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| This must be the dark side of Living in Interesting Times... I've just been told tomorrow they will be removing the furniture from the coffee shop where I write, to keep people from hanging about the place. I will be forced to work at home, where the distractions lurk. I can understand the logic behind the preventive practice they're calling "social distancing". I can even see people quietly doing it on heir own: people giving each other a little extra room in line at the register. Cashiers seeming to lean back a little, with that subtle nervous look that seems to say "how healthy does this one look?". The speculative fiction writer in me is playing with ideas of bad people high in government, plotting to separate people using disease, sowing distrust to keep people from uniting together against some unexpected power play. It's not my kind of story to write, but there's a lot of interesting--and unfortunate--material happening in front of our eyes these days. Meanwhile, back in reality, it seems even writers are being affected by our current situation. I wish you luck against your own distractions, if you are similarly stuck at home. I also wish you the best of health and safety. Hopefully this will end soon. We are social creatures after all. I would hate for this to create some kind of permanent distancing in our societies. |
| I've been pleasantly surprised, twice, by people nominating me for things here, which is a lovely, inspiring, wonderful thing to do to someone . . . only to realize all my stuff is group-private, so their gracious attempts were thwarted. It made me realize I was (once more) being shy in a world that rewards the bold. I do have works-in-progress here that are not ready for everyone to see, but I realized I also have a few things I can share, even if they aren't my best stuff. So, just for fun and to be more outgoing and stuffs, I'm starting to post bits of work publicly, starting with poetry; with hopes to throw a short story out there from time to time as my friends here help me to polish them up a little. Thanks to those lovely, awesome wonderful people who showed my humble creative bits some love.  |
Are you talking about being nominated for "The Quills"  ? If so, that's totally awesome and apparently you have no reason to be shy! CONGRATULATIONS!!! If you decide to post some items here on the newsfeed, don't forget how to do so. (Sorry, if you already know this, but you're a newbie, so just to be safe...  ) Note that these are braces, not parentheses. Using my challenge (which you are welcome to join) as an example, the two most common ways to post on here are... {item:2109126}  "The Contest Challenge" {bitem:2109126} 
You need the item number to post. It automatically pops up the last 6 or so items you've written or edited after you type the comma, but if you need to post something else, you can find the item number below the item's title and description...or in the web address, if you prefer. It's like about 7 numbers long and probably begins with a 2. Congratulations, again, for people thinking so highly of your work! |
| Thank you so much, whoever the lovely, sneaky, awesome person it was who considered me worthy of a gift membership upgrade here. What an unexpected and wonderful thing to do to a fellow writer--and yet more proof that this is where I need to be to be the writer I want to be. Because people are here for each other. I look forward to being able to pay forward this generosity. Hopefully soon! Thank you, whoever you are.   |
| It happens. No worries. Just so you know, here's how the privacy goes on here... - Your items are visible to anyone who looks in your port or does a search for one of the tag words you included unless you specifically set it to be visible only to a certain group of people or set it to private. I think these options are under Advanced, if I recall, near the bottom of the page. - E-mails and IMs are, of course private. You can IM anyone currently online by clicking Messenger and seeing the list of who is online, then clicking the blue "IM" by their name. (A few have theirs disabled.) - Your Notepad is private. Your Notebook is not! Your Notebook is what shows up on the Newsfeed. Now, it's only viewable to those who click to see the Community Newsfeed and most folks don't. (I suggest you do that regularly. Otherwise, there are a lot of cool folks and events you will miss out on. That's how I found you.) The Newsfeed defaults to your Personal Newsfeed (once you have enough people added to your Fan/Favorite list), so you will only see certain people's posts. But it's not like there are millions of folks posting on the newsfeed daily--it's not Facebook lol, so you can scroll through and see what's up to meet new people and check out events, contests, activities, etc. on here. Posting on the newsfeed from your notebook is the same as posting directly on the newsfeed. - Speaking of scrolling, Scroll is not private, though it might seem to be semi-private. Find Scroll by clicking Messenger on the left side. You'll see a conversation going (or games, if no one is talking, but you can scroll down and usually see where there was a conversation going at some point). Anyone with Messenger open can see what you are saying, even if no one else is responding to you. There are several folks who are active on Scroll and chat there frequently. There are more folks who just keep it open to look for the games. The games (which are typically just speed and luck, BTW) are a good, easy way to earn GPs, so lots of folks just wait for them and can see your conversation in the meantime. There are also lots of lurkers on Scroll.  That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Good luck! |
At least you are exploring when you should be writing. I socialize. At least you are learning. I need to explore more. There no way to ever learn everything here!  |
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