I think it's still an interesting question whether this feature should be enabled by default (and most people seem to agree it should be).

So - yeah, let’s not press Elon too much.

It seems like he literally enabled a fascist government and hurt tons of citizens with irresponsible firings. He can and still perhaps should be hated for that.

oof, that's just sad. i hope people switch, firefox is actually not that bad these days

Eh, it happens. With true independent self hosting you get occasional hiccups. I suggest not worrying about such events too much. Accepting occasional downtimes is the punk in solarpunk, if you ask me.

Hey there. ☺️ That's an amazing photo

understandable. how dare you change your schedule without advance notice to the cat monarchs of the household :-o

So you're publishing a campaign book? That sounds exciting!

According to the prime minister’s former Chief of Staff Marco Mendicino, climate has always been a secondary concern. A key goal for the Carney government, Mendicino explained at a Toronto conference in January, is “to increase our oil production.”

Sad.

An inbox delete would be enough as far as the user is concerned, it wouldn't need to be deleted on the server side. But e.g. some people send literal gore. Moderation is useful but understandably may often take a while, so until then there should be a way to get it out of sight.

Leider das übliche Level von nach unten tretend (meine Meinung), dass von CDU+SPD zu erwarten ist...

Die einzige Überraschung für mich ist, dass so viele Leute CDU wählen.

I honestly thought this was a real headline before seeing the source.

You can do it!!!

I think like 99% of writing advice, it's a brain chemistry thing. I generally like "just write". But e.g. when I know I'm not 100% settled on the outcome of some specific arc yet or I don't fully know yet what overall direction I'll go in next, I may stop mid draft and work on other related art for a few days just to give myself time to ponder it before I get back to drafting. The common worry is killing momentum like that is a risk factor for completing the draft at all, but I have written for almost 10 years now so I know that I'll be fine doing this. But you might not be fine if you try it, so it really depends on the person.

Some writing advice I ignore myself entirely, even though I think it's a good idea for most, due to brain chemistry:

• Most writing advice says never edit before you finish the draft. I almost always edit what I wrote the previous day before I continue with new work on the current day. However, I hear other people say they will get stuck on worries and bad feelings regarding their previous mistakes if doing this, and therefore this may seriously impede their ability to get going.

• Most writing advice says follow common three act or four act structures. I typically mostly ignore that since I like to just find whatever's interesting next as I go, and during revision I don't change the plot in retrospect to fit these blueprints either. However, I think for most writers this would be too stressful of a way to find a compelling plot and the act structure would work better for them.

• Most writing advice says don't edit right after you wrap up the draft, let it sit first. Almost always I immediately edit it back to front. I still let it sit, but I do that after, and then I come back for a second revision later. However, I think most writers hate revisions while I enjoy them, so they should probably let it sit first to conserve their energy.

• Most writing advice says your first novel will come out all wrong, and you should be prepared that the inevitable outcome is that you'll never publish it, and that you'll need 2-3 drafted novels until you get good enough to write your "true" first novel. I think this might work the best for some writers, but I think if you enjoy or at least don't mind relatively extreme and cruel revisions like me, you can totally pick up how to write novels by heavily revising your first draft over and over instead of just starting over multiple times. I think it's mostly a question of whether you work better iteratively or by starting over once you realize how to do it, which again seems like a brain chemistry thing.

• Some writing advice says practice with short stories first before you try novels. I don't know how to write a short story, I always run out of pages before I get to anything interesting, and I don't find them compelling to write anyway. I'm more of a character-driven writer than somebody sitting down to have a specific message, the latter of which feels more appropriate for short stories, and rather than finding the length of a novel hard to fill I tend to overshoot and end up making sequels. However, I think for people that find trying to draft a full novel immediately too intimidating or they might get frustrated if they end up with an entire novel's length of an inevitably bad first draft, short stories are a good starting point for practice.

• Some writing advice says that if what two characters bring to the story could be done via just one character, you should merge them. I don't do that, since I like a messier cast. However, I could see many writers feel like they get lost this way and that they struggle to make a cast that feels unique and "alive", so I'm not sure I'd recommend a messy approach to others. It can also be more challenging during the edit.

• Some writing advice says every chapter should have a specific conflict and a resolution to it, so that a chapter has a specific purpose. I don't even write using chapters, I somewhat arbitrarly split up the book into chapters after the fact. Therefore, I don't follow this rule either although in practice often there vaguely ends up being one sort of conflict or topic per chapter, but not always. I think a chapter can totally be "only vibes" and still have a purpose. However, I think most other writers will find writing without any chapters or any chapter-level planning whatsoever way too confusing, or may struggle to make chapters not feel like filler.

• Some writing advice says only write if you have a message. I find it easier to sit down at the mid point and to figure out what sort of message might fit this book best, since inevitably my personal views already informed the story anyway and now I just have to figure out which one to make the focus of the finale to wrap it all up nicely. However, to people that don't naturally inject their views into their writing as much, perhaps it would help them to sit down and ponder a message, before they write an outline and the opening scene. And what I do may work best for character-driven writers, but less so for plot-driven writers.

• And of course the typical recommendation is to outline on some level since almost nobody works best with no outline. But there seems to be more of an understanding nowadays that some people really do write most comfortably via pure discovery, which is how I usually write.

So in summary I think "just write" will be great for most people but not for everyone, which is worth keeping in mind.

I've been still kind of lost on a temporary tech adventure as well as had a ton of unusual and unexpected in person events to attend and some paperwork nonsense. But I'm posting here anyway so I feel bad about the writing break and get back into it sooner than later 😆 my current time table is to finish drafting a book that is 25% written by about the end of the year, so while I'm still on time I have to get started with that soon so there's a realistic chance of that working out.

Crowdfunding is scary, it sucks that it's so hard to get art funded.

I'm looking forward to that short story! ☺️

I'm continuing work on my dystopian/contemporary setting cozy fantasy series. I started it in 2022 and it's a trilogy, so it's keeping me quite busy. There are contemporary elements in it that require quite some research, and I try to have representation that's somewhat progressive so I want to get those things right. But most of the work simply is due to the fact that I currently do most editing myself based on a bunch of test readers, letting it sit for a few weeks, working through it back to front once more, and repeat.

Recently, I decided to format a specific kind of non-verbal communication that occurs in the books differently. Such changes require my own sort of style guide decisions, and then I have to go through every single paragraph to adjust things. It's both meditative and a bit tiring, but at the end of the day I love that sort of busywork and it's always a good learning opportunity.

The third book draft still lacks an ending, but I'm not in a huge hurry to finish it. This year has been busy with some side job things, and I usually prefer to take my time and get it right rather than rush. Since I have multiple books to work on, I also like to jump to whatever motivates me the most, so no time is really lost even if I don't work on the final ending at any given point in time.

I used to track word count to motivate me, but it's always an on- and off thing. Currently I simply work based on enjoying sitting down and getting lost in the pages. But perhaps to push for the final ending I might start tracking words again for a short while. It can help me with drafting, the editing part I usually manage without much of a competitive pressure but for drafting I need it sometimes to keep going.

(If anybody's curious, I also switch between editing and drafting on often a weekly or even daily basis. It can be both risky and rewarding, kind of depends on whether that causes you to never get anything done or whether it keeps work fresh and interesting for you. I've been busy with this for years so I usually welcome any change from the usual boring flow, so I have found that it helps me more than it hurts.)

I actually got back into writing, and did a huge revision with multiple medium importance fixes to the second book of the trilogy. They weren't really plotholes, but sections where the characters didn't have as much of a clear goal as I like, causing the pacing to feel somewhat meandering. And I added some fun change that doesn't really objectively improve the writing, but which I love. The third book is still not fully drafted and I think I'll return to that soon, either around christmas or early next year. The hope is still to release the trilogy some time next year, although I might be running slightly late on that. Which wouldn't be a big deal, but I do wanna finish the drafting soon since I'm better at revising a really long running project than I am at keeping drafting more for it, and I could e.g. already start a new project once the trilogy is at the revisions-only stage. That might be fun to spice things up.

TTRPGs are such a fascinating in-between of writing fiction on your own, and group activities. I don't tend to play them myself since I find writing my own novels more fulfilling, but I am constantly fascinatined by them.

Sorry that I have been participating less, it's mostly that I've been busy with tech things. I should be back to more writing in around march, or perhaps late february! Still got an entire book to finish in 2026.