Finally got my two protagonists together, and def enjoying working on the #wip a lot more now.

Cancelled Acorn and subscribed to MhZ, which is offering a wider variety of international shows. I already had Britbox, and my deal is if I subscribe to a new one channel, I have to cancel an old channel. Only way to fight the bloat.

Cooking red beans and rice and settling in for a Croatian(?) murder show.

A bonus pigeon face, making really really intense eye contact

Saw that you can now buy insurance for "unexpected car repairs," and that's a real sign of the times.

If we taxed rich people appropriately, we could have healthcare, UBI and an extensive public transit system instead of ::checks notes:: hundreds of data centers that will sit dormant and rotting in 5 years, their fate consigned to that of millions of square feet of abandoned malls

Also Gracie says hi!!

Newborn marsupials seen crawling to mother's pouch for the first time www.newscientist.com/article/2514...

The upside to a 90 minute dental procedure this morning is that -unlike a 3 hour hair appointment - I don't feel any obligation to make devastatingly awkward and exhausting small talk... because I can't!! THE DREAM!!! 😆

This beetle turns off its own pheromones to sneak into an ant colony, then grabs an ant to scoop up their pheromones, and smear them all over their little (smaller than the ant) beetle body. Then the beetle can feast on the ant eggs and larvae inside the ant colony. The catch? It can never leave. 🌱

Rob is one of the good guys, lend a hand if you can.

Since I have a lot of new followers, I will re-up this. Some folks just wanted to buy a couple whistles from us instead of getting 100-1000 FOR FREE (which you can do at the linktree in my bio!!!!!) I just kinda stopped doing my day job at this point but etsy keeps us afloat! 🤣💓

"Bunty." "Bibi." "Pidgy." "Babs." I still don't know what my spouse's grandmother's actual certified first name was 😆

"If you tax billionaires, they'll just leave!" Well, if they don't pay taxes, there's no net loss, so happy trails, motherfuckers.

This piece is so wonderful, but this part made me cry a little bit not gonna lie

All right. Time for some #wip. Morning writing time is great, but inevitably equates to like 200 words 🤪. I did finally cross 40k, which I planned to hit back in December, but grossly misjudged how much of what I actually had was redundant or irrelevant. Every 500 words I was cutting 900 words

Last painting of the season. Temp hit 60 and most of the snow melted. Planting onions, peppers, eggplants, artichoke downstairs this weekend. #itstime

I’m being reminded talk up my Patreon! - Weekly write-ins for all subscribers (inc. free) - Monthly inspiration & news you won’t get elsewhere - Monthly tier-level prompts, craft essays, & mini-workshops. - whimsy - Mentoring, limited to 5 students, to level up. www.patreon.com/cw/franwilde

There are a lot of "fractional CMO" and "consulting" Creative Director positions now. Which is code for "old person please come in and fix this mess the kids made, and then we'll fire you after three months, and when it's a mess again in a year, we'll do that again."

We had fluoridated water in my city when I was a kid. Talking to folks who did vs didn't has been a real eye opener. Genetics are a factor, but fluoridated water makes a tremendous impact.

Exactly this. There's a reason I hadn't been since 2002. 🤪🙃 And btw, this was the cost WITH dental insurance.

Had first dental appointment since 2002. No cavities!! MY STREAK IS UNBROKEN!! I do, however, need to have $1k in deep gum cleaning/planing. Wild feeling, to know that I DID actually have that much in savings. I think a lot about how lack of affordable healthcare in US is form of modern eugenics

My mom was looking for VP HR jobs and was still putting her teenage position as an assistant manager at a burger joint on her resume until she was 45, bless her 😆

America.

I don't list graduation dates OR the dates of positions more than 10 years old. I'll just say "past positions include" and give a list of most relevant, no dates, no companies.

I'm of an age - the other side of 45 - where myself and my older colleagues are all concerned that our next layoff will be our last, and it'll be Home Depot cashier for the rest of our working lives. The older people I know who still work corp jobs are either high up execs or now work as freelancers

I don't have a single meeting tomorrow. I'm going to get so much actual work done!!

“We can’t tell you how happy this walkies made us or how glad we are to see you again! Get ready for more fun in the sun this week, bye for now!”

Working on the book after long day at...work...and thinking, "Shit, this is a lot of work. Why do we do this, again?" Think you have to form the writing muscle memory early so that when it gets even harder, you've done it so long you just keep doing it because you can't imagine doing anything else

I think the other big appeal of murder shows is that it puts my own job stress in perspective. I mean, if I have a bad day at work, maybe a website goes down or a campaign fails, but a killer doesn't get away, you know? 😆

Hey fam! Can anyone connect me with someone willing to sell a used copy of the Mythulu Starter Pack B (if these ever shipped?). Looks like these folks disappeared from their social channels a year ago, and ordering on their site doesn't work (I have also exhausted my googlefu for used copies).

Taking a blessed day off tomorrow to do a three day sprint on the book and maybe even get some onions planted! Also removing all digital inputs. LUXURIOUS

"We would have lost so much if we'd driven him away" is the justification. But we lost all those girls. We lost the women they would have become. We lost the work they would have done. Why was his future work so much more valuable than theirs?

As someone hip deep in the marketing mines, the sheer amount of content that is being produced and managed now is just next level. You could hire 10 people just to MANAGE and review all the shit from a small company. But of course "solution" is "create an AI agent to do that!" It's this all day:

also if y'all missed it last night, folks put us into the top 30 romance on Kobo and I love you for it. last I looked we were chiling out with some Heated Rivalry books over there, what more can you ask for if you're just a little post-apocalyptic murder book about clones & community organizing.

Good to see the major newspapers now picking up this story! (This is from The Independent.)

😅

Thought this was great. A cosmic horror novel about a cursed TTRPG!

Yup. We were just quoted $12k for PAINTING THE EXTERIOR OF THE HOUSE and doing minimal repairs on sections of the wood siding. That was the "cheap" option. The alternative was $70k for new siding that complied with historic zoning laws.

They are a fabulous all-around workhorse.

Our food is full of so. Much. Toxic. Shit. Shit that is outright banned across the entirety of Europe.

If I can make one more two-book deal and not get fired for another year, we could pay off our house. I need ONE YEAR of nothing bad happening. We can all guess how likely THAT is. But it's breathtaking to at least be able to SEE THE POSSIBILITY, however briefly it lasts.

I was recently quoted $15k to lay tile in my kitchen and bathroom. JUST THE LABOR OF LAYING THE TILE FOR A TWO DAY JOB. The cost of the tile was NOT included.

Going through notes I left myself, and found this gem for a new Nyx story I'm working on:

One of my biggest communication flaws, I've discovered, is that I'll tell people "like it is." That is, what their behavior really is. "You're a poor leader. This is a bad idea." In fact, the Ben Franklin approach is smarter. "You're a great leader...(Insert positive leadership behavior here)"

Just bolted out of bed and wrote "this is a book about toxic masculinity!!" in my notebook.

I had an agency client who was a quality window company!! Our VP of Sales got a quote from them once just to replace a normal number of windows on ONE side of her normal-sized house, and they quoted her $80k!!! 😆

Heck, I have normal-sized house with 1,900 sq ft, and I have no idea how people afford maintenance. I have nightmares about house crumbling around us. The back porch is literally sinking. We had to get to point in last year where we're suddenly making top 10% money *just to stop the porch sinking.*

I hear someone’s keeping you company while you work on your novel.