Keeping Myself Honest

[ashnistrike]

Nameseeker points out that it's been a while since I posted. It's also been a while since I've done a bunch of other stuff I need to, so I'm combining the problems. For the next few days, I'm going to try to post regular "thuds" about what I've gotten done. Hopefully, this will mean that when I think about spending a few more minutes surfing the web, I will then think that perhaps "found ten new blogs" would be a pretty embarrasing accomplishment to report to y'all. I suspect the posting will drop off after a bit, but by then maybe I'll have some inertia to keep me going for the coming semester.

And today is a good day to start, not by coincidence. So, thud.



Academia. Talked with collaborator about the results we got in October. Concluded that right now I need "more publications" more than I need "better publications" and that we should write this up even as we plan the follow-ups. To do next: write up the data for minor aging journal, figure out paradigm for follow-up.

Writing. Nameseeker also pointed out that as I'm the one who's already produced potentially salable art, I ought to go back to trying to sale it. So, two stories edited and printed out, with cover letters, and ready to go into tomorrow's mail. One story posted to the Baen Slush Conference, an on-line writer's workshop where the best stories end up in a professional-pay webzine put out by Baen Books. Markets identified for the other two stories that aren't out yet, plus a reprint market for a third that was originally in a copy-pay zine. That leaves only the fanfic finished but marketless (one rejected by Strange New Worlds, one for tavadriel's universe that's waiting for the canon to publish). To do next: get the three other stories printed out or e-mailed, and mail all the hard copy.

Other. Went to Pagan gardening workshop. Did not quote Good Omens at the woman who talks so sweetly to her plants, gently raising their self-esteem. Did get good advice about compost, and a possible lead on an affordable area within commuting distance of my work.

Beautiful Things Today. It was sunny out. And warm. And did I mention sunny? My mother-in-law said at New Year's that her area had gotten exactly 14 minutes of sun in December, and we had about the same. Tomorrow it is supposed to snow.

Things I Did Not Do. Go outside while it was sunny. Wash the dishes. Write any new fiction. Go to bed before 5 AM, even though I need to take a bunch of things to the post office tomorrow.

Comments

[klingonguy.livejournal.com]

how about some details on the research study? I need my fix.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Heh. I was trying to show that the older you get, the more your memory is distorted by what you want to be true. The data, however, showed that older adults and younger adults distort exactly the same amount. This is in contrast to every other finding on emotion in older adult memory, but it seems solid because we ran twice as many subjects as we needed in an effort to make it go away. So the follow-up will attempt to answer the question of why we don't find a difference. That's a gamble--if it worked out well, it would mean the write-up could go to a higher prestige journal. But older adult studies take a while to run, and meanwhile I'm not adding to my kinda-skimpy CV.

[londonbard.livejournal.com]

"Did not quote Good Omens to the lady who talks sweetly to her plants."

You could try whispering to them that she operates a rigid culling policy ...

I'm so glad to see you back on-line. Did I ever tell you that the information that you gave me earlier about brain cell replacement was tremendously helpful?

It both helped at the time and when I was recently told that I had such severe vertigo since the crash because I'd had a bleed in the balance centre of the brain (approximently where the back of the seat hit me during the car crash.)

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Glad to know I was able to help, even if only a little. Now you've got me worried--have they been able to do anything about the vertigo? That sounds like it would be more difficult to treat than the (I think) more common inner ear problems. And I'm guessing you've been following the recent discussion of vertigo problems at Ozarque's journal.

[tavadriel.livejournal.com]

Glad to see you posting!

I want to wish you best of luck in the pursuit of publishing, academic and personal. The canon is taking a backseat to the new ideas jumping at me from all angles, but the practice will make it better. I hope. I *so* want to find a way to refer to what you wrote, even if only as a one-liner. Tres, tres cool.