Mae Tang 董美妍

A 1944 map by geologist Harold Fisk charts a 40-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from Friars Point to Gunnison, Mississippi. Fisk used aerial photos and maps to estimate the past and then-present channels. Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/mississippi-rivers-hidden-history-uncovered-by-lidar?fbclid=IwY2xjawQYXkdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFCZ2JBT2tWdVlXMmEzNU5Uc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHsbjW-Yuubr_o_Kfeh0Elzc94geDwfXIZmeNL7NyljEBAOEjH53m2QLSo1NF_aem__4NkCIJ_D8J6mI1e8eMByg

Rivers are living beings.

... editing, I'd search for using "find" on the whole document, to ensure it hasn't crept into dialogue when I don't want it to. There are other phrases that can be used instead that might not feel as jarring. Eg: "Understood" for an acknowledgement. "Well enough" to describe how the character is

... the language of one of the Northern tribes. So they aren't even talking in English. Arguably, there might have been an equivalent of "Okay" in that language.

But if I read "Okay" in English, it feels modern - certainly well past the era of Roman Britain.

It's one of those phrases that in...

Reading another historical gay romance. Roman era Britain. A character just said "Okay." I get it. I really do. "Okay" is the kind of phrase that sneaks into all kinds of dialogue if you're not careful. But etymology-wise, it's maybe 1830s America.

In this book the characters are both speaking...

... intended, I think, where the writer is trying to make other historical details feel accurate.

It's rather like the feeling I get when I read some American authors writing Regency romances, but Americanisms slip in, like "sidewalk" for "pavement". It's jarring, and I struggle to stay immersed.

... so very far off from our own. But if it's England in the 1300s, and your characters are saying, "I guess..." to each other, it will break my immersion.

It's not the end of the world; if I'm pulled out of the setting that way, I can still read it as a story. But it's harder to read it as...

Finished reading another historical gay romance, set in England in 1300. But I'm more ambivalent about this book than not, so I don't think I'll write it up here.

One thing I felt was that yes, the earlier you go, the harder it is to deal with dialogue, because the vernacular of the day is...

This show feels... OK. It's not grabbing me by the throat. I might watch more of it. But I don't feel a lot of urgency to do so either. Plus I'm not on board with the whole "The Marquis killed a lot of people in that one city for revenge, but it's OK because his father was killed there" rationale.

(The live-in husband thing, BTW, is because he is marrying into her family, rather than her marrying into his. And then he's going to be living with her, in her home, rather than her going to live in his family's home. Just in case that's not clear.)

Because of inheritance laws, if the intrepid butcher does not snag herself a live-in husband, she will lose the family home that her parents left to her and her cute little sister. So she and Mr. Mysterious (he's clearly not who he seems to be!) rapidly wind up agreeing to a marriage of convenience.

Trailer 2: Pursuit of Jade 逐玉 | Zhang Linghe, Tian Xiwei (tanpa urutan peringkat) | iQIYI Malaysia YouTube video by iQIYI Malaysia - Get the iQIYI APP

Started watching "Pursuit of Jade". In which an orphaned pig butcher finds a mysterious man lying injured under the snow in the road. She takes him home to recover from his wounds. And also, she knows martial arts, and beats up four gangsters. That's where I've got to in 1.5 episodes anyway. 😂

Please help my dear friend if you can!!

The standards they apply to other cisgender women are white beauty standards, and those will simply not work for large swathes of the gobal population.

Like I am never going to look like that, and I resent the idea that I am supposed to try.

There's an axis to this for me, personally, that feels specifically about the pressure to perform *white* femininity. I remember at one point seeing white terfs attacking Chinese women athletes online who they felt weren't feminine enough - and some of those athletes looked like Chinese women I knew

No, Claude is not anxious.

Anxiety requires two components:

1. Awareness of the possibility of annihilation of self.
2. An autonomic nervous system.

Mimicry of the words of an anxious person is not being anxious.

A dog can be anxious. Your plagiarism machine cannot.

Somewhere, a random cabbage vendor is about to yell, "My cabbages!"

Had a small, other thing to write today, so a bit of a shorter editing stint, taking me up to page 357 of Westmarch.

@jackwallington.com know any places that could take 40-200 bare root fruit trees someone's rescuing from chipper in Kent end March .. please let me know if you do.. he thinks the agreement in my Oxford has fallen through

You might recall this thread about a slop book scam website from last month.

Today I got a fake invitation to do a radio interview which claimed the station was in partnership with the very same slop website.

Perhaps the most accurate technology-related rule of thumb I know is “anything with blockchain is a scam”

Yup.

... about the world that way. But I wish people would.

If you come across a platform that uses an environmentally costly tech, and that is trying to monetise something that is currently free for all writers to participate in, I wish you would take a moment to ask yourself what the catch is.

... about structural inequities in society at large, in the writing world, in publishing, and how marginalised groups tend to be earn less, be paid less, and therefore have less discretionary income to spend on paying to put their work before agents and publishers.

I know not everyone thinks...

Perhaps some people haven't fully thought through what it means if we normalise paying to engage in the process of putting your work before agents and publishers. If we normalise the idea that this is something that money should change hands to enable. I realise not everyone thinks...

... response to any of the actual feedback I sent in to the people or organisations that have been handing out codes to use the platform.

Anyway, I understand that people see a big prize being offered, and that perhaps some writers do not understand how environmentally costly blockchain tech is.

... to try the platform have been couched as wanting "feedback" on the platform. But I might guess that that's also been useful for increasing the number of users overall. Which would, for instance, provide metrics if they wanted more venture capital investment.

And certainly, I've never had a...

And now I've seen a writer I respect saying they are judging for the prize.

I am generally inclined to be somewhat skeptical about platforms that rely on blockchain tech, and that were pro-NFTs. It has occured to me that at least some of the prior pushes to give away free codes to allow writers...

... working with Libraro to offer writers codes to try the platform for free. I emailed the org back with my concerns about Libraro. The response I got said that they would send my feedback to the platform.

Then I came across Libraro partnering with a Big 5 publisher to offer a big prize.

... before agents and publishers. I commented as much to that person. They said they would pass my feedback on to the platform.

The second time I came across Libraro, it was via a writing-related organisation I had sent my work to. The organisation emailed me (and other writers) to say they were...

My general experience with Libraro has been odd. The first time I came across it, it was via someone who has links to the publishing industry, and who was offering codes to try the platform for free. I looked into it, saw that it relied on blockchain, and wanted to monetise putting your work...