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Question Annual "State of the Elrod" Address to a Joint Session of Whateley

6 years 4 months ago #201 by elrodw
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    • Morning. Day 5.
    So far, it's a reasonable morning. Quite sore because I didn't sleep well, and all that tossing and turning made my knee quite sore. Plus I missed a pain pill.
    When I got up, my wife had the dogs at a vet appointment. So I got the morning prep done, and most of the migration to the sofa. Also got a wee bit of breakfast - not enough mind you, but I need to save up my energy for later. Could I have waited for my wife to get home? Technically yes. Practically, no. She was a bit tired last night (Tell me about THAT) and snapped that I was a bad patient and too demanding. So now I'm physically sore, tired, and emotionally battered as well.

    Fortunately that hasn't impacted writing - in fact, it's improved things, because I don't give a fuck about what anyone at home wants. I got 10 or 11 pages written between Wed and Thurs. Now if I could only get my wife to listen to what the fuck I say and pay attention to the fact that I really REALLY don't like tons of background noise, which she specializes in making.
    Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
    6 years 4 months ago #202 by Kristin Darken
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    • Noise cancelling headphones. They're not even all that pricey these days.
    Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
    6 years 4 months ago #203 by elrodw
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    • True enough, but the point I no longer wish to surrender on is that I AM PART OF THE FAMILY and the rest of them need to show as much consideration for me as they do for each other and I do for them. They don't even try.
    Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
    6 years 4 months ago #204 by CrazyMinh
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    • elrodw wrote: True enough, but the point I no longer wish to surrender on is that I AM PART OF THE FAMILY and the rest of them need to show as much consideration for me as they do for each other and I do for them. They don't even try.


    Elrod, are you sure you're OK? Seriously mate, calm your farm a bit before something bonkers happens with your personal life.
    You can find my stories at Fanfiction.net here .

    You can also check out my fanfiction guest riffs at Library of the Dammed


    6 years 4 months ago #205 by CrazyMinh
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    • CrazyMinh wrote:

    elrodw wrote: True enough, but the point I no longer wish to surrender on is that I AM PART OF THE FAMILY and the rest of them need to show as much consideration for me as they do for each other and I do for them. They don't even try.


    Elrod, are you sure you're OK? Seriously mate, calm your farm a bit before something bonkers happens with your personal life.


    Well, other than what's already gone down.
    You can find my stories at Fanfiction.net here .

    You can also check out my fanfiction guest riffs at Library of the Dammed


    6 years 4 months ago #206 by DanZilla
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    • CrazyMinh wrote:

    elrodw wrote: True enough, but the point I no longer wish to surrender on is that I AM PART OF THE FAMILY and the rest of them need to show as much consideration for me as they do for each other and I do for them. They don't even try.


    Elrod, are you sure you're OK? Seriously mate, calm your farm a bit before something bonkers happens with your personal life.


    I don't think it's too much to ask for that your family be supportive while you're recuperating. It sounds like he's not even getting simple respect, let alone that support. So I can see where he might be coming from.
    6 years 4 months ago - 6 years 4 months ago #207 by elrodw
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    • DanZilla wrote:

    CrazyMinh wrote:

    elrodw wrote: True enough, but the point I no longer wish to surrender on is that I AM PART OF THE FAMILY and the rest of them need to show as much consideration for me as they do for each other and I do for them. They don't even try.


    Elrod, are you sure you're OK? Seriously mate, calm your farm a bit before something bonkers happens with your personal life.


    I don't think it's too much to ask for that your family be supportive while you're recuperating. It sounds like he's not even getting simple respect, let alone that support. So I can see where he might be coming from.


    This is just another symptom of a larger, more pervasive issue. Several years ago, I had a very severe bout of depression and it took a long time to get back into things. During that time, my family basically backed off because they didn't know what to do, and so I ended up isolated (which made things worse). Fast-forward - that's under control, but I still feel like they won't let me back in, especially my wife. In the few sessions of joint counseling, she keeps using the excuse "well, I just got in the habit of ...." to justify not including me in discussions or decisions relating to kids, college, etc. She doesn't TRY to include me. Granted, she was hurt emotionally when I kind of checked out with depression, but it's now like she's afraid to let me back in because of fear of a repeat. The latest is just another symptom that they don't have much consideration of me. Then add the biggie - DB. Wife made a decision - that's it, no more mattress hockey. No discussion, no nothing. So I'm working with my counselor, being happy for myself, trying not to snap back at them and such, and actually being glad my endocrine system is so messed up that nothing downstairs works because it lessens the frustration. (The fact that I grew a modest pair upstairs is inconsequential these days - well, except that I've always been a breast man and at least SOMEONE in the house doesn't mind when I play with them.) We're still recovering from flood, she's adjusting to empty nest, etc, etc. Obsession with work. Post menopausal. Lots and lots of changes. So I do what makes me happy, which includes writing. At this point, if she doesn't like that, she can kiss my ass.

    So yeah, stressful, but it's adjusting to having a roommate instead of a spouse. And my counselor thinks I'm doing better than she would have expected.
    Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
    Last Edit: 6 years 4 months ago by elrodw.
    6 years 4 months ago - 6 years 4 months ago #208 by Rose Bunny
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    • If I can make it through, you can. I know about physical issues, and rehab. Growing up, I had a very abusive mother. I came along and ruined her life when she was in 10th grade, and she never let me forget it. While neglecting my care and well-being, risking my health, and simultaneously trying to live vicariously through me, I was beaten, burned\, and abused. There was never enough food for me, and plenty for her. Combining my malnourished condition with her insistence I become a star by any means possible, I was drilled in gymnastics, dance, figure skating, until I practically collapsed every night. All that stress on a growing girl that isn't getting enough nutrition did serious damage that still causes issues to this date.

    I come from a family that is very tall, and the doctors figure that I should have reached aa height of about 5'8" - 5'10", I'm not quite 5'4". I've had multiple cases of stress fractures in my legs over the years. I ruptured an achilles tendon so severely that I had to have a cadaver tendon transplanted. I've torn my ACL and PCL, and have problems with seizures. I have had to re-learn to walk twice. I still have minor tremors and memory issues. All this isn't even getting into the reproductive system issues I've had to deal with.

    At 38, some days I wake up and feel like I'm at least twice that. But I can tough through it. And I know you can too. Don't give up. Attack your physical therapy with all the strength and determination you can, from experience I can tell you that you have to set goals. Maybe not BIG ones, but achievable ones, and each day, try to do a little more. At the same time, know your limits and don't push too hard. It's a balancing act, and you might get frustrated that it isn't going faster, but you will get there in the end. Slow and steady wins the race. You will make it. I have faith in you, as do all here that care for you.
    High-Priestess of the Order of Spirit-Chan
    Last Edit: 6 years 4 months ago by Rose Bunny.
    6 years 4 months ago #209 by Kristin Darken
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    • Rose Bunny wrote: Don't give up. Attack your physical therapy with all the strength and determination you can, from experience I can tell you that you have to set goals. Maybe not BIG ones, but achievable ones. and each day, try to do a little more. At the same time, know your limits and don't push too hard. It's a balancing act


    This is some of the best advice I've seen given on line, maybe ever. Small achievable goals builds a pattern of victory. It allows for adjustment to the natural change of events in and around what is necessary to work on your goals. It's not bad to have long term goals... if they are abstract and less about deadlines than about where you hope to be someday. In warfare, you acknowlege what will be victory conditions to 'win the war' but you plan the battles.... and you fight the encounter you are in, knowing that no plan survives the moment of engagement..
    Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
    6 years 4 months ago #210 by CrazyMinh
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    • Kristin Darken wrote:

    Rose Bunny wrote: Don't give up. Attack your physical therapy with all the strength and determination you can, from experience I can tell you that you have to set goals. Maybe not BIG ones, but achievable ones. and each day, try to do a little more. At the same time, know your limits and don't push too hard. It's a balancing act


    This is some of the best advice I've seen given on line, maybe ever. Small achievable goals builds a pattern of victory. It allows for adjustment to the natural change of events in and around what is necessary to work on your goals. It's not bad to have long term goals... if they are abstract and less about deadlines than about where you hope to be someday. In warfare, you acknowlege what will be victory conditions to 'win the war' but you plan the battles.... and you fight the encounter you are in, knowing that no plan survives the moment of engagement..


    I second that.
    You can find my stories at Fanfiction.net here .

    You can also check out my fanfiction guest riffs at Library of the Dammed


    6 years 4 months ago #211 by lighttech
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    • elrodw wrote: Morning. Day 5.
    So far, it's a reasonable morning. Quite sore because I didn't sleep well, and all that tossing and turning made my knee quite sore. .


    I can recommend a Lay Z boy chair for that...it helps stop the tossing and turning...keeps leg 'just so' and helps back BIG TIME!
    Part of the WA Drow clan/ collective
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    6 years 4 months ago #212 by elrodw
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    • well, more on the good days and bad days. Today has been a bad day again - mostly because of pain. It didn't get ahead of me, but PT and soreness from sleep adds to the problem.

    Regarding sleep - I have never, ever in my life been able to sleep on my back. Period and stop. Never. Even with sleeping meds (and strong ones).I can't fall asleep on my back. Even if I somehow managed, I'd wake up after a few minutes to shift position again.

    But ... given what I'm on, perhaps it's time to try again.
    Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
    6 years 3 months ago #213 by elrodw
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    • New Year's update:
    Progress is slow. Very slow. PT is not fun, but is a necessary (and painful) part of my day. For some reason (past surgeries?) I expected to be further along in rehab than I am - part of that is the incredibly intense pain that wakes me up after about a 2 1/2 hour catnap. Then it takes a few HOURS to get the pain back under control so I can take another catnap. Docs are reluctant to prescribe too many strong pain meds (opiods), so managing the pain is my biggest challenge.

    Fortunately (or not, depending on point of view), my day job is with the bits of the government (NASA) that are shuttered by the DC Follies, so I have time to rest. Unfortunately, the lack of sleep and pain makes it very, very difficult to focus on things like writing or learning Kanji or such. I will have a week to myself starting Thurs - family is going to visit in-laws for a week, and I'm in no condition to fold myself into an airplane seat, so I'll get even more rest - and if I can get the pain down, I can finish Shine 2, then start into the backlog list of stories I have to write. After all, it's been a while since we've had a dose of Kayda-angst, so I need to remedy that ....
    Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
    6 years 3 months ago #214 by E. E. Nalley
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    • I was able to get some montage footage of Elrod's physical therapy. He's doing really well! Take a look!

    I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
    Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791
    6 years 3 months ago #215 by elrodw
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    • that's amazingly what PT feels like some days...

    On that front, I'm using a cane instead of a walker. We did some stairs today, which is a huge advance. Now if only nights would calm down - after about 2 1/2 hours of sleep, I wake in serious pain, and it takes hours to get it back under control, so my day is a series of catnaps between sessions of exercise. During the day, my pain level is quite tolerable. Nights though? Last night, I spent time waiting for meds to kick in and contemplating whether it was worse than my last kidney stone. No kidding - it hurt that bad.

    Family travels to in-laws starting tomorrow for a week. Got lots of people going to check in on me to make sure I don't fall and can't get up. Plus I have outlined the rest of Shine 2 part 4, so that should hopefully be done very soon - and I can move to the next story.
    Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
    6 years 3 months ago #216 by Bek D Corbin
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    • So, when does your wife start looking like Lindsay Wagner?
    6 years 3 months ago #217 by elrodw
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    • Well, I got good news and not-so-good news.
    The good news - yesterday, PT went well, so well in fact that my confidence is highly bolstered. I cooked up a batch of traditional Christmas candy I haven't made this season yet because of pain.

    Now the not-so-good news. I overdid it yesterday. Big time. It felt really good to be able to move around more freely and actually spend time standing that I overdid things. I'm paying for that good feeling with pain today. And not a good night's sleep last night. I'm being referred to a pain management specialist, which led to a very bizarre nightmare last night as I tossed and turned in discomfort. In it, the docs told me that they had something non-narcotic and non-addictive that would take away almost all pain and make healing go faster. The down side - it had a 95% prob of causing extreme gynecomastia. Probably a short story for Big Closet in there somewhere.

    Now, to finish breakfast, and then finish Shine 2 part 4. Going to do it today. Git-r-done!
    Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
    6 years 3 months ago #218 by null0trooper
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    • elrodw wrote: I'm being referred to a pain management specialist, which led to a very bizarre nightmare last night as I tossed and turned in discomfort. In it, the docs told me that they had something non-narcotic and non-addictive that would take away almost all pain and make healing go faster. The down side - it had a 95% prob of causing extreme gynecomastia. Probably a short story for Big Closet in there somewhere.


    Maybe you should tell your subconscious to lay off the PubMed searches after dinner?
    Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.

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    6 years 3 months ago #219 by Mister D
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    • elrodw wrote: Well, I got good news and not-so-good news.
    The good news - yesterday, PT went well, so well in fact that my confidence is highly bolstered. I cooked up a batch of traditional Christmas candy I haven't made this season yet because of pain.

    Now the not-so-good news. I overdid it yesterday. Big time. It felt really good to be able to move around more freely and actually spend time standing that I overdid things. I'm paying for that good feeling with pain today. And not a good night's sleep last night. I'm being referred to a pain management specialist, which led to a very bizarre nightmare last night as I tossed and turned in discomfort. In it, the docs told me that they had something non-narcotic and non-addictive that would take away almost all pain and make healing go faster. The down side - it had a 95% prob of causing extreme gynecomastia. Probably a short story for Big Closet in there somewhere.

    Now, to finish breakfast, and then finish Shine 2 part 4. Going to do it today. Git-r-done!


    Since you're working for a Federal organisation, and you're not based in a Green-legal state, i would have suggested using the CBD-heavy flavours of medical marijuana, but your job situation may not approve.

    I have arthritis, and due to the other meds i have to take, i have hard limits on the amounts of painkillers i can use, without causing loss of renal function.

    I've been offered morphine prescriptions, but it would mean that i would be unable to function for my work, and i don't want to be a junkie.

    I tried working with some applied meditation techniques for pain control, and had some degree of success.

    It takes practise to keep that mind state flowing, and further practise to use it effectively when doing other things, but it's an interesting set of mental juggling to work on.

    It may not work for you, but it's worth looking at.

    And, yes, physio is annoying, but necessary. It will get easier as the exercises settle into the muscle memory.

    Good luck. :D
    Measure Twice
    6 years 3 months ago #220 by Mister D
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    • More l'esprit d'escalier.

    One thing to remember when you're using meditation techniques for pain control, is that youu have to be careful monitoring yuor functionality, so you don't push yourself too far, and cause more damage than your physio is helping you.

    This is especially important when you are exercising, as the endorphin rush can mask the pain, but lead you into overdoing things.

    I have to pay careful attention to making sure that i don't overdo things to the point where i feel my joints going crunch... :)
    Measure Twice
    6 years 3 months ago #221 by elrodw
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    • There is action on the Eastern Front ... er, I mean the Elrod Front,
    Still have pain. Still barely manageable at times, and it does tend to wake me up, so fatigue is my constant (unwanted) companion. Last night, for example, was 3 hours sleep and a lot of restless tossing and turning. Constant low-level to moderate pain is very distracting.

    6-week mark from surgery. Phys therapist is quite happy with how I'm doing with range of motion and strength, but I wish there was more progress. ANY torsion or side-flexing on the joint is excruciating - as in kick up the dial to 11 - but that lasts only a moment or two. Enough time to slip and fall if I'm not careful. I've been out of the house, even running an errand in a couple of stores. I tested myself in the driveway, and I can successfully drive my car, but I'm not pushing it. Lots to do on the house and especially the garage for complete recovery - but alas, I can't do that yet. Long rides in the car are not fun - minor road vibration and bumps went right up the bones and into my new and sensitive joint. Gets quite uncomfortable, and then downright painful. But there's progress. Slow, not nearly fast enough, but progress.

    But, in spite of the pain and stuff, I finally (FINALLY 8P ) got a story to my editor. Finally! It's been way too long, but it feels good to finish the draft. So now I can start another one. The problem is I have too many good plots for too many characters to easily decide which one to start on. And I have collaborative efforts, too.
    Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
    6 years 3 months ago #222 by Rose Bunny
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    • for car trips and car rides, I would suggest looking into shock-absorbing seat covers or pillows. I used one after my pelvic injuries, and it greatly reduced the discomfort of riding in the car.
    High-Priestess of the Order of Spirit-Chan
    6 years 2 months ago #223 by elrodw
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    • This is getting old.
    I'm tired - actually exhausted from not having had a full night's sleep in over 2 months - and in pain (which is part of why I'm sleep-deprived). I probably shouldn't have posted in the 'SHine discussion topic, but I'm in a WTF mood right now and, well, what the fuck.

    Flood and the almost completed recovery were depressing. Minh probably knows what it's like to be a refugee in your own home. So that got fixed mostly. Just in time for surgery and recovery, which is painful an alo depressing.

    Not sure what I should do next. If anything. Can you say lost confidence? Discussion on 'Shine - and a lot turns to how you hold cutlery? ???? I'm not sure exactly HOW it was received. Do y'all want more drama and fights? More comedy? What? I'm just not sure anymore.

    So - to write Kayda after a long gap, I really need a summarized day-by-day so I don't step on anything. But I don't have that. So I could write Laura in Gen 2. Or Gen 1 - Charge, or Elle, or Knockoff. Danny 2 is stuck for the same reason as Kayda. But those ideas are stuck. Maybe I need a long break. Maybe my muse drowned in the flood. Maybe this is all a bad dream and I'm going to wake up from a nightmare and there never was a flood or knee surgery. Maybe I shouldn't be posting this either, except that if this is a dream, it doesn't make a hill of beans of a difference.

    Being sleep-deprived for so long really sucks....
    Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
    6 years 2 months ago #224 by CrazyMinh
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    • elrodw wrote: Flood and the almost completed recovery were depressing. Minh probably knows what it's like to be a refugee in your own home. .


    I wouldn't describe it as being a 'refugee', since a lot of those guys have it a lot worse than anyone else in Australia (*cough* stop-the-boats *cough*), but I do get what you mean. The bit where I spend a period of time in my parent's house while the contractors took a long time to say that the apartment was quote 'unfixable' was a bummer. You have it a lot worse mate. I'm already set up with a new apartment I'm renting from my parents. They may not be rich, but they invested a lot in property around Sydney while I was in High School, and they have at least three other properties. Correction, had three; now two. Then the issues with the previous tenants happened, and I'm still trying to get someone in to look at the plumbing. Something is very wrong if your toilet keeps vomiting all over the floor. It's probably not the building, since they've already had someone in to look at that, and my apartment is apparently the only one experiencing these issues. So...yeah...add to that my increased workload due to playing catch-up, and you get a sticky mess. Speking of which gtg.
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    6 years 2 months ago #225 by null0trooper
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    • elrodw wrote: Not sure what I should do next. If anything. Can you say lost confidence? Discussion on 'Shine - and a lot turns to how you hold cutlery? ???? I'm not sure exactly HOW it was received. Do y'all want more drama and fights? More comedy? What? I'm just not sure anymore.


    I've been following a YA author on YouTube who has recommended taking time between projects (or in slumps) to just read. Anything. Lots of things. Including authors or genres you aren't normally interested in.

    elrodw wrote: So - to write Kayda after a long gap, I really need a summarized day-by-day so I don't step on anything. But I don't have that.


    It's possible the other writers are looking to you for some of that, now that Kayda, Solange, and Loophole are driving so much of the main plot. I think Morpheus is the only one who's pushed forward to Thanksgiving.

    Another way to approach it is to write up some things that you want to see happen to your characters or see them do - without pinning the story-internal events to dates. Maybe they'll fit in the official story, maybe they won't, but either way you get some writing done.
    Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.

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    6 years 2 months ago #226 by Katssun
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    • If your muse is up to it, write something just completely different. Especially if it is a genre or some topic you're not really into or don't particularly want to write. Not an existing project.

    You don't have to publish it. You don't even have to finish it. This is simply for the challenge and the change of pace.

    I do want to say something, and I could probably PM it, but it applies to all of the authors. Discussion has been down lately. It's not just your stories. Or Gen 2's. Or Morpheus's. It's all of them. I don't know why, and I can't speculate on why, so I won't try. But don't get discouraged. The table manners off-topic for as long as it went was weird, really weird, even for this forum.

    If we're not commenting on some detail or hints or story elements, that's on us. Not you. Don't be afraid to taunt us a little. A few of the others do.
    6 years 2 months ago #227 by lighttech
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    • elrodw wrote:
    So - to write Kayda after a long gap, I really need a summarized day-by-day so I don't step on anything. But I don't have that. So I could write Laura in Gen 2. Or Gen 1 - Charge, or Elle, or Knockoff. Danny 2 is stuck for the same reason as Kayda. But those ideas are stuck.


    We figured a way out to fix this when you have multi authors and characters....use Google calendar and post each story with its dates on who did what when as appointments or meetings with who was there....anyone in the massive group can add and it keeps track for you right down to the date and hours used by an author!!!!
    Part of the WA Drow clan/ collective
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    6 years 2 months ago #228 by Kristin Darken
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    • Just a reminder, El... that multipart stories can be a challenge to offer feedback on. Especially when its a good story but its a part in the 'middle' where nothing new is really started and nothing big peaks or is wrapped up. It's story that has to be told, but its not necessarily story that yields effusive responses. We KNOW you're a good writer. The numbers support that. And its hardly unique for our readers to settle on one weird element of a story and go through several forums pages of posts on that completely off the point topic. Four pages of forums posts and three or four comments on the story itself isn't a bad response, even if you do skip counting the stuff about silverware.

    Personally, I don't see the conflict in moving forward with Kayda. You and E. E. are the only ones working with the on campus central storyline right now (and actually, more of E.E.'s stuff has been jumping across the neutral zone into Gen 2 than it has been progressing the Gen 1 timeline). JG has touched on events there but mostly tangentially. Morpheus has stories happening that involve the original timeline, but has done a great deal to keep his work parallel and not mingling. Do you need a calendar? I don't know... but I bet if you just come out and ask for one, someone will provide one to help get you back on track. Whether that's from another member of the team or whether its put together by someone else in the community... I'd put money on the fact that you'd have it within 72 hours of asking for it. So if you need it, ASK. If you need support in getting back in motion in other ways, ASK. We all know you've been dealing with a lot of shit for a while, El.. but we're not mind-readers. Well... not officially anyway. We want you to succeed but we also don't want you to feel like we're coddling you.

    Also... as someone who uses Google calendar daily for work (we use it for facility scheduling w/ performances, rehearsals, meetings, and so forth), I can say that what we 'could' do with Google calendar is way beyond the scope of what we should consider... but if a few fans want to start building a master calendar, I'll give it a place to be seen and referenced. I've actually looked into joomla extensions that allow the same sort of event tracking for use as a master release calendar and for an in-universe story tracker. One of the real advantages to setting up such a thing is that most of the canon authors have adopted the place-time stamp model for scenes within stories... so creating entries in calendars for such things is really just a matter of copying those entries into one (for 5-20 entries per each story part, of which there are some 600-700 canon story parts). Easy. But time consuming.

    But for the immediate value... for the month or two time frame where the current storyline 'now' marker sits? Probably not more than a couple hours of work.
    Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
    6 years 2 months ago #229 by XaltatunOfAcheron
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    • Kristen -

    Currently, the "calendar" appears to be the Wiki timeline. While there are several of us who make entries occasionally, I do most of the big updates, and I do them story by story. It takes me approximately 8 hours to do a story segment, so I'm obviously doing a whole lot more than what you're contemplating.

    At one story segment a week, it's not a huge amount of effort to keep up to date, but since there were very few updates the years I was gone, there is a huge backlog. My estimate is that it will take well into 2020 to clean up, so more hands are going to be needed if it gets done swiftly - or at all.

    For anyone who may be interested, I've got a page that describes what I do. I don't expect anyone else to follow that template, but it should give an idea of what the issues are.

    Home - -> Editing Guidelines - -> Story Pages - -> Creating a Story Page
    Home - -> Editing Guidelines - -> Timeline - -> Timeline format





    Xsltatun
    6 years 2 months ago - 6 years 2 months ago #230 by Malady
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    • Well, if we're only focusing on what's needed for new Kayda stories, that'd be the stuff in 2007 November and beyond?

    Which seems pretty complete, even if there's more stories there than I initially thought?

    But I just glanced at a few dates, so not 100% sure...
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    Last Edit: 6 years 2 months ago by Malady.
    6 years 2 months ago #231 by null0trooper
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    • Malady wrote: Well, if we're only focusing on what's needed for new Kayda stories, that'd be the stuff in 2007 November and beyond?

    Which seems pretty complete, even if there's more stories there than I initially thought?


    For Knockoff, one would need August-November, since she's only been in a few Poe scenes.

    Where it gets tricky is knowing which classes have already been confirmed for the Fall 07 term by reference in other stories. For example, if Darqueheart, Aegis, Mischief, Monkeywrench, Roulette, Sapphire, and Martina's roommate Ribbon are all in Dr. Quintain's 3rd Period Powers Theory, it could end up looking sloppy if Knockoff and Aegis are written as being desk partners in 3rd period Home Ec. On the other hand, putting every single freshman in the same Powers Theory class doesn't work either for a convincing narrative.

    This is why my own OCs have curricula mapped out in advance, along with personality types. ( There's probably a short story waiting for Kayda to realize that her schedule wouldn't be so hectic if she hadn't demanded that four years of martial arts/combat training be shoehorned into 2 1/2 years. )

    Club meeting days/times aren't nailed down except for the Golds, the Dragons and Tigers (who don't so much meet as have open and closed practice times), the ICC (who are attempting 24/7 "ops" in Septemer, and should not even have a charter), and the Bad Seeds (who may be actively avoiding private meetings until Jobe and Cheese graduate)

    Then there's the combat simulators, which are supposed to be booked solid with Atlantean League-sponsored training: Maybe not a big deal for 'Shine, Knockoff, and Pounce, but that should be having a major effect on 2nd to 4th year students in The Nations and Ghostwalkers, with conflicting demands for trained cannon fodder, new toys for the pretties, and those pesky classroom things.

    tl,dr: Some things can be helped with wiki updates, but a lot also depends on what the other authors are doing or thinking about doing. Multiply that by "what does Elrod want to write?" and "what do people like to read?"
    Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.

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    Discussion Thread
    6 years 2 months ago #232 by marie7342231
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    • elrodw wrote: Not sure what I should do next. If anything. Can you say lost confidence? Discussion on 'Shine - and a lot turns to how you hold cutlery? ???? I'm not sure exactly HOW it was received. Do y'all want more drama and fights? More comedy? What? I'm just not sure anymore.


    Re: 'Shine, I was REALLY glad to see the Heather/Alexis subplot come to an end. While you write high school drama well, I am eager to explore other aspects of 'Shine's time at Whateley.

    For the other stories, you have nothing but love and support from this group. What can we do to help? If the existing day-by-day site schedule isn't working, let's go with the Google Calendar. I use it a great deal as well.

    I'm sorry to hear about your pain and lack of sleep. Let's hope a short time from now it's all a bad dream. In the meantime, feel free to vent and lean on us. That's what we are here for.
    6 years 2 months ago #233 by elrodw
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    • With my knee, it's good days, and it's bad days. This weekend comes under the heading of bad days. Last night was the worst night since surgery - and I'm in serious agony today because of tossing and turning and twisting the knee in some way it wasn't supposed to bend or twist. Right now, a solid 8-hour night sleep is very, very high on my priority list - I haven't had one since December 9.

    The biggest issue for Kayda is that she's been in a lot of Lanie and Tansy stories since the last one I wrote, so there are lots of places to get tripped up. For both Kayda and Laura (gen 2), I'm way behind where others are writing. And believe me, the day-by-day summaries on the wiki - in fact, the whole bloody wiki - is an almost mandatory and critical tool to the group. So I could write more other characters, but I really want to get Kayda going again. But that probably won't be possible for a while - until either the wiki catches up (and I don't want anyone to ever think that we're not hugely appreciative of the efforts made on the wiki by dedicated volunteers!) - or I go through and do a summary myself.

    I've got some ideas to kick around. If I can get some sleep and pain relief.
    Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
    6 years 2 months ago #234 by Mister D
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    • Just as a side-note: Sleep deprivation can make you MORE sensitive to pain.

    I found this out the hard way back in 2000.

    I don't recommend sleep-meds, as they come with their own issues/side-effects.

    If i come across anything sensible, i'll post it here, but my prayers/good-vibes are sent in your direction. :)
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