Jennifer Adcock

And we're not talking the ones that are ever relevant to the story. We're talking "are you allowed to like Jaehaerys II, who was so irrelevant that the show adapted his entire generation out and people didn't notice". Characters so minor I did not know they had traits to like or dislike.

One of the funniest things happening in the ASOIAF fandom in the wake of AKOTSK is that we've returned to protracted discourses about which lesser Targaryens it is acceptable to like and which ones are problematic. ...the Targaryens. The conquest and incest monarchs.

Also I forgot that going out and doing errands together right after we both finish work now means that Greg looks like a respectable gentleman and I look like a total ragamuffin because he's in an office and I'm at home all day lmao oops

We bought a new dishwasher today, and I feel like dishwashers of different price points and brands are a lot more similar than, for example, ovens and refrigerators of different price points and brands. Like the variance seems a lot smaller

I cannot get a reliable hawk ID to save my life though because I'm never quite quick enough with the binoculars. Like it's PROBABLY a red-tailed hawk but I couldn't really say that with any confidence, so I'm not counting it 😔

The bird gossip so far is mostly "fuck off this is my branch" or "please come fuck me" or "worms worms worms worms worms". I think there might have been an "oh fuck there's a hawk" in there too. Further developments to come.

Screenshot of Merlin app with sightings of the house finch, red-winged blackbird, house sparrow, northern cardinal, and European starling.

It was nice enough out at lunch today to sit outside and eavesdrop on the birds. I’m getting all the hot bird gossip. They don’t even know I’m engaging in bird espionage.

TIL that a "filbert" is a hazelnut and when I have seen mentions in old British books of characters harvesting filberts or whatever, those are hazelnuts lmao. Do not ask me why I thought it was a mushroom.

They do, in episode 8! I have been really enjoying it!

I thought it was a lovely touch in SFA that it was chosen for the class by a girl who thought she was dying and wanted to prepare her friends for that possibility (she got better though lol)

I was not at all surprised that all the alien teens learned an important life lesson from it! When I saw they were doing a play, I assumed Shakespeare (Star Trek loooooves Shakespeare) but this worked!

just learned there's a newer edition of The Book of Merlyn (the cut segments from the last book of The Once and Future King) that replaces the foreword by Sylvia Townsend Warner with one by Gregory Maguire, which is maybe one of the biggest conceptual downgrades of all time

Spreadsheet tab listing six game titles, with a tally next to them ranging between 1 and 7.

The other thing that helps is that I keep a little speadsheet tab of what I'm actually working on in a given month, and as the tallies go up, I start thinking that I want to tell people what I've been doing! Then when I go to write the updates, I'm not scrambling to remember what I actually DID

I will say, I think some of it is leftover instinct from the years I spent as a blogger! From 2011-2018, I wrote pretty prolifically on my blog (which I have since taken down because the old stuff was getting pretty embarrassing lol), so I had a muscle memory for writing in that style

I mostly write them in one go, or sometimes split across two sessions if it’s a really long one! Usually I write it a couple days before I actually send it so I can look at it with fresh eyes at sending time. I do keep a document with ideas/notes for potential topics, but that’s just bullet points

Crazy that you don't hear more about Booth Tarkington these days. You start like "ah, now here's some wonderful sturdy American prose" and a day later you're at "HE WON THE PULITZER *TWICE*"

sorry it's been five days and I'm still not over Starfleet Academy doing Our Town as a school play in the 32nd century on the spaceship that they live on. like it's completely ridiculous but I also find that so endearing.

I got the shipping notif on this the other day and got SO excited, I was just talking about how much I'd loved Country of the Pointed Firs, one of my favorites I read last year

And Bingley hates to see Darcy "standing about in that stupid manner"!

Yes, the dialogue uses a lot of anachronistic phrasing, but, you know, it's Bridgerton. They're playing Charli XCX songs and the dresses all came from the chaos dimension. Of all the anachronisms one might worry about, the word "stupid" would be low on the list even if it was one (it is not)

Saw someone question a character in Bridgerton using the word "stupid", thinking it was anachronistic, but fortunately I just reread Pride and Prejudice and acutely remember Lizzie Bennet saying "Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing." 😌

my babies 😭 the end of their first year already

When I think about it having been ten years I start to crumble into dust, though, so better not linger on that too long

Spreadsheet row showing a total of $61 for the year 2016.

I started publishing my first stuff in October of 2016 and it took a good amount of time to catch on, so in my big spreadsheet that goes back to that point, this is the first line item 😅 helps me maintain perspective, I think

So if anyone was looking for one minor data point for comparison, that's me! I am a minor data point, but it might be of use to someone, and I don't think I really lose anything in sharing it, so there it is!

I am expecting to make less in 2026 because I don't plan to have anything "big" out, just a couple of smaller things, and a few playtest editions/ashcans, which I don't ask people to pay for (unless they super duper want to). 2027 might be different though! Ups and downs are part of the deal.

(This is where crowdfunding comes in for many! I have talked enough before about the reasons I am reluctant to do it. I cannot have my cake and eat it too, so I accept the ceiling I have placed on myself)

What that split ratio DOES do is make me hesitant about investing more in it. I am generally pretty okay with putting some of my day job income into this and never really "making" money. But I think putting in $3k to make something really nice and then making $200 would break my heart, so I don't!

So my general ideal the past few years hasn't necessarily been like, "make more money" as much as it has been "shift where that money is coming from". Anyway, I don't really run this like a small business, so I can't do like, a proper profit comparison either.

That actually feels pretty okay, for how little I do to promote it! However, more than half of that was something I have no control over (I never know when the Guild has a bad year vs a good year, tbh. I assumed it would die off with the new edition but it did not) and no longer feel attached to.