I can haz a car! And other mid-morning ramblings...

[byslantedlight]

Hurrah and hurrah! And what was the problem in the end? Dead battery... Turns out that modern batteries don't give you any warning that they're about to cark it, they just do. Wee car had never given me any problems starting, so it never occurred to me it might be the battery... So - bloody phew. A much-more-reasonable-sum-of-money-later, I can go again. I like going... *g*

Speaking of which - should I be counting down? 24 sleeps until I'm sleeping on a plane, if I should... Eeeep! Boxes! Books! Fic! Shelves! Stuff!

And should I do NaNoWriMo this year? I missed it the year I didn't do it (cos I was in Australia that time too - huh), but on the other hand this time I'll be trying to work and pack and work and travel and work and do the family thing and... Will it even be possible? I've not yet signed up and then failed, and I don't want to break the magic of 50k in a month... The other thing is that it probably wouldn't be Pros this time, just cos I think it's probably about time to write some of the other stuff that's tucked into my head... Which means I expect anyone reading this paragraph is now thinking what a waste of reading a paragraph that was... But - oh, hmmmn, what-to-do, what-to-do...?

This amused me in the paper this morning. Yes and yes. It continues into a bit that ends with cappaccino, and although I'd prefer a latte (I'm so 2000s) I'd say yes and yes again...
"It's not just the volume of emails that's ever increasing, it's also the way we can receive them. With smartphones you are never more than a second away from an email. Soon we will be able to receive them without lifting a finger, with the messages going straight into our head which, funnily enough, is exactly like talking to people." (23/10/2013)

Okay - end of excuse not to get on... My room is devastation, and yet not nearly devastation enough, and I have an argh of a job to finish before I'm allowed to get up from this seat. Which explains, of course, why I'm on lj.

How're you on this blustery autumn day?

Comments

[miwahni.livejournal.com]

You still have so much to do, and only 24 sleeps! Eep! You do need to get on!

Car batteries do that - my last one was exactly the same. I'd gone to a friend's place after work, and when I left her place to go home the battery was totally dead. No problems beforehand, no warning, just dead. I'm glad this is all it was for you, without any expensive auto electrical work needing doing.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I need to get on! I shouldn't be replying on lj! Eeeeeeep! (Don't panic Cap'n Mainwaring....)

I'm getting old - I miss the old days, when car batteries wheezed and coughed and spluttered for a few weeks before they gave up the ghost...! But yeah - I'm so glad it wasn't what I was worried it was!

[heliophile-oxon.livejournal.com]

What a relief! That's great news, for the lower cost and for the zooming around required to sort stuff - very glad to hear it!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yes! *vbg*

[giseerouchon.livejournal.com]

Really glad the car is alive again.... please don't bother to reply, I'm meant to be working too... Too much coffee and too little sleep is getting to me, and the LJ cut which WAS working on my latest ficlet is now not working and not sure what's happened?? HTML mentalness!! Well, good luck with getting on with stuff... somebody has to!! xx

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Ha - it's only good manners to reply to comments to your lj and nothing to do with avoiding the Deathless Project in front of me... *g*

Lj-cuts took me a while to get my head around too, way back when. The secret, I discovered, is always to ignore the "rich text" option (now called the Visual Editor),and post in the html window, using your own html. If nothing else, I've found the rich-text window to be occasionally glitchy - and putting in your own html means that if you make a mistake its your own glitch to fix!

Hmmn - I've had a quick look at the page source code for both your story posts (the Safehouse one and the one at your lj) and I can't see an lj-cut in either of them, though I can see a spot that thinks it might want to be an lj-cut. You might have taken it out by now anyway, fiddling, and I'm no expert anyway, but maybe - try this:

Edit your post, and make sure that you click the html tab that should be in the top right (not the visual editor). The wee symbols will probably look the same - ignore them! Totally ignore them, do not go near the wee symbols, do not pass go... *g* Instead, find the place in your post that you want to make the cut, and paste the following into that place:

<*lj-cut text="Title of my fic or whatever"*>

but take out the asterisks (if I didn't use them here to interrupt the code, you'd only see an lj-cut!)

And obviously edit the words between the quotation marks to say what you want them to say!

Then hit post, and see what happens... If it doesn't work let me know, and I'll make a post to my lj with instructions and screencaps and stuff (it won't take long, I can cut and paste in from instructions I've given before!)

*goes back to Deathless Project* - 4 pages to go

Get on with your work!!;-)

[giseerouchon.livejournal.com]

Thanks a lot for sparing the time to lend us a hand. Think it's sorted now, but correct me if I'm wrong... Now- no more excuses!!;-) xx

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Excellent - well done! (Looks good to me in the post at your own lj).

And no worries - two things really helpful to know about lj-netiquette: it's best to always reply to comments, and its best to always use an lj-cut if your post is long! *g*

Last page, then just the re-checks. Then I can start today's work...

[giseerouchon.livejournal.com]

done yet? Well cheers, good advice as ever....x

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

good advice as ever....
Aye...? That rather sounds like I've given you advice before, when I didn't think we'd "met"...? Who am I talking to, here?!

[giseerouchon.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... mainly advice about LJ cuts and technical issues... although I have been known to Palely-Loiter around the place a bit! You may have seen me about as Gisee Rouchon, or possibly as my alter-ego Le Panayi? Who are you when you're at home then? xx

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Ah - no, it was just the way you said it, made me think we must have had a conversation about lj-cuts or the like before! I okayed your loiteringpalely request, cos your lj was alive and being Pros-y, and I usually write to people at the same time to say hi, but don't think I did this time!

Me? I write Pros as Slantedlight, and otherwise I'm just byslantedlight, only me... *g*

[msmoat.livejournal.com]

Yay for the car being sorted relatively painlessly!

Eek for the 24 sleeps. Gosh, that's coming up quickly.

Which is why I read about the NaNoWriMo waffling and think: are you insane? *g* But, really, if it'll give you pleasure (and just added pressure), then I'd say go for it. It would provide a steady outlet for creativity and fun, amongst all the work, packing, work, travel, work, family. *g*

Oh, one question, are you thinking of not running the DiscoveredinaLJ Christmas advent calendar this year? No one would blame you, given all that is going on in your life!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yeay car!

But extra eek, because now in three weeks! I will actually be on the plane! Time is just melting away...

And yeah, it does sound a bit insane to think of doing NaNoWriMo when I think of it like that - but... I dunno. I did miss doing it that year I didn't, and I miss writing, and somehow NaNoWriMo seems to work for me, so... maybe?

You one question sounds very much like Colombo when he'd suddenly step back into the room and catch a villain completely out with something tricky... Just one more question... What makes you wonder if I'm not running Discoveredinalj Christmas this year? Granted, there didn't seem much point running the other challenges, when no one seemed to have played for ages, and so many people were fretting out loud about their Big Bang stories, but there did still seem to be a gap at Christmas. Or d'you think people would prefer to do something else this year?

[msmoat.livejournal.com]

No, it's just with all the travel, family, work, it would be understandable if you couldn't commit to running the challenge, that's all. I look forward to the Christmas challenge every year, so naturally I wondered about it. I assumed you'd have internet access, but your time might be taken up with a few other things. *g*

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hmmn, well once it's up and running, art and banners done and calendar filling in, it pretty much runs itself (well, sort of...), so I'm less worried about doing a Dialj Christmas from that pov. I do always worry that not enough people will be interested in writing/playing to fill the calendar, and what with people being worn out from the Big Bang, and playing elsewhere and so on, I wonder if that might be more likely this year... although I always wonder that too, and it's worked out for the last seven years, so... Maybe I should do a poll this year to ask who'd be up for grabbing a date... Hmmn...

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm so glad the car was a cheap'n'easy fix in the end - what a relief!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Suuuuuch a relief! And she's behaved beautifully since! *g*

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

Congrats that it was only a dead battery - so much easier to sort out,

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I'm so smacking myself over the head - always check the simplest things first! *g* But yeay!

[veronicaluv.livejournal.com]

Well, I know you're not working now, it's 3:00 for you! But hey, what about doing mini nanowrimo? I've done it the last few years and met my goal every time.

In the meantime, I hope you'll be able to post about your upcoming adventures. I love your pics and really should comment more often - bad V!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hello! Long time no see indeed - even at your own lj? How're you doing?!

There is MiniWriMo it's true, but somehow that doesn't inspire me as much as the big version does - I think in some ways I just need an excuse for it to be okay to write, that I don't need to be doing anything else, but I think too that the challenge of writing alot seems to work for me. Just taking a month out of life to focus on writing... which is where all the other stuff in November may kick my bottom this year. Why do I pick November to do busy things...?

And - and - because I've been a bad BSL too, and not gone and commented or anything, I have been reading some of your TW fic, and liked it very much! I've not started your epic Paranormal yet, but I've read two of them so far, and downloaded a third, and have your page bookmarked to download more... *g* So thank you for writing Torchwood - yeay!

[murphybabe]

Yay for duff batteries! Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean - yay that it's a relatively cheap and easy fix!

I hope you finished the work and can now focus on your room and packing and sorting etc. again. Although, for me, that might be worse!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

My room is currently lowering in on me in a rather doom-portent kind of way at the moment... I have plastic boxes galore to put my stuff in to go to storage - and yet there still seems to be far too much stuff to possibly fit... and someone's coming to see the room tomorrow... eeeeep|!

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

I am the last person in the world to argue that you should not do a challenge you want to do! Go for it! And I am curious about what you're going to write - fanfiction, original fic, definitive textbook... oh, no, that wouldn't be a novel...

Blustery autumn - well, it was, this morning. We seem to have been through about five seasons since then, all today. And I must scurry to shop before it turns into winter on Saturn.

*whoosh*

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hee - the last person in the world? Really? *g* But yeah - hmmn! Still undecided. I really want to, it just seems very impractical, given everything else... but if I can squeeze it into the time that I waste each day... I have a couple of original story ideas that I'm thinking about writing actually. I've not finished anything original for years and years and many-pre-Pros-years, and I've got to the either-do-it-or-stop-pretending-you-might stage. And I feel like I need to properly finish the Pros story I did for NaNoWriMo last year, before I start another one this year - I got to more than my 50,000 but there was a chapter or two still to write, and it didn't happen for some reason... something happened last December, can't think what... Anyway... yeah, I dunno. Eeep!

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Well, I am going to encourage you to do both: finish the Pros one and go for the original one!