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Writing is still a struggle, but I'm still trying, so that counts for something! Work has slowed down (briefly), but I've been pretty busy these last few days. My poor dog Wally had a scary bout of mysterious allergies, and it got so bad at one point that I searched for the nearest animal hospital ready to jump in the car. But somehow, I got it under control—or I just got very lucky—and he finally started recovering yesterday. We got our first full night of sleep last night in a small while, and he's fully recovered today thank goodness.

It resulted in me doing a ton of laundry, because I wasn't sure if something got something contaminated and so everything went into the wash. I'm still sore because the laundry room is on the fourth floor, and I live on the first lol. But we got through it and now everything is fresh and clean, and I also baked banana muffins from scratch which was a nice and grounding exercise. Here's the recipe if anyone is interested. They're super delicious.

Meanwhile today, I painted my nails and got some rewrites done on a few things that just weren't working. I'm feeling a lot better about two of my WIPs and hope to finish them soon! So here's a fresh little snippet from Telling Tails:



Ignoring him, Zhu Hong takes her chopsticks in hand and delicately plucks a thin slice of raw beef from the ochre-glazed plate that sits in front of her. “You owe me for hearing you out while you’re drinking my booze,” she says, and looks him in the eye while taking a generous bite.

It’s cute, and Zhao Yunlan hides his smile by picking up his drink to finish it off. “Of course, I intend to repay you for your wonderful hospitality!” he chirps after smacking his lips and setting down his cup. When he reaches for the bottle again, Zhu Hong moves to snatch it from him with a fierce glare, but he bats her hand away and refills her cup before setting it back down.

“Really, Hong-jie,” he chides, “Trust in your old boss a little more. Dinner’s on me next time, I promise!”
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Guardian
2016 Zhu Yilong livestream has been subbed! (Edit: Mislabeled this as hotpot, but he's eating a different meal.)
A nice, soothing message from Zhu Yilong
520 Day Reverse Guardian Exchange—Signups end tomorrow, March 27th at 11:59pm UTC. (What time is that for me?) I don't think I'll be able to commit to this as much as I really want to, but I wanted to signal boost!

How do I name a character with a Chinese name?
I haven't published any of my WIPs that have original characters, but I've been pretty lazy on my naming conventions and have realized that due to the nature of the beast, I cannot be lazy lol. I need to go back and rename some characters, but I've got my process down now if anyone is interested! Helpful resources to start you off on the naming convention journey:

How to Choose a Chinese Name—An overview of the naming conventions.

Difference Between Male and Female Names—While I find gendering names annoying, this is a good article that explains the convention and also helpfully notes that gender-neutral names are gaining popularity. Guardian takes place in a fantasy world, so I'm interpreting this as basically do what you want with or without gendering.

List of 100 Most Common Chinese Surnames—Just as the tin says! Includes characters, pinyin variations, and meaning.

Pleco app—This Chinese dictionary came highly recommended from several members of the Guardian Discord crew and I can attest to that now. It's a fantastic resource that lets you switch between English and Chinese, switch between characters and pinyin searches, and shows characters, pinyin, and comprehensive definitions on a dictionary search. Very helpful when putting together names.

Feel free to add any other resources!

Astrology
This is a solid zodiac natal chart and it gives you tons of info on all your aspects if that's your kinda gig (sun, moon, ascendent, planets, houses, etc.) This resource will tell you the difference between your sun, moon, and ascendent signs.

Personal Update
slurps milk tea I splurged on boba and Korean takeout, since I got an UberEats gift card for my birthday—too bad it didn't work and I have to figure out why on my next order LOL. I'm always happy to support one of my fave local places in these weird times, though. (Edit: I figured out the app and the discount was applied after checkout, even though it didn't appear on any of the digital or hard copy receipts. 😂)

On another note, I've started my annual TNG rewatch! It's incredibly soothing with all the stress and uncertainty lately (as usual, I just skip over the Unfortunate Episodes and ignore the yikesy aspects). My ringtone has been a Star Trek theme medley of all the themes and has been for a couple years, and now whenever my phone rings while I'm watching the show, I get a little tickled. :D

rainy day

Mar. 19th, 2020 07:25 pm
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Just Little COVID-19 Things
Starting tomorrow, LA county is officially in "Safer at Home" mode, which is basically a soft lockdown. That's a good thing.

Read more... )

Birthday Celebrations On Hold

A lot of people are dealing with big plan disruptions, but I procrastinated my birthday planning so I don't actually have anything to cancel on Wednesday.

Read more... )

Car Troubles & Bad Ghosts

Months ago, someone came into the neighborhood and keyed a bunch of cars—mine included, on both sides of my windshield.

Read more... )

Wri...Words...Writing Words is How?
I wish I was having an easier time getting back into my groove. Still experiencing troubles in this department. I've done a bit here, done a bit there, and I did fix a plot hole after at least a week of brainstorming (AKA head scratching).

Read more... )

Adding to List of Good Things

Music—
Perfect tunes to start your morning with (cafe mix with jazz/bossa nova)
1-hour chillzone mix (chillhop/jazzhop)
Fly Me to the Moon but it's playing in a different room and it's raining

Binging—
The Great Pottery Throw Down, all the charm of Bake Off but with pottery instead of food
Portrait Artist of the Year 2020, where painters are challenged to paint a portrait in 4 hours with beautiful process shots and gorgeous results
The TRY Channel, just Irish people trying various things and being hilarious—I highly recommend any of the alcohol tries, but the Moonshine tries are my absolute favorite (bonus booze tries from their old channel)
Henry the PaleoGuy, who goes pretty in-depth about his paleontological topics
rlyqueer: (Default)
Ya boy's been having a weird time. My workload said "nah" when I asked it if I could finish my spicy fic, then I stumbled through a 2-month death anniversary midweek, ended up getting three new piercings, got stared at by a kiddo who was probably wondering why I looked like I was about to cry face-first into a bowl of fresh ramen, and finally grabbed a nice Saturday brunch with the gang.

I tried to put pressure on myself by saying I'd finish the spicy fic on Tuesday (my busiest day?!) because I am a fool. Naturally it backfired, so I've been avoiding DW and AO3 even though I know that no one else cares about that other than me. Oops! Lesson learned.

These piercings though... I've only had my single lobe piercings, and for years I've been wanting to deck my ears out. So I decided to treat myself to two new lobe piercings and a conch. I'll get more once these heal, but I really like them!

Queer game level-up: )

And a bonus selfie: )

Anywho. I want to get back to writing, so I'm taking my foot off the YOU SHOULD gas pedal which has been totally crushing my vibes. And we'll see where that gets me! I'm also uhh still behind with comments/replies...but. I'm trying to stay chill about it and just respond as I can. Blanket apology to basically everyone! 💦

And I know I'm doin' my best, I just wish my best was better sometimes. But I'll get there.
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I've been struggling lately with more frequent migraines and a gnarly toothache, but the abysmal root canal I got today hopefully takes care of that. Ohhh it was a rough one, y'all. I'll spare on the details, except for the fact that my dentist was working so close to my sinus cavity that he nicked it a little. So, bit of blood in my nose. It's still showing up when I blow into a tissue, but hopefully that heals up quickly.

Besides the stress of financial strains, I'm also bummed that I have to go back next week! There was too much blood to finish the RC today, so I'll be back in the chair to finish that up next week. :'(

Anyway, enough of that. Now that Sundial Exchange is over, I really want to get back into my WIPs! ...But. It's been hard? Is exchange fatigue a thing?? I guess it hasn't even been a full week, so I probably just need to let myself chill lol. But I'm itchyyy.

I'd love to finish Telling Tails since it's a short fun thing, then return to working on my still-unnamed series—which is now ready for more brainstorming after some feedback from my beta. Hopefully my writerly brain reboots soon.
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Every Tuesday morning, I go to a business networking meeting—which means that I've been up since 5am! But it also means that I'm all done up, which is otherwise infrequent because I work from home and I'm kind of a hermit.

Suffice to say that I was really feeling myself today, so I snapped my first selfie of 2020.

Selfie time )

On another note, I'm feeling a little delirious at this point but my Sundial Exchange treat is singing that siren call. Things might get weird tonight but you can bet I'm going to ride this wave into Writing Town.

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