Brave Old World
Nov. 1st, 2005 06:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
Good luck to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
joshuwain, auryanne, ladyperegrine, daroneasa, ka_crow, sammyh and every other NaNoWriMo 2005 participant. When you emerge from your caves, sunken and haggard with the demands of your stingy, fickle muses, your friends and family will be waiting with applause, encouragement and enough alcohol to poison a bull elephant. Godspeed! :)
Thankfully October is over, and the worst of the bad month is over. It's leaving its stink for the beginning of November, though, and there's a lot I'll have to dig myself out from under. The work situation isn't going to resolve itself; if anything it's likely to get worse until I head out for the vacation in the start of December. Worst case scenario, Charles tells me to scrap the whole thing...I have taken a lot of time off last month for bronchitis and Oklacon. Asking for two weeks all in a row is more than likely to draw his ire and make Don, at the very least, passive-aggressive. Both will doubt my dedication to the Bookshop, etc. etc. It won't be fun trying to appease them, but I've been planning this trip for months and I'll be damned if I'm not taking it.
The money situation has yet to sort itself out, especially since I'm planning a huge trip in a month's time. Beyond that, there's the big move to California that (hopefully) will happen next summer/fall. I'm thinking that perhaps it would be good to wait until this time next year; I could rent a moving van, take a friend with me to Oklacon 2006 and head west afterwards. The drive would be awesome, of course, and that way I could make my favorite convention. Until then, I'm looking into ways to tighten my belt as much as possible financially to ensure I'll have enough to make it. Most people have made the most jaded comments about my seriousness about this, and I've taken it to heart. I have a keen interest in proving these people wrong.
Writing is a top priority this month, for sure. :) Since I won't be spending any money what else am I going to have to do? ;) "Grey Warming Over" is my biggest thing right now, since the comedy routine is over. (Though I should take notes from the performance and refine the material.) I would really *love* to write the whole thing over, but I'm not sure how workable that is withinvisiblewolf. I think I have a much better understanding of how to write the story I was trying to write back then, but it might seem odd to have Part 1 of this story taking up space in a zine, then pretty much say "No, that was really my crappy rough draft, here's the actual story." in the next issue. What I'll probably do is make the best Part 2 I possibly can, then rework the entire story and throw it up somewhere. That sounds like a plan.
If there's one thing October taught me, it's who my friends are. Thanks to everyone who've shown interest and/or concern over the past few weeks, I really do appreciate it. It's been a rough patch, and it'll continue to be so for a while, but with such awesome people looking over my shoulder I'm really optimistic that I can get through it.
I've been thinking a lot about my relationships, lately. I know a lot of people who seem to have rather cynical and unflattering views about my personality and character, and I can't say it's wholly undeserved. I'm definitely not the most awesomest person in the world, and I have flaws and quirks and eccentricities that are undeniably grating to most personalities. I won't try to defend myself; in a lot of ways, I'm a bad person. But I'm trying to get better, all the time. I'm committed to that. Improvement means a great deal to me; I recognize most of my flaws and I want to find ways to strengthen them...or at least minimize the detriment they cause to other people. It's not easy, I stumble, I drop the ball all the time. But I get back up, I try again. That's all I can do.
I'm awkward around people because I'm never quite sure what they expect of me. With most, I'm fairly certain it's not much; there are a good many relationships (unfortunately) built around only the most tenuous of connections. As much as I would love to do something about that, the difference of my lifestyle and a good many of my ideals doesn't really endear me to most people. I'm not really into toys or video games, I don't care too much about social stuff (anymore), I don't really like showing off or being someone who grabs and/or demands a lot of attention (though, I suppose I do in my own ways). I'm just interested in doing what I want to do as well as I possibly can, and being a good friend to people.
It's this last bit that's causing me the most concern. I really worry about being a crappy friend to people I care about. In a lot of cases this seems almost inevitable; I have a really hard time reading people on-line and it's difficult to focus sometimes. And like I said, I can't seem to get past those very tenuous (often kink-related) connections. How do I talk about Buddhism to someone who's only interested in playing a character? What do I say to people who can talk for hours about MMORPGs when I really don't know anything about them? How can I interest someone who's into macrophilia for pretty different reasons than my own, especially when it's so difficult for me to pinpoint exactly how to push those buttons?
What do I do to become a better friend? I don't think I'm necessarily bad with people...quite the opposite, in fact. But genuine connection, a true bond...the whole concept seems so alien to me on several levels. In a lot of ways I feel really closed off, and I'm not sure how that happened, or how long it's been going on. It worries me.
Anyway, saw this in someone else's journal and I think it's a really grand idea. If you can think of an honest, constructive criticism you see in my dealing with people, or in my personality in general, please let me know in an anonymous comment to this post. This isn't an attention grab or a plea for reassurance that I'm a good person; it's sweet and I do appreciate it, but it isn't helpful in this case. I need to know where I'm lacking, and what I could do to make it better. Any direction people could point me in would be greatly appreciated.
joshuwain, auryanne, ladyperegrine, daroneasa, ka_crow, sammyh and every other NaNoWriMo 2005 participant. When you emerge from your caves, sunken and haggard with the demands of your stingy, fickle muses, your friends and family will be waiting with applause, encouragement and enough alcohol to poison a bull elephant. Godspeed! :)Thankfully October is over, and the worst of the bad month is over. It's leaving its stink for the beginning of November, though, and there's a lot I'll have to dig myself out from under. The work situation isn't going to resolve itself; if anything it's likely to get worse until I head out for the vacation in the start of December. Worst case scenario, Charles tells me to scrap the whole thing...I have taken a lot of time off last month for bronchitis and Oklacon. Asking for two weeks all in a row is more than likely to draw his ire and make Don, at the very least, passive-aggressive. Both will doubt my dedication to the Bookshop, etc. etc. It won't be fun trying to appease them, but I've been planning this trip for months and I'll be damned if I'm not taking it.
The money situation has yet to sort itself out, especially since I'm planning a huge trip in a month's time. Beyond that, there's the big move to California that (hopefully) will happen next summer/fall. I'm thinking that perhaps it would be good to wait until this time next year; I could rent a moving van, take a friend with me to Oklacon 2006 and head west afterwards. The drive would be awesome, of course, and that way I could make my favorite convention. Until then, I'm looking into ways to tighten my belt as much as possible financially to ensure I'll have enough to make it. Most people have made the most jaded comments about my seriousness about this, and I've taken it to heart. I have a keen interest in proving these people wrong.
Writing is a top priority this month, for sure. :) Since I won't be spending any money what else am I going to have to do? ;) "Grey Warming Over" is my biggest thing right now, since the comedy routine is over. (Though I should take notes from the performance and refine the material.) I would really *love* to write the whole thing over, but I'm not sure how workable that is with
invisiblewolf. I think I have a much better understanding of how to write the story I was trying to write back then, but it might seem odd to have Part 1 of this story taking up space in a zine, then pretty much say "No, that was really my crappy rough draft, here's the actual story." in the next issue. What I'll probably do is make the best Part 2 I possibly can, then rework the entire story and throw it up somewhere. That sounds like a plan.If there's one thing October taught me, it's who my friends are. Thanks to everyone who've shown interest and/or concern over the past few weeks, I really do appreciate it. It's been a rough patch, and it'll continue to be so for a while, but with such awesome people looking over my shoulder I'm really optimistic that I can get through it.
I've been thinking a lot about my relationships, lately. I know a lot of people who seem to have rather cynical and unflattering views about my personality and character, and I can't say it's wholly undeserved. I'm definitely not the most awesomest person in the world, and I have flaws and quirks and eccentricities that are undeniably grating to most personalities. I won't try to defend myself; in a lot of ways, I'm a bad person. But I'm trying to get better, all the time. I'm committed to that. Improvement means a great deal to me; I recognize most of my flaws and I want to find ways to strengthen them...or at least minimize the detriment they cause to other people. It's not easy, I stumble, I drop the ball all the time. But I get back up, I try again. That's all I can do.
I'm awkward around people because I'm never quite sure what they expect of me. With most, I'm fairly certain it's not much; there are a good many relationships (unfortunately) built around only the most tenuous of connections. As much as I would love to do something about that, the difference of my lifestyle and a good many of my ideals doesn't really endear me to most people. I'm not really into toys or video games, I don't care too much about social stuff (anymore), I don't really like showing off or being someone who grabs and/or demands a lot of attention (though, I suppose I do in my own ways). I'm just interested in doing what I want to do as well as I possibly can, and being a good friend to people.
It's this last bit that's causing me the most concern. I really worry about being a crappy friend to people I care about. In a lot of cases this seems almost inevitable; I have a really hard time reading people on-line and it's difficult to focus sometimes. And like I said, I can't seem to get past those very tenuous (often kink-related) connections. How do I talk about Buddhism to someone who's only interested in playing a character? What do I say to people who can talk for hours about MMORPGs when I really don't know anything about them? How can I interest someone who's into macrophilia for pretty different reasons than my own, especially when it's so difficult for me to pinpoint exactly how to push those buttons?
What do I do to become a better friend? I don't think I'm necessarily bad with people...quite the opposite, in fact. But genuine connection, a true bond...the whole concept seems so alien to me on several levels. In a lot of ways I feel really closed off, and I'm not sure how that happened, or how long it's been going on. It worries me.
Anyway, saw this in someone else's journal and I think it's a really grand idea. If you can think of an honest, constructive criticism you see in my dealing with people, or in my personality in general, please let me know in an anonymous comment to this post. This isn't an attention grab or a plea for reassurance that I'm a good person; it's sweet and I do appreciate it, but it isn't helpful in this case. I need to know where I'm lacking, and what I could do to make it better. Any direction people could point me in would be greatly appreciated.
