Huzzah!

writing!

Chapter 2 part 6 of my WIP novel with the work-in-progress title "The Crossing" is up. See @bennuma-crossing for the blog.

If anyone prefers reading long posts in blogger/blogspot format, see the following:

hello again...

Had not intended to be away on a long hiatus, and in fact completely lost track of how long I was away from tumblr. I had to completely rework my outline for the Crossing story, based on many many notes I've been making over the past couple of years, and realized I couldn't put it off and still expect to go forward with writing new sections for where I have been at in the first... chapter(?) of the book. That took... longer than expected but I didn't really feel like very many people online would notice much yet... ha. Also many other things (unrelated to writing and tumblr) required my attention... such is life; bleh.

Anyway, I shall be adding more just in case anyone wants to read along, and in the future I intend to give warning if I am going to have to be away for an extended period of time.

cute cat being cute

Writing is Life

If writing is life to you, then you have a right to identify as a writer.

New Year's Declaration: I am a writer. I know this because I need to write, I am not ok when I can't write, or am otherwise prevented from writing. It doesn't matter whether anyone else likes my writing, but I do want to share it in case someone might like my stories. Likewise I don't care whether anyone says I can't call myself a writer if I haven't yet achieved official publication status or monetary compensation for my writing. Visual artists can call themselves artists because they create art, regardless of whether they have achieved a status of supporting themselves at it professionally. I believe in the same for writers. If you write and really care about your writing, then you are a writer if you want to be and believe you are, if writing is a part of you, in your soul.

New Year's Resolution: I resolve to no longer apologize to anyone for doing what I have to do in order to be able to keep writing, and commit to writing. If I don't keep in touch with people as much as they want, if I don't take care of my health as much as people think I should, if there is any other thing that I have to do or not do in order to keep writing, that is for me to decide, and no one else. It doesn't matter if people don't understand why I do the things I do; if it helps me to keep writing, then it is necessary for me, even at the expense of other things. I will not accept guilt based on anyone else wishing I were different. I have to be who I am.

Besides, there's not much else I can reasonably do anymore anyway. I have to write.

Writing is Life.

Hello again...

Still getting used to how things are on tumblr and how things differ between the computer/browser version and phone app... I suppose that although I see my different blogs connected, there's no direct connection between them for other people viewing tumblr... apparently? If I am following them, then they show up on my "following" list... but even if I "like" the posts, then people won't see them unless they look at my "likes" list, no?

I don't seem to be able to "reblog" something from one of those to here...

So here, I will try out simply doing a couple links to start with...

Here's the tumblr blog for the wip novel mentioned on this blog thing in my first post; scroll down to the intro/synopsis thing if you want a short intro to the story... or just start with the post titled "1.1"

(sort of labeling the story with bits and pieces numbered like it's, "chapter:part" or something like that)

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/bennuma-crossing

and... the blog I mentioned before that is about history and background info for my fantasy world that story takes place in (called Bennuma) that also is for shorts in that world, is found here:

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/legends-of-bennuma

I also mentioned before that I had originally started out using blogger some time ago, have not yet finished putting up everything onto tumblr that I had previously put onto blogger (aka blogspot), so for a limited time (currently) blogger has more on it than tumblr... but mostly I am going to put a couple blogger links here just in case someone might randomly actually have a blogger account and want to follow on there, if anyone likes reading in blogger format (I do intend to keep updating blogger as I update tumblr as well in future, adding new story stuffs as I can) (blogger also contains another beginning of a wip novel thing (working title: Heron) that I am not currently working on, and won't be putting onto tumblr yet, but if anyone wants to poke around and read what's there, it can be found from my blogger profile page)

the Crossing:

https://bennumacrossing.blogspot.com/

(link direct to first post of the Crossing on blogger: )

https://bennumacrossing.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-crossing-as-he-was-often-in-habit.html

Legends of Bennuma:

https://bennumalegends.blogspot.com/

(link direct to first post of the legends blog: )

https://bennumalegends.blogspot.com/2016/11/legends-of-bennuma-as-might-be-told-by.html

D.L. Lane profile (my stuff) on blogger:

https://www.blogger.com/profile/07154541153989344785

Hope what I wrote makes sense, or is at least as clear as............. jello.

One-question survey

Re: my Bennuma Crossing story

(which btw has a new update, section 2.2 posted (aka chapter 2, second part)

Intro:

Assuming that a fair proportion of followers to this blog are actually followers of The Crossing story ( @bennuma-crossing ) ...and that no one has bothered to follow that blog because they are following this one instead, because I tend to make posts here when I update that story, and random comments or whatever else (including unrelated things) goes in here so that I won't clutter up that blog...

(I could be wrong, but otherwise I have no clue why anyone at all actually follows this blog)

The Question:

Would people reading The Crossing prefer if I post relatively short story sections, in order to attempt to post more frequently? Or, do people prefer to have long sections to read, even if it means they are posted less frequently?

Please reply via comments, choosing one or more of the following multiple choice answers:

"please post more frequently, even if they are short sections"

"please post long sections, even if they are infrequent"

"I choose to write some other kind of comment for some reason"

"What are you even talking about? What is this blog anyway?"

klmklfnvjuiawehbn CSNzvzfzevoivwakpo zlk vcn dv (translation: "I am a cat." )

art

note:

art for my blogs is credit to Ada St. of @creatures-by-ada-street ...which was for a time called Ada St. WIPs because of being mainly a blog of in-progress art?

Anyway, all drawings, photographs, and logo designs I am currently using on my blogs are by Ada St.

Fairy Tales

Oldschool Fairy Tales from pre-industrial times: "These are cautionary stories for all ages, and also reminders that sometimes life is terrible for no good reason at all, or just makes zero sense."

Fairy Tales from the 1900s: "These are kids' stories where we try to teach that everything in life has meaning and moral lessons, and that if you work hard, believe in yourself, and are basically a good person, then you WILL be successful in life."

Me now: "The oldschool nonsense tales had it right, and basically all the other stuff is a lie."

(To be fair, I do believe that people should work hard, should believe in themselves, and should be basically good people because those are things that make life tolerable... I'm just convinced now that doing those things is no guarantee of success and that "anyone who says differently is selling something"

...also, I think it's weird when people make edits that seem to suggest that statement is in any way inspirational. It's not 'inspiring', it's just realism. It may be comforting sometimes to know that life is terrible for a lot of people out there and even if a person's suffering is unique to them, they're still not the only one suffering... but to act like that's uplifting in some way is weird to me.)

Migraines.

Suck.

That is all.

Done. Did It.

It has been a very common thing in my life, that the list of things that I need to accomplish on any given day, will far surpass what I am capable of actually accomplishing.

At the end of the day, it's easy for me to get overwhelmed by all the things I hadn't managed to cross off the list, especially when other things that hadn't started out on my list crop up during the day and end up taking place of priority for legitimate reasons.

So, although I may have spent all day keeping busy doing things that needed to be done and having minimal break time, I may have ended up accomplishing almost nothing that was on my list at the beginning of the day.

At such times, I've found it is helpful for me to keep a list of the things I did that day, everything I did accomplish regardless of whether it was on my "To Do" list or not. Seeing my "Done" or "Did it" list at the end of the day can help me feel less like a failure, and focus on the positive-ness of having spent the day accomplishing things that were worth doing.

Worth a try for anyone who may experience some of the same anxieties about never having enough time for everything that needs to be done.