Notices by Elyse M Grasso (elysegrasso@historians.social)

#WritersCoffeeClub 22. How did you develop the idea for your first book?

Late 80s/early 90s I went DEEP down the manga/anime rabbithole, I read a lot of Japanese culture, history and lit in translation, picked up some extension and college language credits, joined an APA that was mostly manga/anime related. My friend who ran the APA said she would write a novel if I did. I finished mine. The world and characters were alt-early-Japanese, no worse than EFP cod-Euro-medieval or anime Catholicism.

#WordWeavers 23. Do you do any writing-adjacent jobs like editing, librarian, character art, etc?

Retired now. I have an MLS and worked as a pro librarian 40+ years ago.

In my more recent SW Eng career, I always felt the version control and bug-tracking aspects of my specialty were very archival, but that may say more about me than the work. And I sometimes felt that tools script development used some of the same energy as prose writing. More admin at work left more space for fiction at home.

#WordWeavers 18 How money-savvy is your MC?

Not bad for a 6 year old. By the end of vol 1, he has actually held coins in his hand -- coins that he had earned -- which is unusual for royalty. And he's spent time in the House on the Rock's squares on Market Days, and in the Duchy offices on tax day, so he has at least a general idea of how money works: he bought souvenirs for relatives back in Karnburg with his own money.

Of course, finance in Traventi is a bit different from anywhere else...

@Nichelle Yes. I wish the blue books had more details.

I have added a new member of my household. I am calling her Nyx: she is mostly black, even her whiskers, but has little constellations of white hairs in a few places. Her eyes are green.
I'll try to get some better pictures once she settles into her new home a bit more
#caturday #CatsOfMastodon

Damn. Is it possible to be allergic to 3:30PM?
I noticed years ago that I tended to have a short mid-afternoon sneezing fit and blamed it on something in the HVAC system getting stirred up.
But it continued to happen at other employers and worksites, and at home.
This house is a newly built PassiveHouse and insanely well sealed, and the ventilation is filtered and cleaned. But I just had yet another mid-afternoon sneezing fit, following one yesterday and others in the recent past.

@countcol Isn't aluminum smelting the traditional way to profit from excess production of electricity? Someone needs to set up an industrial process that does something more useful than mine Bitcoins or generate AI slop and wants to run on large but inconsistent quantities of cheap power.

The new house is complete. By the end of the month, 32 months after the Marshall Fire, the last few punch-list items will be finished.

The solar system needs an inspection, and activation on the power company side, but the construction project is done.

Progress on my new house's landscaping: the front yard is mostly done, with the addition of an octagonal meditation labyrinth and a lot of reworking of the drainage in the front yard. The soil here is horrible clay that does not drain worth mentioning, so they had to add a french drain to carry water past the concrete ramp that leads to the front door.

Whatever you are familiar with, is normal...
I am always surprised by reports that most Americans don't own stocks and bonds: most of my college fund came from accumulated tiny stock dividends. So naturally everyone has some stocks and bonds.
My grandfather had to retire from working in the factory in his 50s because of damage from WWI, so while my grandmother continued working at the coat factory, he took care of the house and invested small amounts of money in the stock market. 1/

As a child in the old country, they were so poor that his Mom made him clothes from the cloth panels from an umbrella, but his grandkids all had money toward college from stocks he bought in our names, and there was a little money from investments to supplement Nonna's pension and Social Security: he himself died at 63.
Doesn't quite fit the usual expectations about class in the US, I guess.

2/fin

Oh, boy! The boycott of Amy's Foods has been ended by the organizers after the company agreed to some changes.
I think I know what my first meal in the new house is going to be: 2 years is a long time between roasted veggie pizzas.

(Sometimes being both allergic to dairy and lactose intolerant gets really old, especially since I lived for 1/2 century before the allergy became completely non-ignorable)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/boycott-of-amys-kitchen-ends-after-the-company-makes-drastic-changes/ar-BB1ob2ga

#Introduction for new server: I'm a retired software engineer and long-time but very intermittently active member of the SCA (the hobby for people who collect hobbies) I follow a lot of writers, artists, and academics: including history, history of books and history of religion. I'm an unpublished writer of (very) alternate universe fantasy modeled after unusual time periods and cultures

My house burned in the 12/30/2021 Marshall Fire and Wind Event. Rebuild broke ground 8/7/2023.

#WritersCoffeeClub #Writing 19: If you could remove one rule of grammar, which would you choose?
Any of the ones that were spliced into English by scholars inappropriately enamored with Latin usage.

#WritersCoffeeClub Nov. 1- What's the best writing advice you've heard or read?

Terry Pratchett's immortal advice: "The first draft is just you telling yourself the story."

Second is probably, "Don't chase trends. Writing and publishing take long enough that you will always be out of step." (May not apply to shorter works or self-publishing.)

@feditips How do you define a Mastodon server vs. a non-Mastodon server website? I log into a server that runs mastodon but is not named mastodon

@youronlyone @books @bookstodon I have both donated to a.gup.pe for bookstodon and followed the @ books group

@Faz Artificially separating SF and fantasy is more trouble than it is worth. Many writers write both, many readers read both, and the border area between them is HIGHLY debatable (and constantly debated). #scfi #fantasy