{"id":184,"date":"2018-09-01T14:41:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T18:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/?p=184"},"modified":"2021-04-29T21:14:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-30T01:14:39","slug":"writing-updates-august-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2018\/09\/01\/writing-updates-august-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I get going: read my poem<\/a> (and all of the other stories and poems<\/a>) in the summer issue of Kaleidotrope<\/em>.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday night, I spent about 3.5 hours working in Scrivener and Aeon Timeline to verify dates for a story against a 35,000-year unity of time cycle, and I\u2019m working in 3 different calendar systems \u2014 Objective Count, the N\u00e5keva Tveshi Calendar, and the Standard Count Tveshi calendar.<\/p>\n

I knew I\u2019d overextended myself when I reached 10:00 PM and thought to myself that I had burned the candle so long that there was hardly any wax left. It was the tail end of orientation season where I work, and the semester started on Wednesday. This weekend, I\u2019m finishing up writing an academic article based on a conference lightning talk I presented this summer \u2014 due on the 7th.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, despite being fatigued, I pushed on until 10:37 PM simply because I was so deep in calendrical conversions that I didn\u2019t want to spend time figuring out where I had left off. When I turned off my music, I felt fuzzy and hollow.\u00a0Spent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

August and September are the most hectic periods in the calendar for most academic librarians, with additional rushes in October, December, whenever spring midterms happen (typically early March here), and late April\/early May. Late August to early September \u2014 I declared in my bullet journal \u2014 is a month of organizing and completion for me. Rather than starting new projects, I’m using it to tidy up.<\/p>\n

Being the type of person who commits to things and then finishes them means that I have to really watch not overextending myself early on, and Tuesday night is an example of a time when I was pushing myself a bit overmuch. I keep having to remind myself that I have\u00a0all of September ahead of me to get things done<\/em>. The first thing I did after considering what I need to do between now and December 31 to reach my goals was to make a document called\u00a0Large Writing Projects<\/em> and print it out so I’d know what’s on my plate and my estimated times to completion. It’s taped to the wall above my desk now.<\/p>\n

I finished writing a shareable draft of A Matter of Oracles<\/em> and sent it to a few close acquaintances and friends on my \u201chey will you read this?\u201d list on Sunday night. Coincidentally, everyone I asked to read it works in libraries, and it’s about far-future library science. Then, I put a smiley face over its section on Large\u00a0Writing Projects<\/i>.\u00a0After being on a panel at Conbust for several years about the depiction of libraries in speculative fiction, I decided that I really wanted to see what it would be like to write something (admittedly on the fantastical side of speculative fiction) that drew on my professional librarian background and created a realistic information environment. You can also see a bit of that in\u00a0Epiphany<\/em><\/a>, but not as directly; episodes\/entries 18 and 38 have a lot of realism. There’s another episode in which a database Salus uses for work has an update that completely overhauls its interface, and that’s common, too.<\/p>\n

Right now, I\u2019m putting The Raised Seal<\/em> in more explicit first person omniscient \u2014 updating it to be consistent with what I\u2019ve decided to do in the rest of the epic has been smoldering in the back of my head. Tackling this will free up mental space for projects I want to focus on later in the calendar year, so it\u2019s game on. I\u2019ve just reached Chapter 15 out of 21, which plot-wise is where the shit hits the fan. Many of my longer works are like a Mono piece or one of Rachmaninov\u2019s piano concertos in that they build slow-ish and then the climax happens and stays put.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, I\u2019m migrating some of my plain text worldbuilding, character, and story notes into Markdown (using MWeb) and LaTeX (specifically Overleaf). While I use Scrivener for single-story character sheets, locations, and the like, when I\u2019m working on my epic, I need the same things over and over. My conlang documents are so nice and squeaky, and they\u2019re a total breeze to consult when I\u2019m in the middle of writing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve co-taught file management workshops and practice what I teach, so the worldbuilding notes are straightforwardly arranged \u2014 I can more clearly see where I can refine what I do to fit my workflow a bit better. It actually might not take as much time as I thought to fix all of this up.<\/p>\n

I shared these stats on Twitter (from which I\u2019m taking a hiatus; social media is very stressful, and I can feel my chest tightening and shoulders knotting whenever I log in), but this is what August looked like for me.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

One big change is that I discovered that RescueTime premium has a lot of features I want to use to track my time, so I started using it to look at the amount of time I was spending in Scrivener and other writing tools.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

I said this on Twitter, but I\u2019ve seen people mention that it\u2019s hard to feel productive when there isn\u2019t a word count to measure \u2014 RescueTime helps me with that because I can see that despite not having written many new words this month, I\u2019ve been doing a lot of revision. What is\u00a0not<\/em> included there is the time I spent reading\/annotating some of my work using an app on my phone. That’s another few hours, which would bring the total to 58-60 hours for my creative work.<\/p>\n

So those are a few quick updates. I’m doing a lot of stuff, #Lexember will be upon us before you know it, and there’s a thing I will talk about excitedly in a few months, but happy September, and may Demeter and Kore bring you the blessings of the harvest season. \ud83d\ude0a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I get going: read my poem (and all of the other stories and poems) in the summer issue of Kaleidotrope. On Tuesday night, I spent about 3.5 hours working in Scrivener and Aeon Timeline to verify dates for a story against a 35,000-year unity of time cycle, and I\u2019m working in 3 different calendar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Writing Updates for August\r\n\r\nIn sum:\r\n- Have you read my poem in Kaleidotrope yet?\r\n- It's the fall semester now, so I'm adjusting\r\n- Library science has a special place in my heart\r\n- I spent >55h doing writing, editing, &c.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,12,10],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-library-science","tag-worldbuilding","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9qEhO-2Y","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":45,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2017\/11\/30\/today-we-feast-tomorrow-we-lexember\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":0},"title":"Today, We Feast; Tomorrow, We #Lexember","author":"kaye","date":"30 November 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Tomorrow is #lexember. I'm not a #NaNoWriMo person because, as an academic librarian, my achievable word count the month I write an academic article column for a science librarian journal is more like 20-30K. I've never understood why #NaNoWriMo is during peak academic output season. This year, my word count\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"conlangs\"","block_context":{"text":"conlangs","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/conlangs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tveshi dict example. My dictionary is in pain!!!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-30-at-7.28.41-AM-876x1024.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-30-at-7.28.41-AM-876x1024.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-30-at-7.28.41-AM-876x1024.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-30-at-7.28.41-AM-876x1024.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":99,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2017\/12\/31\/lexember-22-31-fried-pastries-counting-mass-nouns-is-hard-and-yes-theres-a-word-for-the-darkness-of-space\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":1},"title":"Lexember #22-31: Fried pastries, counting mass nouns is hard, and yes, there’s a word for the darkness of space","author":"kaye","date":"31 December 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I have a lot of lexember stuff below, most of it from Twitter. Since I have more than 280 characters here, I've significantly expanded some chunks, such as December 24th's entry, where I describe how more complicated types of counting work in Tveshi (e.g., how you say you have three\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"lexember\"","block_context":{"text":"lexember","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/lexember\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A screenshot of my Tveshi dictionary.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Screen-Shot-2017-12-31-at-6.25.22-PM-1024x637.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Screen-Shot-2017-12-31-at-6.25.22-PM-1024x637.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Screen-Shot-2017-12-31-at-6.25.22-PM-1024x637.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Screen-Shot-2017-12-31-at-6.25.22-PM-1024x637.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":62,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2017\/12\/02\/lexember-days-1-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":2},"title":"Lexember: Days 1-2","author":"kaye","date":"2 December 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I wanted to translate \"lexember\" into Tveshi. It would have been an ideal Day One, but yesterday, I participated in running an internal conference about data + society \u2014 so, needless to say, it was overambitious given that I had to be at work early. So I started yesterday by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"conlangs\"","block_context":{"text":"conlangs","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/conlangs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":633,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2022\/05\/20\/conlanging-through-heraclitus\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":3},"title":"Conlanging Through Heraclitus","author":"kaye","date":"20 May 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes translating things is a great way to get a feel for conlangs. I've been thinking more about mine over the past few days as I work through the solution I've finally found to finishing a novella about forest shrines and restless dead. That novella has been unfinished for a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"classical atarahi\"","block_context":{"text":"classical atarahi","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/classical-atarahi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":93,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2017\/12\/21\/happy-winter-solstice-and-lexember-17-21\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":4},"title":"Happy Winter Solstice! (\u2026 and Lexember #17-21)","author":"kaye","date":"21 December 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"First off,\u00a0Happy Winter Solstice to everyone! \u2600\ufe0f\ud83c\udf03 In Tveshi, that would be\u00a0Keshehio Oinnupor\u00e5s\u0117o mesah! \u2014 You.DAT Winter Solstice.CAUS solidarity\/hello\/salutations. Indirect objects come before direct objects. In Narahji,\u00a0Ku tsukgenahaitsi raer\u00e5s domozmbe. A\/the Winter Solstice memorable have.IMPERATIVE you.PL. Second, I published a poem in\u00a0Eternal Haunted Summer called \"What Remains in the Ruins.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"conlang\"","block_context":{"text":"conlang","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/conlang\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":72,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2017\/12\/03\/lexember-day-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":5},"title":"Lexember Day #3","author":"kaye","date":"3 December 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I spent about an hour and a half working on my Tveshi dictionary and wrote up about 10-15 entries, which included derivative words based on prefixes, suffixes, and compounds. I have a group of \"unclaimed\" words that I am using to fill out roots that I don't have yet and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"conlangs\"","block_context":{"text":"conlangs","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/conlangs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190,"href":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}