kagan

kagan, 8 days ago

@luckytran If only there were something hospital workers could do to make sure they don't get Covid. Like, I don't know, maybe if they were to cover their faces whenever they were around people who might be sick?

Maybe they could even make some kind of, I dunno, I guess a mask sort of thing, for just that purpose? And have lots of those available in the hospital?

But hey, what do I know? I'm just spitballing here.

(My apologies if they did have a mask mandate, but I'm betting they didn't.)

kagan, 11 days ago

@cferdinandi Holy crap, the team lead who would deliberately destroy people's flow state?! I don't have enough WTF to express how WTFy that is. Also, 😡👊🏻🗡.

The other problem with open offices, at least for me, is that I'm very distracted by motion. Anyone walking through my field of vision is a thing that I have to evaluate to make sure it's not important somehow. (Probably trauma from childhood bullying.) Anyway, I hate open offices.

kagan, 12 days ago

@DeliaChristina Agreed, totally unhelpful. But I'm not sure they want help. I think the subtext of their fear about revealing their feelings is that they consider that to be an unpleasant thing to do; something they would only do if forced to (generally by a woman). And I think they fear rejection, not for being unmanly, but for the content of their feelings… probably because they've had it happen in the past.

So yeah, they're stuck isolation… but I'm not sure they even want to escape.

kagan, 13 days ago

@j9t Given the usual meaning of "rote learning", I'm so unclear about what the book will do that I can't even figure out whether to answer #3 or #4.

Like, sometimes a title can be negative-sounding in a way that's intriguing and gets me interested anyway, but in this case it's more like, "huh?"

kagan, 19 days ago

@jynersolives I don't think anyone* was arguing that it would happen within a few months. The alarm is that Threads is the beginning of an Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish campaign, and those typically take years. We shouldn't expect any major problems this soon.

• okay, maybe a few overly-alarmist people who didn't really understand the situation, but not by any means the main bulk of people against Threads/Meta

kagan, 24 days ago

@mondoweiss @palestine @israel I saw this headline and it was like a giant light bulb. Yes! Super apt comparison!

And then I remembered who became president after Johnson, and now I'm just really despairing. This is awful.

kagan, 28 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 11: What character have you written that's the most unlike you?

Either Aisha Morgan or Carmen Lockhart. Aisha is Black, female, straight, grew up in the projects, and now drives a Muni bus. Carmen is also female, Latina (though white and Anglo-passing), and has some other differences from myself that I don't want to give away yet.

With both of them, I'm taking a lot of care in their depiction and characterization.

kagan, 27 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 12: How do you market your work?

I haven't even thought about that yet. Mostly my ideas in that vein are, "Get someone else to do the marketing for me," because marketing is not my strong suit. This is part of why I'm leaning toward traditional publishing; they have people to handle that. That's one of the strong benefits I see from a trad publishing house.

kagan, 26 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 13: When does AI cross the line between helpful tool and problematic tech for writing and publishing?

I wouldn't know; I haven't touched it at all. And I don't plan to.

(Also: Loving the large number of responses to this question that amount to "Fuck AI completely, and the people who are building and promoting it, for a long list of reasons..." 😄💯👍🏻)

kagan, 25 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 14: Do you have a sense of how much plot you need for how long a manuscript?

Not yet. That's something I expect to acquire as I progress through the manuscript on my WIP. Also, some of these vignettes might help me get a start on that. (Except most of them have very little plot, which is kind of a problem in multiple ways.)

kagan, 24 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 15: Have you ever attended a writer's fair/festival to promote your work? Would you?

I haven't because I have nothing to promote yet. But once I do, I'd consider it, if I thought the returns would be worth the time and trouble. (Also, I'd probably try 1 or 2 just to find out what they're like — or you could say, to find out about the return, the time and trouble, and the comparison between the two.)

kagan, 23 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 16: What's your target audience? Why?

People who like urban fantasy with diverse casts and themes of found family. "Why?" Because that describes my book! People who like that might like my book, and people who don't like that probably won't! 😂

kagan, 22 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 17: Other than writing, what's your go-to creative outlet?

I don't really have one at the moment. I used to do fire-dancing, and DJing, and also I used to just go out to clubs and dance, but those have all fallen by the wayside for one reason or another. Right now, writing is my main and possibly sole creative outlet, and I'm okay with that.

kagan, 21 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 18: Have you written sections where the action occurs against the clock? How did you do it?

Not yet, but I do have a plan for a situation where someone needs to get from Point A to Point B in no more than 15 minutes. Nobody thinks she can do it, but she assures her allies she can manage it. She'll be riding a motorcycle; I'm not sure if I'll let her have chances to snatch a glance at her watch along the way or not. (Also, I really doubt she wears one.)

kagan, 20 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 19: Do you agree with Hillary Mantell, who said the best qualities for writing are self-confidence and a little arrogance?

Not quite. I think the best qualities for writing are a facility with words, and having something to say. But I would say self-confidence, particularly the self-confidence to put some of your heart and soul into your writing, without holding back and trying to play it cool, comes close after that.

Arrogance? I dunno. 🤷🏻

kagan, 19 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 20: When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

Sometime around age 12. Then sometime during college, I lost that desire. And it became one of the many "roads not taken" in my life for a few decades, so in idle moments I'd think, "If I had become a writer, maybe I'd write something like X..." And then that eventually grew into where I'm at now.

kagan, 18 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 21: Do you format as you write or do that at the end?

If I understand this correctly, if it means things like putting in emphasis and italics, I have to do that as I'm writing! When the character says "I think we should do it", or else says "I think we should do it", I need to put that emphasis in right then, or I'll lose track of it later.

The idea of going back to put in that stuff later is so foreign to me, I wonder if I've misunderstood the question.

kagan, 17 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 22: If someone were to write your autobiography, who would you want to write it?

If it's my autobiography, wouldn't I have to write it myself?

If you just mean my biography... I don't know anything about any major biographers, except I've heard some bad stuff about Walter Isaacson, so not him. Aside from that? I have no clue.

kagan, 16 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 23: What gets in the way of your writing?

Life. Distraction. Video games on my phone.

kagan, 14 days ago

#WritersCoffeeClub Day 24: Is there any work of fiction you could have written better? Don't be shy.

The Star Wars prequel trilogy. Sure, not a high bar to clear. But once I saw boy Anakin, I was excited! It was a great chance to explore "How does an innocent become evil?"/"What is the source of evil?" And then the entire trilogy just failed to deliver on that, with a combo of "love makes you stupid" and pushing the source-of-evil out of Anakin and into Palpatine, where it's never explored.