The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[TheRedLantern]

Must be somebody associated with the Large Hadron Supercollider.

I think he was talking about quantum mechanics, so he could have been a particle physicist.

It was a while ago that I saw this, I was still in college, so I don't remember any of the specifics but graduated from college with the mindset of "I'm going to enter the rat race with the goal of escaping it as quickly as possible."

 

[NotWise]

Anyway, my contribution would've been that I've been reminded that people are sooooooo diverse and contradictory and unpredictable. What a fun bunch we are.

Realizing the diversity here--in the readers as well as in the writers--is a learning experience.

Incidentally, I enjoyed your thoughts on the economics of love and sexuality. I had nothing to add, but it was a good read.

 

[iwatchus]

I recall a recent thread about what we've learned from our time on Literotica, but I can't find it now. Did I dream that or does anyone else remember that?

I just ran into this not so recent thread Thanks to AH that has some of that feel, but I don't remember one like that. But I only go back here about four months.

 

[TheRedLantern]

I'm thinking about my "Pastry / Baked Goods" category entry for the Dark Fairy Tales Challenge ...

A woman goes into "Ye Olde Cupcake Shoppe". She deserves a celebratory cupcake, as she has won an argument on PB (Pastry Board) with a devastating meme. Unable to choose between "Passive Voice Passion Fruit," "Salmon Facial," and "Vanilla," she gets one of each.

Our heroine returns to her small apartment and takes a bite of each cupcake. They're all amazing, and she can't decide which is the best, so she takes another bite of each. And then another, and another, and another ... until only crumbs remain. After the sugar rush ends, she collapses onto her bed and falls victim to a sugar crash on a galactic scale.

The next thing she knows, she's hovering above the bed, looking down on her motionless body. She tries to wake herself, but her hands pass through everything. She's a ghost!

She goes back to "Ye Olde Cupcake Shoppe" and haunts it, pointlessly trying to argue with men who think it's a good idea to tell women they don't know that they find them attractive. Day after day she does this but they never hear her (if ya know, ya know). Night after night she's doomed to smell the cupcakes baking but is unable to eat one. Her despair grows into torment.

Until one day a woman, a redhead if @StillStunned is judging the contest, enters the cupcake shoppe and buys each of the richest, creamiest, most decadent cupcakes. The red-haired woman is depressed, having had a story rejected for AI, and goes home with the intention of ending her life in a terrible sugar crash.

The ghost follows her home and tries to stop her, but still her fingers pass through the world, unable to touch anything. The woman falls asleep and the ghost watches her, a tear in her eye. The tear falls onto the woman's face and the ghost sees the red-haired woman's own spirit raising out of her body.

Our heroine's ghost tells the red-haired woman's ghost that the afterlife is a cold and cupcakeless place, a place as barren and empty as a tenth thread about story pending times. The ghost begs her to return to her body. The red-haired woman's spirit does, having been convinced by our heroine's debate skills.

When the red-haired woman's body breathes again, our heroine wakes up, also.

It was all a dream. She has another chance! And she lives a long and full life.

But then, she wakes up AGAIN, because it's a DARK Fairy Tale and can't have a happy ending. And it turns out that this WHOLE THING was a dream, and she screams as she realizes that she never had the cupcakes in the first place.

So my question to my beta readers ... where can I add more adverbs?

 

[TheRedLantern]

sorry, it's been a long day

 

[NuclearFairy]

sorry, it's been a long day

Yes it has, So can you remind me, what's the difference between an adverb and a verb?

 

[iwatchus]

A verb is an action. An adverb is something describes how the action happens, like quickly or happily (yes usually ending in ly)

 

[NotWise]

I'm thinking about my "Pastry / Baked Goods" category entry for the Dark Fairy Tales Challenge ...

A woman goes into "Ye Olde Cupcake Shoppe". She deserves a celebratory cupcake, as she has won an argument on PB (Pastry Board) with a devastating meme. Unable to choose between "Passive Voice Passion Fruit," "Salmon Facial," and "Vanilla," she gets one of each.

Our heroine returns to her small apartment and takes a bite of each cupcake. They're all amazing, and she can't decide which is the best, so she takes another bite of each. And then another, and another, and another ... until only crumbs remain. After the sugar rush ends, she collapses onto her bed and falls victim to a sugar crash on a galactic scale.

The next thing she knows, she's hovering above the bed, looking down on her motionless body. She tries to wake herself, but her hands pass through everything. She's a ghost!

She goes back to "Ye Olde Cupcake Shoppe" and haunts it, pointlessly trying to argue with men who think it's a good idea to tell women they don't know that they find them attractive. Day after day she does this but they never hear her (if ya know, ya know). Night after night she's doomed to smell the cupcakes baking but is unable to eat one. Her despair grows into torment.

Until one day a woman, a redhead if @StillStunned is judging the contest, enters the cupcake shoppe and buys each of the richest, creamiest, most decadent cupcakes. The red-haired woman is depressed, having had a story rejected for AI, and goes home with the intention of ending her life in a terrible sugar crash.

The ghost follows her home and tries to stop her, but still her fingers pass through the world, unable to touch anything. The woman falls asleep and the ghost watches her, a tear in her eye. The tear falls onto the woman's face and the ghost sees the red-haired woman's own spirit raising out of her body.

Our heroine's ghost tells the red-haired woman's ghost that the afterlife is a cold and cupcakeless place, a place as barren and empty as a tenth thread about story pending times. The ghost begs her to return to her body. The red-haired woman's spirit does, having been convinced by our heroine's debate skills.

When the red-haired woman's body breathes again, our heroine wakes up, also.

It was all a dream. She has another chance! And she lives a long and full life.

But then, she wakes up AGAIN, because it's a DARK Fairy Tale and can't have a happy ending. And it turns out that this WHOLE THING was a dream, and she screams as she realizes that she never had the cupcakes in the first place.

So my question to my beta readers ... where can I add more adverbs?

I like it. You should feel free to pepper adverbs liberally about. I'm contemplating the dream-in-a-dream structure and wondering if it might be overly complicated.

Nah... Just give it more adverbs.

 

[AloneTooLong]

I hope what you're saying holds true for my situation. The two months prior to the blood test I was on a bit of an ice cream binge, worsened by taking my heart meds with a glass of chocolate milk. That many pills go down a lot easier with something slightly thick. So NF's trick with the half-and-half might just be the ticket there.

Kicking those two habits, eliminating potatoes altogether, and making that low-glycemic/high-protein rice (mentioned upstream) a bigger component of my everyday diet is my strategy at the moment. This most recent A1C was a 0.6-point jump over the previous, which had been holding steady over the prior five years. We'll see.

Mr P - there are KETO ice creams available--pricey tho; since you and C don't cook I doubt you have a KitchenAid mixer but there are counter-top ice cream mixers and I know just where to find a number of KETO ice cream recipes. Since I 'do' have the KitchenAid, (there is an attachment for it to 'churn' and the 'mix' goes into a container which has spent 24 hours in my freezer compartment) I make my own ice cream -- whipping cream, eggs, Swerve (sugar replacement) and usually some Almond Mil in there also.

If any of you folks want recipe(s) or links to the recipes on line, just say so.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Another beautiful sunny morning on tap and the animals are gamboling in the back yard. I'm feeling better and hope to be back to my fun self soon.

There's a fresh pot of coffee going and the teapot is hot. There are donuts and cookies on the counter.

I'll be over in the corner working on my story. Intimate conversation is harder to write than sex scenes so I'm bogged down a bit. I hope to work my way through it soon and get on with the overall story. BTW: I've got to have peanut butter in my ice cream ...

 

[NotWise]

The sunlight is on the treetops outside my window and the big house cat is waiting patiently beside me. All is normal here.

The pickles I started fermenting back at the end of July should be done by now. I could can them now, or I could wait a little longer and they'll be a little more sour.

I hope the long weekend is starting out well for y'all. I think there'll be some college football on TV later.

 

[iwatchus]

We are only getting up to the low 60's today. Too cold for August. I didn't even bother trying to write on the screen porch today. I will spend all day trying to be warm enough, without starting the day chilled.

I submitted the Great Cupcake Caper. I am curious how badly it is going get trashed. Oh well. Thank you @TheRedLantern for keeping it from being even worse.

I am working on a How To and trying to resurrect Perfect Sunrise, a sequel to Perfect Sunset. I was surprised how much I liked what I had written. I just need to figure out how to write my characters out of the corner they backed themselves into.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Good morning, all! That's it, really. Another day, another squirrel trashing the garden.

 

[Omenainen]

I just need to figure out how to write my characters out of the corner they backed themselves into.

I'm now imagining your characters happily smooching in the corner and you poking at them with a quill, muttering "come on, you guys, it's adventure time!"

 

[iwatchus]

I'm now imagining your characters happily smooching in the corner and you poking at them with a quill, muttering "come on, you guys, it's adventure time!"

No, the problem is they are in the corner arguing and crying and I need them to make up and kiss.

The original story was the world's fastest romance (hey I was learning how to do this). They are paying for my impatience as they try to start living with each other, barely knowing each other. There is a great deal of culture shock for both of them.

 

[yowser]

I'm thinking about my "Pastry / Baked Goods" category entry for the Dark Fairy Tales Challenge ...

So my question to my beta readers ... where can I add more adverbs?

Can't help with the 'where' part but these 'top ten' adverbs are guaranteed to liven up any tale:

dreamingly
desultorily
throbbingly
salaciously
Robert E. Lee
haltingly
orgasmicly
trustingly
comically
lubriciously
creamily

 

[iwatchus]

I highly recommend creamily for her eating of cupcakes.

 

[TheLobster]

Don't forget 'boobily', as in the immortal:

She breasted boobily down the stairs.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I've always preferred dreamily to dreamingly.

 

[MrPixel]

Don't forget 'boobily', as in the immortal:

She breasted boobily down the stairs.

YOU'RE gonna be the one to clean up the coffee I just spit all over my keyboard. Dammit.

 

[MrPixel]

Crawled out of bed at 11:00 after a writing marathon that kept me up until 3:30 this morning. And at least half of it is going to see the [delete] key. Got on some sort of jag I couldn't let go of, and, damn, in the re-read it was way too much and... well... what was I thinking? Obviously no thinking involved.

C was unhappy about my not coming to bed, and was slamming doors and drawers blaming me for her not getting any sleep after she woke up at 3:00 to crowbar me out of the chair. She does this - frequently wakes up in the wee hours, then is unable to sleep. Doesn't need me to blame for that, we need to find a greater cause. She's coming to hate doctors after a testy situation with our (now my) neurologist, but I need to get her over to our GP and get something done about this sleep deprivation cycle she's fallen into.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I have some free time to write, but I can't get my brain to narrow down and focus on one story...

 

[Rustyoznail]

C was unhappy about my not coming to bed, and was slamming doors and drawers blaming me for her not getting any sleep after she woke up at 3:00 to crowbar me out of the chair. She does this - frequently wakes up in the wee hours, then is unable to sleep. Doesn't need me to blame for that, we need to find a greater cause. She's coming to hate doctors after a testy situation with our (now my) neurologist, but I need to get her over to our GP and get something done about this sleep deprivation cycle she's fallen into.

Could that be a problem? Bec wakes up feeling like she needs to go, but occasionally nothing happens. She'd love to sleep through the night.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I wrote until 4:00 AM this morning, and I have been sluggish all day. Smack, smack, coffee please.

 

[NotWise]

Had enough football, and reread my contest story for the first time since it went up. I found one issue where I could have changed the tense, but for the most part it was good.

There was one editing glitch. I use square brackets to set off notes and pieces that could be rewritten. I forgot to take one of those out, so there's a bracketed sentence fairly early in the story. I don't think I've ever done that before.