Rabbit rabbit!

[byslantedlight]

I wonder if kids anywhere still say that for the first of the month... I wonder why we said it for the first of the month...? (You had to say it first thing to someone when you met them, before you said anything else...) Anyone else remember that? My brain did one of those odd things just now, and dragged it out of apparently nowhere (aka the deep dark depths of my memories, I guess... *g*)

November!

I've written 21 words for NaNoWriMo.

*g* Up until last night I still didn't know what I was going to write, and with the current faffing about over lj, and dayjob being ridiculously mental (partly cos I was away last week, partly cos there's a new (additional) boss and partly... well, just cos it is) I didn't have a minute yesterday to finally think about it and decide, as planned. Part of me wants to write something original, to take to the Writing Group, another part of me thinks this'll be a good way to get my DialjDecember story written, and Tuesday's part of me wondered if I might split the difference, cheat a bit, and do both.

But I seem to be writing Two Go Adventuring Again. *g*

My plan is that NaNoWriMo has worked for me before, nothing else has this year (even begging everyone's help here, thank you and sorry it didn't, somehow...) so maybe NaNoWriMo will be my last chance to get going again... It might just help that I've given up one of my time-consuming jobs for the month. I hope!

Nice to see a post from lj_releases this morning, about the new friends page - information missing from the original post includes:
- you can opt out of infinite scrolling on your friends page, and have the same pagination as now
- there will be an option to change background/images and font

Rumours that cropped up via people worriedly trawling various Russian ljs included the idea that paid accounts would be cancelled next year - they won't be, or not exactly. They're apparently going to make one basic account level, and rather than paying for "an account" which gives extra features, you'll be able to pay for individual features themselves. This sounds quite good to me right now - there's lots of features included in my paid account that I've never used and am unlikely to, so I'd be happy to opt out of paying for those ones!

Aaaand... thank you everyone who voted about my name, yestereday! *g* It was neck-and-neck for a while there, but in the end I went for byslantedlight. I did the import journal thing, and added my banner to a fairly randomly chosen style (which insists on imposing my lj name across the banner, but I'm not taking time to muck about with choosing other styles right now). But I'm not going anywhere unless I have to... *g*

Meanwhile, November means NaNoWriMo, a whole month off Job 3, that there's only a week to go until the Pros Writing Holiday - wheeeee! - autumn leaves and grey skies, and cool clean, rain-washed air, and that there will be posts very shortly (no, really... *g*) about the various Pros-y December activities. Yeay! *g*

Aaaaaand... the lads!


How's your November looking? *g*

Comments

[empty-mirrors.livejournal.com]

That looks a bit more hopeful. I shall stop running away like a headless chicken and wait warily to see what happens. At least I have peeps attached to my DW account now, so that's cool, and somewhere to go quickly if I feel the need.

Good luck on NaNo!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it makes more sense, doesn't it. I'd seen it from igrick's lj post, translated from Russian, yesterday, but it's good to have it confirmed - especially because online translators are notoriously dodgy...

I suspect what happens will be as much down to friends and fandom as anything else - the whole tippling-over thing still holds to some extent (especially since alot of people still seem to be headless-chickening to the releases post... *headdesk*)... ah well, we'll see! I suppose it's good to have the places held, just in case... (I notice dw was offering new accounts made without invite codes for a limited period - I'd gone over expecting to have to find someone with an invite code, but was able to sign up straight away. They're nothing if not as consumer-canny as lj!)

[empty-mirrors.livejournal.com]

DW haven't actually required invite codes for about a year now. I think they felt they could deal with a rush if there was one and so dropped it. But yeah, they're a business so probably just as canny as LJ. It goes with the territory.

The real breaker for me, and I suspect others, will be if they make largish scale interaction too difficult. LJ (or any journal) for me has to have the ability to offer more than 50 word comments. Not that I do comment often, or use more than 50 words, but you know, the option isn't an option in my book. That, though, would drive me away entirely, instead just trying to find options for my everyday browsing page, which is what I tend to use my Friends page for, and that was what the panic was about yesterday. I wanna stare at ugly and intrusive. Hence no Facebook or Tumblr.

Anyway, I am at least more hopeful.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm more hopeful too, I promise! *g* I'm also with you on the long comments. I do take advantage of long comments (and posts *g*), and although some of my flist might rather like me to be a bit more constrained (*g*) it's not how I want to blog, and chat and all, so... Lj really would be daft to take that away though, as it sets them so much apart, and it can't be just fandom that likes it... Unless perhaps they ended up being politically-driven, and were effectively forced to try and cut people's ability to communicate widely - but from what I gather that's exactly the opposite of what they've been about so far, and I'd actively like to support their efforts towards wider freedom of communication, so...

And ha - I wondered if the open dw (I can't capitalise, that's Doctor Who...) codes might have been coincidence, but I thought perhaps by a week or so! *g* Guess the "limited period" is currently rather unlimited... *g*

[murphybabe]

What do you mean, anyone else remember that? - we still do it! It's a first-of-the-month ritual here, except that it's 'white rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits' before you say anything else.

And good news about lj. I hadn't spotted that, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. That will help matters. Although I too hopped over to dw yesterday and created an account... just in case *g*

Yay for writing, and 21 words, and Two Go Adventuring Again - that makes me happy!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yes! Sometimes it was "white rabbit" - I remember that too! *g* No one does it here - it's so dull darn sarf... *g*

Yeay for November! *g*

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

Definitely White Rabbits. Though it's only absolutely mandatory in February and March, when your last words on the last day of the month should be March Hares, March Hares, March Hares. I have no idea why!!!*g*

I was relieved to see the LJ update this morning. The scrolling was going to be impossible for me so it's great that it can be turned off. And it will be good to be able to choose a background colour etc. Panic over, for most people, I imagine, though why they couldn't have told us all that at the outset...

I agree that the ability to make long comments is the feature that sets LJ apart. You can do the same with Blogger and Wordpress but it's much much harder to set up conversations involving more than just the initial blogger and one other person. Let's hope LJ wouldn't be so mad as to curtail comments!!!

Looking forward to Two Go Adventuring Again *g* I imagine if you're having a Pros-y holiday in Novemember that fanfic will be a better 'fit' than original fic for Nanowrimo.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've never heard of the March Hares thing! And white/rabbit was used any month for us... Of course you could also pinch and a punch for the first of the month, which I remember we mostly did in Australia when I was wee... *g*

I suppose lj just didn't predict which part of the changes would frighten people the most! I can see, from their end, that it's difficult - fandom aren't the only userbase of lj, and perhaps the majority of their users (now in Cyrillic) use lj differently to the way we use it. It doesn't necessarily mean they want to lose us, but it probably means that we're not their first thought when they're designing things. There were some good comments to today's post reminding people why the changes were being made, too - because lj is effectively broken, in many ways, and needs a good spring clean overhaul... I do understand that it has to keep up with the technological changes - I just hope they won't change the format we love too much as they go along... *crossing fingers*...We might end up back in letterzines after all.. *g*

Good point about the Pros-y holiday in November making it easier to NaNoWriMo a Pros story - I think that was partly in my mind, too... though I'm not sure it's going to be all that easy to write so regularly that week, even if it is supposed to be a writing holiday... hold thumbs for me there, too! *g*

[constant-muse.livejournal.com]

rabbits and hares??!! doesn't everyone do

pinch punch
first day of the month
(and no returns for ever)
?!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Heeee - nope! *g*

Pinch and a punch
for the first of the month

though... *g*