative for, well, everything (including Maximo), no fever/body aches/anything that would point to flu or COVID, just — goop. Good ol' rhinovirus, I guess.

Anyway, yes — he was like, "I don't think I'm sick", and then he was, I caught it from him, and thus had two days of sort of sneeze-y, goopy misery. Today is the first day that I've felt halfway normal since Thursday, and, well — ended up with a migraine, because the universe has a sense of humor. (Deep sigh.)

Was supposed to take a sourdough class that a friend of a friend was teaching and wanted feedback on; texted her yesterday thanking her for the invitation and telling her that in the interest of not passing along the crud, I wouldn't be going. So. You know. Boo.

Stayed home, obvs. Max went up to Salem to go meet one of his friends to play disc golf, since the weather was fine, and as soon as he left I went back to bed and didn't get up for a solid three and a half hours. Took pain meds, curled up in the dark, slept it off. Woke up not being entirely sure that words were, well, working, but mostly felt better, and have felt okay most of the rest of the day.

And, well, yeah.

The weather has been sort of shit lately — rainy enough that I can't start doing the outdoors stuff I want to do (clearing out raised beds, digging up the bulbs I want to get rid of in the front yard, because the hyacinth has more or less taken over the entirety of the corner and I am sick of it), also cold until today. It's actually supposed to snow overnight Monday, which is very ?! considering that today was 60F, and may explain the migraine (they are, alas, weather-linked).


The Fandom Trumps Hate (hereafter FTH) auctions wrapped this evening. Was sort of relieved to see that I got bids on both of them? Was half-afraid, going into this, that no one would bid on me — did actually have a couple of friends where I was like, "PLEASE, IF IT GETS TO THE LAST FEW HOURS AND NO ONE HAS..." — but, well, yeah. Did get bids! Got multiple bids, even, on the writing, which is still astounding to me, but FTH is one of the events that's for a good cause, so it's less, "ah yes, You Specifically are Desired" and more, "what you're doing is interesting enough and it's for a decent enough reason that no one's going to begrudge spending $5 on it". Though, er — I think the last bid for writing was more like $55? Which is, again, a bit "!!" to think about, but oh, well.

I won't find out about assignments until probably sometime next week, but I'm looking forward to it, so. Hoping that the second-place bidder from the writing auction also wants something, because A). More money going to charity = good, and B). They left a really lovely comment on something I'd written, which made me think, "ah, we have similar taste!", and so I want to know what they'd request, honestly.


Not much else to report, I think. Lots of grumbling re: physical health stuff (three migraines in two weeks, including one that more or less Lingered for three days) — the migraines were honestly what came up in therapy last, along with, "I know that rejection sucks but boy it really sucks" — and that's not terribly interesting to talk about, plus y'all heard from a lot as part of the Talking Meme Month stuff, so. I am still noodling over thoughts on writing for that, for the record, and when I finally have something coherent to answer the questions that were posed to me, I'll share it. It's very — mm. Part of it is that I'm reluctant to give advice on how to write, because I feel like it's personal/subjective, and what makes "good writing" depends on things like what the purpose of it is (e.g. is it technical writing, are you trying to convey information or instructions, are you telling a story — and if so, what sort of story) as well as your own personal style and preferences. I'm never going to write like Hemingway or Dickens, but I'm not particularly fond of either of their styles (nothing against them, really), so of course it's not going to sound the same, and if someone comes to what I've written looking for that, they're going to walk away annoyed.

I can talk a lot about how to develop the habit of it, which is how I think you get better, but...I mean...it also feels very deeply weird to position myself as an expert on this when I have recently gotten rejected. I haven't done anything meaningful with writing in about fifteen years — I mean, I write for myself, and it's fun, but I definitely haven't met the publication goals I set out to, etc, and so there's this feeling hanging over me of, "man, do I have enough know-how to feel comfortable answering this stuff?"

I think the answer is yes, with some hedging, but, well.

We'll see.

Watch this space, I guess, in the meantime, and I will probably try to throw up something coherent once my head is no longer actively trying to kill me.