The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 04: Come On In

[TxRad]

There are advantages to having an email as oggbashan. Any emails to that account purporting to be from a bank, PayPal, Amazon etc. are obvious spam and/or phishing.

I have two e-mail accounts. One for Lit and one personal. Guess which one gets the most spam.

Afternoon coffee is now ready. Help your own self.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have two e-mail accounts. One for Lit and one personal. Guess which one gets the most spam. .

Your personal one. Didn't someone tell you that combination of names and verbs was really, really dodgy .

 

[Handley_Page]

#I was filling in some bloody on-line form and go to the point where I had to enter my email thing.
So I put it in and was told, in no uncertain terms, that it was nnot a valid entry,

 

[oggbashan]

#I was filling in some bloody on-line form and go to the point where I had to enter my email thing.
So I put it in and was told, in no uncertain terms, that it was nnot a valid entry,

I have had that too, usually because they insist I must enter a valid mobile phone number that I don't have.

Pay for parking by phone? With what phone, and even if I had one I couldn't see the screen nor could my fingers operate the numbers?

They don't make allowances for old disabled people who can't use a mobile.

 

[ThisNameIsntTakenYet]

I have had that too, usually because they insist I must enter a valid mobile phone number that I don't have.

Pay for parking by phone? With what phone, and even if I had one I couldn't see the screen nor could my fingers operate the numbers?

They don't make allowances for old disabled people who can't use a mobile.

You don't have to be that old for that, though. My parents never had a smart phone as neither of them will be able to operate it properly. And they're in their 50s, and not disabled. They're just not good at going with their time and general tech stuff.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I have had that too, usually because they insist I must enter a valid mobile phone number that I don't have.

Pay for parking by phone? With what phone, and even if I had one I couldn't see the screen nor could my fingers operate the numbers?

They don't make allowances for old disabled people who can't use a mobile.

That’s pretty ordinary. The next major town over has a new parking system which you type your plate number into the machine with buttons about 1/2” dia. You pay by cash, card, or phone...

 

[oggbashan]

The car park nearest to my physiotherapist's practice has a machine the requires the full number plate on very small buttons impossible to see after dark. Unfortunately the number 9 does not work and my number plate has two 9s.

Elsewhere they have number plate recognition entry and departure. If you set up an online account, as I have, you can drive in and out and the charge will be debited from your credit (NOT debit) card. Otherwise you have to go to the machine, enter your full number plate on the very small buttons, pay and then leave within ten minutes.

At a commercially run car park in another town the fee was ten pounds from 5 to 24 hours with number plate recognition on entry. You have to enter the full number plate with the very small buttons and pay with coins. Notes or cards are not accepted. We didn't have ten pound coins, only six and the rest in smaller coins. Four times the system timed out before we had put all the coins in. Start again by keying in the number plate...

Eventually we had to go to a shop nearby and change up our small coins to pound coins.

 

[TxRad]

Six Pound coins? How do you keep your pants up with a pocket full of coins?

Yes, it is going to be one of those days but fresh coffee is available for anyone in need.

At the present, I'm having powdered donuts and chocolate milk.

 

[oggbashan]

Six Pound coins? How do you keep your pants up with a pocket full of coins?

Yes, it is going to be one of those days but fresh coffee is available for anyone in need.

At the present, I'm having powdered donuts and chocolate milk.

When last weighed by a medical professional I had to hand my bag of loose coins to my wife. They weighed over a kilo. It was worse before decimalization in 1971 with 240 large pennies to a pound.

I wear a belt on my jeans otherwise they would fall down now I am gradually reducing my weight by improved diet.

Coffee with sweeteners and semi-skimmed milk, please.

 

[Handley_Page]

Six Pound coins? How do you keep your pants up with a pocket full of coins?

Yes, it is going to be one of those days but fresh coffee is available for anyone in need.

At the present, I'm having powdered donuts and chocolate milk.

'Powdered Doughnuts' ??
Powdered to what, fairy dust ?

Did you say fresh coffee?
Oh jolly good; I'm desperate

 

[TxRad]

'Powdered Doughnuts' ??
Powdered to what, fairy dust ?

Did you say fresh coffee?
Oh jolly good; I'm desperate

Powdered with confectioner sugar.

Caught up on my paperwork for my publisher. I do it each time i get a check. Incentive is good.

 

[_Lynn_]

I'm hoping the temperature cools enough that I can open a few windows. I get tired of listening to the AC run.

 

[Handley_Page]

I'm hoping the temperature cools enough that I can open a few windows. I get tired of listening to the AC run.

come over here for the weekend; our pleasant weather is predicted to cool. . . . .

 

[NightSailor]

Lots of coffee this am. Now I'm wired. Just finished and submitted another story. Working on a rewrite of a third. Time to switch to a malt beverage.

Hey Oggbashan - any word yet?

 

[ThisNameIsntTakenYet]

Managed to write a bit more on my summer story, which is now just over 2.5k words long. Feels like it'll get quite a lot longer yet, as it's only just getting started. Definitely going to be a lot longer than my nude day story, that's for sure.

It's slow going with school and life in general, but it feels good to be writing something again. Hopefully I'll be able to write some more soon, but it should be done in time for the contest I hope. Should be possible, unless life throws some other random obstacles in my way or I get side tracked and make the story a lot longer than I'm estimating at the moment.

 

[TxRad]

Time for the afternoon coffee to be freshened up.

A little writing done here but not much. Most of my time is being taken up with getting HM's mom's house ready for sale. You might be surprised how hard it is to simply give away perfectly good furniture and clothes. Maybe not.

I have a perfectly good, almost new, $4000 dollar electric wheelchair no one seems to want. Crazy.

Okay, back to the moaning and groaning about writing.

 

[oggbashan]

Lots of coffee this am. Now I'm wired. Just finished and submitted another story. Working on a rewrite of a third. Time to switch to a malt beverage.

Hey Oggbashan - any word yet?

Not yet. Best guess is I will be notified of an appointment early next week.

 

[NotWise]

The wife and daughters are discussing their manicures and pedicures, so I may as well come here and groan about writing.

I reread my Wolves of Winter story for the first time since I put it aside last fall. I was stuck on it, backed out about 500 words and left it with some notes. I was bogged down on the story long before that, and the beginning of the story was edited to death. On rereading, I felt like I'd destroyed the natural flow of the writing.

Am I the only one who does that? I don't think it'll be that much of a problem to fix, but I shouldn't have to fix it.

 

[TxRad]

The wife and daughters are discussing their manicures and pedicures, so I may as well come here and groan about writing.

I reread my Wolves of Winter story for the first time since I put it aside last fall. I was stuck on it, backed out about 500 words and left it with some notes. I was bogged down on the story long before that, and the beginning of the story was edited to death. On rereading, I felt like I'd destroyed the natural flow of the writing.

Am I the only one who does that? I don't think it'll be that much of a problem to fix, but I shouldn't have to fix it.

I found out early on that a writer is their own worst editor. Since then, my real editor has proved that to me time and again. I also learned early to trust my gut and the flow of the story. Now, I edit minor stuff and leave any major editing until the end and then I wait a week or so.

Bogging down is always a sign that it is time to go do something else. I have several hundred stories hanging in the wind at any one time.

For my mainstream stuff, I'm very lucky that i do have a very good editor that i can bounce things off of when I do bog down.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

No. Unless I’m doing a commission and working straight through, I generally have half-a-dozen plot bunnies in the pot, returning to them every so often in order. Eventually, one gets finished. And re-re-re-re-editing is my true bane.

 

[NotWise]

For my mainstream stuff, I'm very lucky that i do have a very good editor that i can bounce things off of when I do bog down.

In retrospect, it would have helped to have a trusted editor or beta reader that could read a 1/3-finished Romance and answer the question, "Why am I off my rails?" Putting it aside for a few months and re-reading it helps me answer the question for myself.

 

[NotWise]

No. Unless I’m doing a commission and working straight through, I generally have half-a-dozen plot bunnies in the pot, returning to them every so often in order. Eventually, one gets finished. And re-re-re-re-editing is my true bane.

For me, the interminable re-editing is a symptom of a problem, and it becomes a problem itself. I guess my issue now is to recognize when I have a problem with a story and solving it before I make the story worse.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Am I the only one who does that? I don't think it'll be that much of a problem to fix, but I shouldn't have to fix it.

My approach is to only ever have two stories on the go at any one time. If one slows between writing sessions, I know now that means it's just still cooking or I'm dancing on the edge of the action. I've just written a character asking, "Are we there yet?" Almost, you impatient woman, almost .

If writing stalls completely (which is very rare for me) I just pick the other story up and continue it. Keeping the genres quite different, it's always worked for me.

 

[NotWise]

If writing stalls completely (which is very rare for me) I just pick the other story up and continue it. Keeping the genres quite different, it's always worked for me.

It's been rare for me, too. One of my problems with Wolves of Winter is that I wanted to put it into the Valentines Day contest, so there was a deadline and I didn't want to put it away.

I did switch to very different stories when I put Wolves away.

 

[ThisNameIsntTakenYet]

For me, the interminable re-editing is a symptom of a problem, and it becomes a problem itself. I guess my issue now is to recognize when I have a problem with a story and solving it before I make the story worse.

Yeah, I've noticed I tend to re-read and do some editing on stuff I have already written when I don't want to continue writing for whatever reason. It's a form of procrastination, and at a certain point can indeed start to hurt your earlier scenes. But recently I just told myself "no" and refused to do any major editing until the whole story is written. That forces me to keep writing even when it gets tough, rather than do some pointless (and sometimes destructive) editing to fool myself into believing I'm being productive.