First Published: 2023 November 14
First, let’s address the elephant in the room. Yesterday I said I would be musing about my Pathfinder game tonight. However, schedules ended up misaligning, and so we did not have pathfinder tonight. Instead, I’m going to1 discuss some writing advice I saw today, and what my initial reactions are to it.
The last time I mused about writing was apparently a few months ago. In that post, I talked about what was and wasn’t working for me in writing during that period of my life. Let’s see how that’s changed or stayed the same.
I was using an app called Stimuwrite at that point to motivate me. It was a great app, and I would still really recommend using it, especially in places with less than high speed and reliable internet. Thankfully, right now I have that constantly, so I have been using a web based app called 4thewords. It’s a really fun rpg style writing app that I may have spoken about before.
In case I haven’t, I was very curious how they would make the fact that you fight monsters in this game work with the fact that it’s an rpg. For those who don’t know, games in that genre tend to have different upgrades for your character as the game progresses. 4thewords has an interesting approach, where it takes fewer words typed to defeat monsters the higher your attack stat is. It’s fun for me, because it really does help the typing feel more meaningful. Instead of a dopamine hit every one hundred words, for instance, right now I’m at the point where I get it about every seventy.
That, combined with the fact that they have a whole story line, including a side quest series for the month of November, makes it really motivating for me to write. There are so many times that I look at the page, not wanting to write, but see the counting down of the clock and feel the words start to flow out.
I was struggling to write poetry then. Now I am not. Now, this is not because I suddenly got over the mental block which stopped me. No, I took the easier route and stopped wanting to write poetry. It at least aligns my actions to my goals, even if I don’t necessarily want it to.2
I was in a good habit of writing letters to friends, which I’m trying to get back into.3
I wasn’t journalling, which I kind of forgot was something I was trying to do. I feel like this is a place that I spend a lot of time and words journaling, though.4
In writing that last post, I had just gotten a fountain pen. Since then, I’ve written almost exclusively with it, and it really does make the writing process feel so much better.
I think that one major difference is the ritual involved. I keep the pen in a small plastic/metal5 case, and there’s something really satisfying about opening the case to pull out my pen to start writing. It’s also, as I mentioned in the first musing, heavy. The weight is really nice, because it reminds me that what I’m doing is an act of creation.
I think that I’m writing more again, though I don’t know if it’s all in the journals I keep. I have been doing a lot of derivations for my research, and I’ve filled pages of my notebook in dense scratching text.
One benefit of using a pen with replaceable cartridges is that I get to change the color. I apparently write through about one cartridge a month, which means I get to swap what I write with about once a month. It’s interesting to me how different my writing feels when I change up the ink even slightly. I almost feel like it’s the advice that is often given to guitarists: when it stops being fun to play the guitar, switch your strings. Something about the new color just makes me want to write by hand a lot more.
It also flows so smoothly. I didn’t realize how much I would hate using ball point pens until I stopped having to. When I use them now, it feels like I’m using a pen to write something down, rather than the pen feeling like a natural extension of my hands.
Anyways, one thousand words of rambling in, let’s get to the meat of the discussion. The writing advice I saw today came courtesy of a fantasy author I follow on tumblr, who shared a screencap with annotations of writing advice from Chuck Palahniuk. It’s framed as a six month process, wherein you are not allowed to write in certain ways.
Now, this is not a restriction like the sorts of constrained writing where you can’t use certain letters, or you need to have certain cadences or rhyme schemes. Instead, it is focused on the content of the writing, and making a point to show not tell. It’s filled with examples of how the process works, so I will do my best to synthesize the content here.6
First, no “thought” verbs are allowed. That is, we are not allowed to say how a character feels.
Rather than “Jim wondered whether Jill was mad at him,” I instead would have to describe the scene. “Jim had grown accustomed to Jill’s bright wave every morning when they crossed paths. Lately, though, she had given half hearted waves, if she bothered to acknowledge him at all.”
I still don’t know if I did that correctly. The author specifically says the goal is to show the reader through sensory cues exactly what the characters are feeling. Characters cannot want or feel something, I must make the readers want or feel.7
The author of the advice points out that many authors hamstring themselves by writing a paragraph that begins with how the character is feeling, killing the energy of the rest of the paragraph.
That is, a forbidden text might read something like:
Alex knew that he would be late to work today. Five busses had passed him by without stopping, and another five just hadn’t shown up. Taxis seemed in shockingly short supply, and the wind precluded his running in any direction.
When rectified, the paragraph could begin Alex was late to work that day.8 Or, at the very least, the think can be moved to the end of the paragraph.9
One particular piece of advice he gives is to minimize time that characters are alone. Especially given the sort of writing that I’m prone to, that seems infeasible. I really like the fact that my book has a deep exploration of a single person studying, for all that I can see, reading his advice and looking at my writing, exactly why my writing has been described as so impersonal.
Forgetting and remembering are also considered no nos, but he used it in the context of like remembering childhood. Most of the time that I use remember, it is to spark something from a conversation that happened on screen a few chapters earlier.10
He also rails against the verb to be, pointing out that most of the time, it’s unneeded. Rather than saying “Phillip had red hair,” I could do something more like “Phillip grinned and ran a finger through his scarlet locks.” The homework is to go through my writing and get rid of any instance of thought words, then do the same to a published text. I don’t know if I’ll actually do that this month, especially since it seems better used for an editing/revising phase of writing, at least at first.11 Still, it is probably worthwhile to at least try drafting a chapter normally and then going through and seeing how differently it reads when following this advice. I’m beginning to understand why some people treat learning the craft of fiction like they and others treat learning music theory.
For those who may not know, there’s a common trend among amateur musicians12 where they believe that learning too much about the craft will lessen their creative potential, making their writing like everyone else’s. As a musician, every time I hear that take, my response is either:
by everyone else’s you mean the people whose music you admire, listen to, and enjoy?
No, learning the rules explicitly keeps you from following them completely by rote because all you know is C, D, G on a guitar, which is following such basic rules that it’s incredibly limiting to anything you could want to write
Of course, most of the time those responses are in my head.
As a former student of music13, I will admit that those people have a point. During my first semester of learning theory explicitly in particular, my writing became much more stilted, following the conventions as I was taught them badly.14 After that initial growth period, though, I can see where my music really becomes my own.
It does bring an interesting issue, where you have to weight the audiences of trained and unskilled. Let me try describing that better, using an analogy.15
My first semester sophomore year, I took a composition class. In that class, we were tasked with a number of compositional exercises which culminated in our final project: an original composition that we played live in front of the class and whoever came to watch.16 Of course, writing a solo piece is incredibly difficult, because a single instrument playing tends to be boring unless it is being played by an expert.17 As a result, almost all18 of us chose to write a piece for an ensemble, which we were responsible for assembling.
My ensemble was two clarinets, a piano,19 and an oboe, and many of the other members of the class also wrote for strange voicings, based on what friends we had available. One early draft of my piece had a series of chained 2-1 suspensions20 between, if my memory serves21 the two clarinets. It was an intentional choice, because I really liked the way that they sounded.
My professor advised me that I should get rid of them. He said something about them being a mark of someone who doesn’t know how to compose. At the time, I, like every other young creative,22 bristled at this intrusion onto my creative vision. However, I did really trust the professor and his advice, so I changed it to a series of 3-2 suspensions. The entire piece clicked much better once I did, and it was a choice I’m really glad was made for me. Also, now when I write I have a much better intuitive feeling for suspensions and the ways that our ears, living in the western canon as we all do, are trained.23
Ok wait, no that’s not a good example of how experts and non experts have different taste. Shoot. It does help illustrate the way that learning helps you to create the vision of what you want, though. When I took the step back, I realized that my goal was not to create 2-1 suspensions. That is, my goal was not any individual part of the creative process. My goal was producing something beautiful at the end. By learning what the typical standards of beauty were, I was able to channel my creative impulse more effectively.
I guess a better example of what I mean by expert and non expert ears is a lot of contemporary classical music.24 Or, if not that, then at least like twelve tone serialism from the early twentieth century.25 Those who know what they’re listening to26 get to see interesting and beautiful theory worked out on a page. To the untrained ear, however, it just sounds like noise.
Of course, anyone writing music is aware27 of the audience they’re writing to. Or, rather, they should be. I certainly write differently for myself on guitar, my band, choir, and other ensembles. I had to learn how to do that, though, which is another point for formal learning: it gives you access to different registers.28
What I mean to say is that I don’t plan on writing literary fiction.29 As a result, if getting rid of words like think and hope makes my writing read less like the fiction I want to write, I will probably stop doing it quickly.
Then again, as I’ve mentioned, I only know how to write music in different registers because I’ve tried and failed to write the same register for incompatible uses.30 I suppose that until I know what it means to write at different levels, my writing will always have that same issue.31 So, in conclusion, I like the advice, for all that I don’t know if it will be like classical counterpoint for me32 or if it will be like learning melodic motion33. In either case, it will be helpful for me as I grow as a writer.
Ok, I said that this would be a two draft musing, but then I wrote continuously for twoish hours. It’s now bed time.
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I did! Keeping on schedule, which is nice. I also remembered to log that I wrote, which is annoying to remember to backdate.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I wrote half a chapter. It was a bit of a slog, but I hope that tomorrow is easier.
Did I blog? I rambled for almost four thousand words, at the very least.
Did I stretch? Oh gosh that’s something I’ve fallen right out of the habit of. It’s hard to know what’s a thing you do to recover from illness faster and what prolongs feeling bad. Stretching is probably the former.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? Eh. Honestly not really, but I don’t know how much of that is not making time, and how much of it is that my mind is not in a good space right now. I do know that I pray better when I’m doing better, which is kind of annoying.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? I posted the letter that I wrote yesterday, so that’s a good enough job for right now I think.
in a meandering manner, as befits a first draft blog post (especially since I really don’t want to write my book tonight but want to get more words on page, because it feels good to do so) of hopefully two↩︎
I forget if I’ve said on here, but I think that next month, instead of writing a novel, I might consider doing daily poetry attempts again. I’ve set aside so much time for writing that it will hopefully be enough of a habit that I can continue. Then again, I’ve recently started thinking about an idea for a series of stories or books that I’d like to write, but I’m unsure how workable the idea is. The series would be Modern Myths, and I’ll probably muse about it another time.↩︎
it’s shockingly hard to remember what to put in letters. I feel like this summer I had a pattern down and knew what to write, but that doesn’t feel true anymore for some reason. Probably worth interrogating myself as to why that is (not that I don’t already have ideas or anything)↩︎
neither of the two (different) spellings was accepted by the spell checker, so I have no idea what it should be. Instead of being consistent, I’ll probably switch between them in a pseudo-random fashion↩︎
it feels too cheap and flimsy to be metal but moves too easily to be plastic↩︎
if you can’t tell, one of the main purposes of this blog is to give me a space to write through how I feel about something. I type far faster than I write (maybe I should learn shorthand to rectify that), so this works better for me by far than trying to journal. Also, when I journal, I feel an urge to at least nominally work on my penmanship, which is a bit of an issue because I write even slower.↩︎
which is strange, and not something I necessarily think translates to all my writing particularly well. I absolutely think that as an exercise it’s worth doing, if only because I can see how prescriptive my writing style is. I worry that I’ll go to far with it, though, ending up with purple prose. As one person I saw commented on a similar sentiment, not every sentence can be profound and breathtaking. Sometimes the character just needs to be on the other side of the room.↩︎
i guess I see where getting rid of think could help, it does read more snappily↩︎
which also does a lot to help. Maybe there’s something to this published and well renowned author’s advice↩︎
now, is that itself good writing practice? maybe not. I feel like a lot of advice is not written presuming serialized formats though. By nature of the staggered releases, it is almost certain that the audience will not remember as well as if they had the entire book in front of them when they began to read↩︎
as a friend put it, otherwise they’d spend too much time editing while they write, which is against the core ethos of NaNoWriMo↩︎
and, as I’ve recently learned, amateur writers↩︎
in that I formally studied music, not in that I think I know everything now↩︎
that is, I was bad at following the conventions. I was taught the conventions wonderfully and excellently↩︎
which just for this, I’ll try to use the writing advice I’m nominally still reflecting on↩︎
our professor advertised, and I went to a small enough school that people actually went to their friend’s class presentations, which doesn’t really seem to happen where I am now. It’s also possible I’m just out of the loop here, or that it didn’t happen as much as I thought where I went to school. Who can say for certain?↩︎
now, we can get to the whole “wow that’s incredibly elitist and western music centric of you, look at (insert any other solo tradition here) or think about all the singer songwriters out there.” That is a valid critique, and it is a sticking point for a lot of theorists that western music analysis more or less ignores words. I’m now realizing that might be part of why so many people make such a big deal of madrigalisms (a lot of the madrigals (a style of polyphonic music) that still exist are sacred. There are some conventions in writing for them, such as having either a unison or triad on the word G-d and Trinity (respectively for the first level and counterespectively for the spicy “look who understands theology” version) and rising on words like rise, falling on words like down), since they’re really the only genre in western canon that has that (as with anything in music, exceptions apply) universally applicable) As a result, artists like Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan, though they uncontroversially write beautiful and wonderful music, are less interesting to study from a music perspective, as they intentionally rely on the stock nature of their arrangements and compositions to allow their words to shine through. (Wow this is a lot of words, maybe worth not being a footnote, but too late)↩︎
i think all of us, but I might be wrong (footnotes don’t count, because they’re not part of the narrative, so I don’t have to write correctly according to the style)↩︎
I forgot about this at first, and then remembered↩︎
for the non music nerds, a second is when you have the two notes next to each other, and suspensions are when you have a dissonance because one voice holds while the other moves. In this case, they move to a second, then resolve to a unison, move to a second, on and on↩︎
see, that’s the thing about this style guide. Sometimes I do not know what I’m trying to remember, and the effort is worth mentioning. Maybe there’s a way to make it work, I should consider that as I think about this advice↩︎
I feel comfortable saying this, since I read a book that said it’s common for writing teachers↩︎
there are a lot of arguments about how much of what we think about music is innate and how much is learned. It’s really hard to test these days, as basically every population we can interact with has been exposed to tons of western music, through the radio if nothing else. Global hegemony has its downsides, and anthropologists are the ones to suffer. That being said, it is uncontroversial to say that in general minor chords are sad and major chords are happy. Whether this is because of something innate or learned does not matter, because it will work on your audiences. (That’s another way that learning is good. I now know that when I want to showcase a sadder part of a text, I want to rely more on minor chords and motions to subdominant keys rather than dominant keys)↩︎
oof those two words hurt to put in that order because there are so many contradictory meanings for them↩︎
to be fair, that is where most music theory classes stop. After that, there’s not a lot of canon, for all that there is absolutely development happening. There’s a lot to explore in the ways that mass production and dissemination of musical recordings changed the concept of musical eras, even before we get to the fractured space of modern music, where there’s a lot of talk about there being no real cultural zeitgeist.↩︎
often because they’re studying the score↩︎
in my experience at least↩︎
shoot, need to focus on the thread, for all that I lost it far far ago↩︎
which I hate as a concept, much like I hate academic music as a concept, for all that I respect it more. I’m positive that if I ever took courses on literary fiction that I would feel much better about it, because it is absolutely the anti intellectualism speaking when I say I don’t like high brow stuff. Of course, there’s also explicit elitism in creating that’s probably worth analyzing. Certainly all the early pioneers into really weird music that I read about hoped that audiences would learn to like it, while it feels like a lot of writers disdain the common listener. Who knows? Might be worth musing about in depth later↩︎
word to the wise, singer songwriter guitar songs should be basic in melody and chord progression↩︎
my beta reader does often comment on the fact that the targeted reader reading level changes a lot based on the chapter and scene in my book. That’s probably bad. Just as much as I don’t want to have one scene of “this is bill. See bill run,” in the middle of a high brow discussion, I also don’t want to have something very high brow (I tried to write one, but realized I don’t know how to do so consciously. That’s probably bad. I think it involves like verb splitting (to boldy go) but don’t know that for certain) in the middle of like an action scene where the goal is fast paced words. I did also see something about how sentence length can be used to control a reader’s reading. That’s absolutely something I should get better at. Really what I’m saying is I want to read books on craft and learn to apply them↩︎
something I’m aware of and make notice of when composing in style↩︎
something I use by reflex now, and then refine and double down on when revising a song↩︎
First Published: 2023 November 13
As I mentioned last week, I’ve started a new dungeons and dragons campaign. I found out after this first session that we’re supposed to be in a like turn of the first century time period, which makes my decision to play a plasmid somewhat of a choice. The session started as most first sessions do, we all were introduced to each other in a tavern.
My character immediately drew a lot of attention, because I finally decided on a shape and build. I was a vaguely humanish shaped blob, and my skin was shaded in reds blacks and browns, as though a lava flow. As a result, while I was known to Giants as Goob1, I was known to most of the smaller races as Ember.
We met a small girl named Margaret, who was a Paladin on a quest currently to destroy the pirates who had kidnapped her. The first combat went smoothly, and Goob easily withstood all of the damage that it had drawn, keeping the rest of the party safe. It also managed to free a Tiefling from her captivity, and was pretty sure that she watched and followed the party as they continued on to find the rest of the pirates.
As we marched, the party found an arrow at our feet with a message in Elvish. Thankfully, Margaret knew Elvish, and was able to translate. The note said that we had allies.
Some members of the party were less than thrilled with this turn of events, feeling as though it was a bad idea to trust people we could not see. The rest of us, Goob obviously included, felt like we were in no position to turn down help, and it wasn’t as though they’d really offered us a choice. We were ambushed by six pirates, who our unseen allies quickly dispatched. With them gone, we looted their corpses.2
Adventuring a little further, we came to a staircase which descended to 25 or so pirates. Goob had some fantastic attacks, dealing well over forty damage on multiple turns.3 Because Goob played his role as tank admirably, most of the party took minimal damage.
Margaret, of course, being young and known to the pirates, also drew a fair amount of fire. Goob, seeing this, rushed to draw the aggression of the other patrols. In a few almost sickeningly powerful blows, he dispatched almost the entire patrol in front of them. Unfortunately, the surviving members of each patrol focused their fire onto Goob, and it died.4
This was, as I learned afterwards, the GM’s first ever player character death. He felt terrible about it, which I feel bad about. I was not super attached to this character, for all that I think it was fun.
I did really enjoy trying to get into the mind of an alien who had been raised by giants trying to interact with humans and astral elves. I roleplayed the fact that, having an amorphous body, I was not going to be constrained to typical biology.5 Among other things, this meant that I tried to copy the gait of members of the party, and that I had two eyes6 which rotated about my head, one traveling clockwise and the other counterclockwise.7
I also often forgot that people could not just move their head or body in directions, doing so. In character, at least, the party was sad to see me die. Out of character, I think that they’re mostly just excited to see what character I bring next week.
One thing I realized when I rolled my first critical of the night was just how much I love rolling large numbers of dice. For all that I don’t have a ton of time in the next few days,8 I might spend a bit of time finding the way to build a character that gets to roll a lot of dice.
Immediate ideas:
Monks apparently get large numbers of attacks
Rogues get sneak attack, which is a fun lil 2d6 right now9
I think I heard half orcs crit on 19, which doubles my odds of getting double dice
I have to imagine that there are more feats than just the giant foundling one that give you an extra die while attacking, even if it is limited in how many times you can use it
It’s not a great list, I’ll fully admit, but it at least is a place to start looking. Barbarian does have the benefit of the Zealot subclass, which gets an extra d6 on the first attack of each turn while raging. That was a lot of fun tonight, especially on the one critical I had.10
I guess one thing is that rolling 2d6 is better than 1d12, even though the damage output is slightly lower, so I should look for melee weapons that have more than one hit die as well. Also, because it’s already late11, I’m not going to revise today’s post. That’s a shame, because it does limit the word count for today, but such is the way of life.
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I did! I actually wrote a bit of a fight scene that I’m almost proud of, which is really nice.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I finished the chapter that I’ve been allegedly working on for a few days. I also spent some time plotting out what I’d like to start happening in the next few chapters.
Did I blog? Look at this beautiful blog post wow!
Did I stretch? No, and I forgot to yesterday as well. I’m starting to feel stiffer, though that might also just be the recovery from illness.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? I don’t think last night’s rosary was rushed, and I did remember to take some time to pray the Angelus at around noon. That being said, tonight’s rosary will likely be rushed.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? I wrote a letter! There was a bit of downtime in my day, and I filled it by writing a letter. Now I just need to post it, but I can do that tomorrow12
not that anyone in the party learned this↩
My character was neutral evil, which I took to mean was very willing to spill blood if it meant that my character was compensated for the time. Since Margaret, being twelve, did not have coin to offer, my character took on itself the choice to loot the people we killed instead.↩
wow a zealot barbarian with the Fire Giant Fist Feat is a fun thing to play. It would have been better if I hadn’t treated Strength as somewhat of a dump stat, but I thought that having higher Constitution would be a good choice. It was, as it turns out (spoiler alert) but not a good enough one.↩
more accurately, despite the fact that I took half damage because I was raging, the final attack did 40ish damage pre reduction and I had eight health. I then failed my first death saving throw and they stabbed me to make sure I was downed.↩
technically, as written I am unsure if that is allowed for the plasmid, but the GM was willing to let it slide, especially since there was no real mechanical benefit to be gained. There’s a lot to be said for “this is cool and I promise I’m not going to use it to try to do any game breaking shenanigans” (though there is also something to be said for “I am absolutely going to take this as far as you will let me, up to and including breaking the game. Tread warily”)↩
normal!↩
abnormal↩
shoot, I have to prepare a lecture for next tuesday. I should probably do that tomorrow? I don’t think I have anything explicitly scheduled or any experiments that are particularly time sensitive. I even have a few long calculations to run, and didn’t have a ton to do while they did. Great↩
we’re fourth level↩
2d6 plus 2 necrotic damage from being a zealot, 2d10 fire damage from being raised by fire giants, 2d12 plus 4 damage for raging and swinging a battleaxe was really fun↩
see the fact that I’m writing this after the game ended↩
presumably, at least↩
First Published: 2023 November 12
In the first draft of this post,1 I thought a lot about what the Gospel message was, and then remembered that other, better read, and smarter people than I have asked the same question before. So, after I reflected on the readings, I read through some reflections from Doctors of the Church and other Saints. In this draft, I think I’d like to go through the three readings in order, because that feels like a better way to construct the narrative.
We begin with the First Reading.2 The reading today comes from Wisdom3, and more or less exhorts the reader to seek wisdom. In reading commentaries, I was reminded of how much of the faith has been so effectively handed down through the centuries. These days, it feels obvious to say that seeking wisdom means seeking the Holy Spirit, but that was not always a settled question.4
The Second Reading is also pretty straightforward. St. Paul explains that we should mourn with the hope and knowledge that those we love are asleep in Christ, ready to be raised up on the last day.
With both of those readings priming us, we are taken to the Gospel. The Gospel passage today concerns the parable of the ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom. As you might expect, there are a number of interpretations of nearly every part of the reading, and what, exactly, they symbolize. What is not in contention, though, is the meaning of lamps and oils.
Lamps represent a belief in the Almighty, and the oil represents the good works we do. Works without faith are meaningless, as oil without a lamp is fairly useless. St. Augustine points out that, at some point, we are unable to create oil ourselves. That is, while we can press olives to make oil, we cannot cause an olive to grow. In such a way, any good we do is only through He who is Goodness itself. But, just like a lamp without oil cannot shine, so to is faith without works dead. It’s interesting to me how clearly that was seen in the Early Church, given the controversies that arose a few centuries later.
The fact that all ten virgins fell asleep is seen as a euphemism for the fact that all die. When the bridegroom, Christ, returns, not all will be ready. Rather than explicitly punishing, as he does in other parables, though, he simply ignores the faithless.
Two parts of the Gospel that I did not immediately think of as speaking to any truths were the fact that there were ten, and the fact that the ten were virgins. Most of the commentaries I read, however, made a big deal out of both points. A common refrain was that not every virgin ended up being invited to the feast. That is, we are not saved by an absence of sinful action. Instead, that is the bare minimum. We still require the Almighty’s grace to be able to love truly.
In connection to the First Reading, the Gospel divides the virgins into the foolish and the wise. Wisdom, as the commentaries said, is knowledge of the three Divine Persons. It’s said that to know G-d is to love Him, and I think that’s an appropriate sentiment for this reading.
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I did! I found that it was really helpful to center myself and take some time before writing to decide what I wanted to write today.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? Despite the fact that I wrote three hundred or so words of Jeb today, I think that from now on I’m going to take Sundays off. There are a few reasons for this, most of which boil down to the fact that we are called to dedicate a day each week to the Lord. Writing my web serial, for all that I enjoy it, is not a particularly prayerful action to me. The priest today warned of spiritual sloth in his homily, and that stuck with me.
Did I blog? Two drafts! As yesterday, the second draft is much tighter than the first.
Did I stretch? Not yet. I will before bed, though.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? Honestly, I think that writing this was somewhat prayerful, if only because it forced me to reflect on what I heard at mass a little more. There’s a voice in my head that suggests that doing this reflection before Mass could be even more beneficial, but I also spent a few hours on it, so that may not be as doable.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? I wrote a letter, which is a good job in my books.
As with yesterday, I think I’m going to do this musing in two drafts. I found that it was much easier to write the first draft knowing that I would be able to revise anything I said, and I felt like I was able to explore much better. With that in mind, let’s see where my mind takes me.
Today’s readings, as is apparently always true at the end of a liturgical year, concern death and the afterlife. For once, the second reading actually connects really well to the Gospel, in that both are incredibly oriented towards the end times and the Christian message of awaiting the next life. The second reading definitely explains where the concept of the rapture comes from, at least to me. If I read the line about the faithful being carried to heaven, I could absolutely see where people would think that is what happens, especially if I come from a tradition which rejects Tradition.
Anyways, one thing that the priest mentioned today’s homily was a question I hadn’t thought about when I listened to the readings today. Why didn’t the women waiting with oil share it with the ones who did not have enough to keep their lamps lit? He brushed past the question, but it’s been sticking with me since he mentioned it.
Of course, the answers I come to need to work both in the context of the parable and in the context of what the parable is implying. I’m going to address only in the context of the parable for now, throwing out plausible ideas without exploring them, and then explore them in the context of the parable, and only then explore them in the context of the Gospel message. I feel like there’s a benefit in that approach, which is that it lets me get past the initial impulses I have much more quickly.
Ideas for what the maidens5 who did not share their oil were thinking, in no particular order, and assuming nothing about the maidens’ intent:
They might not have enough oil if they share it
It’s on the ones who forgot the oil, not them
Eliminate competition
Don’t have spare money for oil
Were themselves running low once they had topped off their lamps
Different lamps?
The other maidens did not ask them to share?6
Teach them a lesson about being prepared?
That’s really as many ideas as I can think of right now. I should read some commentaries to see what theologians have said, and I might spend some time doing that right now.7
Ok, let’s see how each interpretation stands up to textual scrutiny, for all that I’m not going to read the passage in any sort of explicit context.8
They might not have enough oil if they share it. That’s supported, because they explicitly say “No, for there may not be enough for us and you. Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves”.9
It’s on the ones who forgot the oil, not them. I feel like the fact that they are explicitly called wise and foolish implies that this reading is at least somewhat supported. However, the fact that they say no, not because of that, but because they do not have enough extra oil, casts that interpretation into a bit of doubt.
Eliminate competition. This feels too mean spirited, especially since there are no insults exchanged.
Don’t have spare money for oil. This feels orthogonal to the overall message. There’s nothing to support the idea that the foolish would not have repaid the wise for the oil they burned when the night was over, but there is also nothing to support the idea that they were.
Were themselves running low once they had topped off their lamps. This is somehow a different interpretation than the first, which I suppose may be that if they topped up their lamps and had no extra oil, they would have had to dump the oil out? That seems like something that could be difficult to do. Without being a scholar who knows things like how lamps work, though, I can’t judge the validity of that take.
Different lamps? There’s nothing to suggest that their lamps are anything but standardized.10 Spoiler for the next section, but that also doesn’t seem to mesh with the idea that the lamps are a stand-in for readiness for heaven. I suppose there’s a way to make that metaphor work, and I will try it, but I don’t feel good about it.
The other maidens did not ask them to share? There is absolutely an interpretation that works where the fact that they demanded, rather than asked, “ The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’”11. That being said, I don’t know if I like that interpretation. The response from the wise maidens does not mention their demanding rather than asking, and I don’t know whether that works with the broader message. Still, it’s among the better ideas I’ve had so far.
Teach them a lesson about being prepared? This one has some merit. If we consider the fact that these virgins might serve this role for a number of bridegrooms, it would be in the foolishs’ best interest to learn to keep oil. If this were the first wedding they attended for, then it would be important that they do not make the mistake in the future. If it is not their first wedding, then they should know better. Ok, this interpretation also gets ranked pretty well.
So, after considering the way the metaphors could work, let’s rank them. I’m going to use a fairly absolute scale, calling them each plausible, probably, improbable, or wrong, completely based on my interpretation of the text of the parable as meant for itself.
They might not have enough oil if they share it. Probable.
It’s on the ones who forgot the oil, not them. Plausible.
Eliminate competition. Wrong.
Don’t have spare money for oil. Improbable.
Were themselves running low once they had topped off their lamps. Plausible.
Different lamps? Wrong.
The other maidens did not ask them to share? Improbable.
Teach them a lesson about being prepared? Plausible.
Cool, now let’s look at what each of these mean in the broader Gospel message, where the virgins awaiting the bridegroom are Christians awaiting the second coming.12 Using that message, let’s try reading each of the proposed ideas13. What does the idea mean, in context of the parable’s intended meaning?
They might not have enough oil if they share it. I feel like there are a number of ways to interpret oil and fire in this situation. If we say oil is the willingness to wait for the coming of Christ, then it’s a little hard to see how you could share it at all. I could see an interpretation where there’s an idea that you only have so much time and energy in a given day, or in your life as a whole. At some point, helping others to find Christ could come in conflict with your own call to holiness, though I am struggling to come up with a particular example. I suppose if you know that singing in the choir actively makes you disconnect from the Mass, then it might be better for you not to sing in the choir? Maybe mass is a bad example, but I feel more comfortable with the claim that helping others may not always be best for your immortal salvation
It’s on the ones who forgot the oil, not them. I feel like there’s not a good way to interpret this in the Gospel message. We are constantly told that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves and to practice radical love. I guess there’s something in the like idea of how those in heaven must not be sad about those in hell, because definitionally there is not sorrow in heaven? I know I read some non Catholic complaining about Aquinas’s conclusions re: heaven and hell, but I don’t remember enough about that or the Saint’s own words to be confident in that take. There is something to be said in the fact that earthly relationships are goods only in so far as they orient us towards the most vital relationship, that of us with the Lord. If we use that lens, where helping others at the expense of paying what is due to the Lord is wrong, I can see the interpretation having some validity. That is, those who forgot the oil are asking you to risk your salvation for their behalf. The Church, so far as I know, does not say that you should ever put your own path to heaven in jeopardy for the sake of another. Christ famously told someone to let the dead bury the dead,14 and that you should leave your mother and father and despise everything for the sake of the kingdom. I think that this idea is worth sitting with a little longer, even if I think it’s mostly good in how it connects to the first idea, rather than as a message in and of itself.
Eliminate competition. There’s really no way to sell this idea in context of the Catholic mission. We are called to bring the entirety of Creation with us to eternity with the Father. I think that’s enough said on that.
Don’t have spare money for oil. Ok let’s see how far we can strain a metaphor. Oil is, on some level, connected with Faith and works. I think implicitly, I’ve been thinking of the lamps as faith and the oil as works. Faith without works, as we know, is dead. Likewise, works without faith, while useful, do not lead to salvation on their own. Even if that interpretation is wrong, I think it’s a nice one. It does lead to the whole “you are saved by performing some number of good deeds,” which is explicitly wrong, though does have some elements of working in the metaphor for sharing. After all, Christ calls out people who point to a splinter in their friend’s eyes to first take out the log in their own eye. There’s probably something to this, but I don’t know if I’m at a point where I can make that work as a metaphor with my own level of spiritual development.
Were themselves running low once they had topped off their lamps. Once again, unless the metaphor is that you have to figure out how to pour oil out of a lamp, I don’t think this metaphor works very differently from the first example. In the latter case, I guess there’s something to be said for you can’t retroactively pray on someone’s behalf.
Different lamps? One of the Saints15 said something about how we are not all called to be saints in the same way, even though we are all called to be saints.16 I guess there’s also the quote from St. Paul about there being one Spirit but many manifestations, or whichever section discussed how a body requires more than just a finger or a toe.17
The other maidens did not ask them to share? I don’t know about this interpretation. Certainly, in the modern day, we are called to respect religious diversity to some extent. I guess I don’t know whether that extends to the point of not offering the faith to those who don’t ask. In the context of knowing that the maidens demanded, if not asked, it becomes a little more difficult. Maybe there’s something to be said in the fact that we cannot make others believe or even act as though they believe, much as we might wish to. I don’t know if there’s anything there, but there might be. The latter idea at least feels somewhat resonant.
Teach them a lesson about being prepared? Hmm, I did immediately shy away from this take. Then again, I know that I generally shy away from anything that suggests fraternal correction. I guess there’s absolutely a take to be made that you should encourage people to reform their lives up to and including at the moment of their death. How that intersects with the Second Coming is a little more difficult, but I suppose that the metaphor still holds? Maybe? The fact that this is so clearly about Christ’s return makes the metaphor hard to connect. After all, we know a posteri18 that19 nobody was alive for both his First and Second Comings. We don’t have multiple chances to get it right.20
Ok, so having now reflected a lot on the Gospel, let’s look a bit at the other readings.21 Or actually, thanks to the footnotes, I know that there’s still more to say about the Gospel.
Reading the commentary annotated bible that I have ready access to22, there are a few things that stand out:
Hilary of Poitiers points out the connection to the Decalogue23. He does expound on what the lamps and oil represent. To Bishop and Doctor Hilary of Poiteirs, the oil i the fruit of good works and the vessels are the bodies of the faithful. It’s an interesting reflection, and one that I find kind of compelling. He ties the sellers of oil to the poor, though I don’t quite understand how.
Augustine says that the number five relates to the five senses.24 In Augustine’s view, the term virgin is meant to refer to the fact that they have refrained from sin through any of their senses. However, absence of active sin is not enough to earn heaven. He ties the lamps to good works as well, quoting “Let your works shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven,” as well as “let your loins be girded and your lamps burning.” Oil to him, represents the fact that we have all good through the Lord, who is Good. We cannot make olives to turn into oil, and likewise, we cannot create goodness. Instead, we can reflect and receive the goodness that the Lord gives us.
Augustine also speaks about the bridegroom’s delay. To him, the delay is a form of test, showing that their love continues to preserve and glow to the end. He speaks to the wise and foolish both sleeping by referring to sleep in the same way that St. Paul does in the second reading, where it acts as a euphemism for death.
In the rebuke, he sees that they are wise not because they belong anything, but because the wisdom of the Lord is with them. He again connects the oil to works, saying that the oil of the foolish is praise and adulation from man.
John Chrysostom connects this parable to the one preceding it, about the faithful servant. He points to the difference, where rather than punish, he simply refrains from help. He also points to the poor as being the ones who sell, which still doesn’t make sense to me. There’s I think something about how we should not take advantage of the poor, but I don’t quite get the connection, which does admittedly say more about me than the great thinkers of the Church. St. John Chrysostom points to the fact that they are virgins as a way of showing how worthless everything is without works.25 Even though virginity is good, it is only good insomuch as it is accompanied by works of mercy. Oil once again denotes good works, while the lamps denote gifts of virginity. That’s an interesting framing, and one that I had not considered.
Cornelius a Lapide26 says similarly that the virgins represent the Church. He connects it somehow to the fact that there was a king who fed the poor, and when told that was beneath his dignity, pointed to Christ saying what we do to the least we do to Him. Ooh, he points to ten as being a symbol of totality. Apparently Jerome and Hilary take the virgins to be all of humanity, the wise as Christians and the foolish as everyone else. He also points to the virgins sleeping as dying. Apparently there’s an old tradition of not leaving the Easter Vigil before midnight because it’s believed that A: the plague of firstborns happened at midnight, and B: Christ would come again at midnight. This commentary seems much less directly relating to the parable and much more focused on the Gospel as a whole, which makes interpreting it hard.
Ok so that was interesting and informative. I should absolutely spend more time reading commentary from Doctors of the Church, because much of what they said just instantly resonated within me. Let’s see what takeaways I have from my notes.
Numerology apparently is something I need to consider.
the oil absolutely relates to good works, though how exactly, there’s some disagreement
the fact that they are called virgins is probably meaningful outside of the Jewish tradition.
sleep means die
Alright! That feels like a good place to end my thoughts on the Gospel for this draft. In revising, I’m certain that I’ll have to tie all of this together in a less rambly fashion27, but for now I think I should move on.
Let’s look at the first reading. Oh gosh, it’s all about wisdom. Since the Gospel is all about how there are wise and foolish virgins, there is absolutely something related in those. Still, my thoughts at the time of reading it were fairly simple. Wisdom comes to those who seek it28 and is something you grow in, not something you innately possess.
Rather than spending tons of time29 trying to come up with my own interpretations, let’s see what the commentaries have to say.
Pseudo-Augustine30 says that we can love better by seeking wisdom. That seems reasonable.
Augustine ties the fact that we cannot know the Father without knowing the Son, and so too with not knowing. It’s an interesting idea to tie to the Gospel, and I’ll need to digest it at least a little.
St. Cyril ties wisdom directly to the Holy Spirit, which makes a lot of sense to me. It’s also probably worth digesting that in context as well.
Though I suppose that there’s some value in reflecting on the Psalm, I don’t know if I really feel like I want to. It seems a little ambitious to try to interpret the Pslams when I didn’t even think to investigate the listed numbers in the reading today. The second reading feels like it should be pretty straightforward, but I’m not sure if it will be. My immediate interpretation is just that death is not the end, which is a pretty easy Catholic take. It connects pretty clearly to the Gospel, since the early Church writers connect sleep to death in the parable.
Interesting points from the commentaries include:
Tertullian points that Christ will come back bodily, which I suppose I’ve never really thought about that much. I guess that I do really see the second coming more in an intellectual than any emotive sense.
John Chrysostom points out that Paul is directing this letter to the mourning as a way to get hope.
Augustine says that Paul saying we should not be sad as the heathens are is not saying we should not be sad. Instead, like most priests say at funeral masses in my experience, we are to mourn the loss of relationship, rather than the person’s cessation.
Ooh, Carsarius of Arles ties this to the Gospel.
Ambrose of Milan points out that we are raised in the proper order and to the proper state.
Bede points out that even Moses was buried. By connecting that to the Transfiguration of the Lord, Bede points out that we already have further hope of being raised31
Anyways, this feels like a good place to finish this first draft. I have some ideas floating around for structuring the second one, but we’ll see how I end up feeling when it comes time to write it.
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I did! Having the notes for where the plot should go and then taking a few minutes to expound on them really did a lot to help me figure out what to write.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? There’s a voice in my head that tells me I should take Sundays off from writing the book. I don’t know if I disagree with it, and honestly, I think that I generally agree with it. That in mind, I’m going to say the 400 words I wrote for Jeb today are enough.32
Did I blog? Did I ever! I think that this is almost certainly my longest post, and I haven’t even gotten to the second draft.
Did I stretch? As always, not yet, but I feel like I should. Probably sometime between now and when I revise this post would be the ideal time.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? I don’t think last night’s rosary was all that rushed, and I tried extra hard to be mindful of my prayer before, during, and after Mass today.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? With my shiny new ink, I wrote a letter! I would like to write another, and probably should.33
readable below↩︎
that feels obvious in retrospect, but it feels important for segue reasons↩︎
also known in some circles as Wisdom of Solomon↩︎
and, to be fair, in some belief systems it still isn’t settled↩︎
I knew there was a word instead of virgins. I don’t remember which verbiage (Idk if that’s an appropriate usage for the term, but I like it, so will keep it in this draft at least) the translation we used at Mass had, but I’m willing to bet there’s at least a few bibles with Imprimaturs or Imprimi Potests that have either word↩︎
as you might be able to tell, at this point I don’t have the Gospel in front of me, so I can’t say for certain exactly what is and isn’t a valid reading of the text. I’m pretty sure that the maidens whose light went out asked for oil, but I’m not completely sure, so this interpretation gets to stay↩︎
hmm or should I wait to do that until after I’ve exhausted my thoughts of how the metaphor works within the context of the parable? Or, should I wait even longer and do it after I’ve connected to the Gospel message? I think that I should do it at least after the exploration of the message within the story, so let’s go through those now.↩︎
of course, I know that there’s the context that this comes from Christ’s sayings and in Matthew in particular, which means that it’s targeted towards the Jewish people. I also carry with me a lifetime of exposure to Catholic and general Christian ideology, which shapes how I view the world.↩︎
Mt 25: (I don’t know specific verse because my wifi won’t let me access the bible right now. All I have is the email with today’s readings, which tells me that it’s somewhere between 1 and 13.)↩︎
there is, of course, the voice in my head which screams at me that the concept of standardized anything is incredibly anachronistic, but I’ve got a lot of practice ignoring those voices.↩︎
Matthew 25: also unknown in this draft↩︎
I don’t know for certain that this is the correct interpretation, but it’s what I’m going to run with.↩︎
even the wrong ones↩︎
for all that I’ve seen interpretations suggesting that his father was not yet dead and he was awaiting an inheritance↩︎
saintesses?↩︎
I am absolutely mangling something profound and beautiful↩︎
that’s probably the same section, as I think about it. Probably worth having a bible with me if I’m going to keep referencing it in these reflections, which is probably a good thing for me to do↩︎
I think that’s the right Latin↩︎
to within any standard rounding error, and little t traditions of immortals that Christ raised during his earthly ministry aside↩︎
I suppose an argument could be made that if we treat the bridegroom coming as the day that each of us individually dies, then there’s the whole every day we get the chance to serve the Lord better, but that feels like a bit of a stretch↩︎
I feel like this reflection is lacking right now, but I can’t quite think of why. Ope, wait, that’s wrong. I know two ways in which it’s lacking. 1: I didn’t read any commentaries, and 2: I didn’t ever connect the parable to the Gospel message explicitly/pick an interpretation I like. Let’s do that instead of moving on↩︎
the Catena app↩︎
which I don’ quite understand↩︎
I’m beginning to realize I did absolutely no numerology, but that was probably relevant, since they didn’t just say a number, they specified five.↩︎
hey nice, I overlapped slightly↩︎
a seventeenth century Jesuit, as it turns out,↩︎
under 3500 words shouldn’t be too hard. In fact, I feel like I’d be hard pressed to be as or more rambly↩︎
her?↩︎
can you tell that I’m getting tired of typing?↩︎
wow what a fun name. ah it’s not a person, but writings incorrectly attributed to Augustine↩︎
I think, I’m bad at reading comprehension↩︎
we’ll ignore the fact that my daily blog post is shaping up to be well over five thousand words as a reason to not do Jeb↩︎
should in the I think I would be happier if I did, not in the I’ll judge myself if I don’t way (there’s context but I feel like it’s pretty obvious)↩︎
First Published: 2023 November 11
Earlier this month, I wrote a post where, among other things, I discussed the fact that I’m now learning to embroider. Specifically, I’m trying to learn counted thread embroidery, in a style somewhat inspired by Bargello. I’ve finally finished the small squares of vertical and horizontal stripes that I had been using as a way to figure out what the stitches looked like with different numbers of threads. I now have to make a different set of decisions when working on future projects.
On the one hand, more strands makes a prettier looking design.1 On the other, it is a massive pain to thread a needle, especially when I start threading it with large numbers of threads. Along with the friends from the first embroidery adventure, I went to a local tea shop, where we all worked on our own threadcraft and drank tea and chatted.
I, as mentioned, finished the test swatches and immediately started work on a test swatch for how to use color. The cross stitching friend continued cross stitching,2 and the other two friends both practiced new skills. One kept working on a woven bookmark that they started near the beginning of the month, and the other started a free form3 embroidery project from a kit. It was really nice to spend time with friends, and it was equally nice to work on something creative4 without having to connect it to anything profit oriented.5 There’s something really fulfilling about being able to go from a half formed idea to something real and tangible in just a few minutes. The fact that embroidery, at least how I’ve been doing it, has a really nice texture is just an added bonus.6
I think that in the future I might start looking at higher hole density fabric, though, because as mentioned, threading enough threads onto the needle to make the fabric as thick as I want is a bit of a pain. The smaller the separation between holes, the smaller the thread needs to be. I’ve also learned that there’s a real and legitimate benefit to doing even numbers of threads, which boils down to only needing to worry about ends at the beginning of each thread, because you can loop and double them over.7
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I did! I also plotted my plot plan in a daily manner, which should help.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? Arguably, since I finished a chapter and started another. In reality, I think I wrote just under my new standard chapter word count, but I know exactly where the next chapter is going, so that’s probably fine.
Did I blog? As mentioned, I said I would revise this. Interestingly, when revising, I think I do far less self talk.8 I think that the post is much better for being reduced in length by around half.
Did I stretch? I forgot to do that! I’ll do it now and then finish this revision. I feel a little better post stretching, which is pretty normal, I suppose.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? No, but I would like to be. I should spend some time tonight, especially because it’s still early, disconnecting and praying.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? I tried today, which I’m giving myself credit for. I then realized my pen was basically out of ink and didn’t want to risk half the letter coming out a different color, so opted against writing anything today.
I had an idea earlier today to try writing this post in two drafts. There were a few reasons for that. First, as you may have noticed, these posts have been getting longer and ramblier the longer the month has gone on. There are a number of reasons for that, to be certain, but the net result is still a post that gets longer, even when the content may not deserve it. Second, this ’blog9 was initially created to journal, at least in part, the way that my writing changes as I go through drafts. Though there are still remnants of that process10, that part of the idea has more or less fallen by the wayside, for a number of reasons.11
And so, I thought it could be a fun idea to see what differences come from writing and rewriting the same post. Unfortunately, as I tend to do, I lost track of time. It’s now late enough that I don’t really feel like writing two posts.12 Still, I know that I have a tendency to overinflate the difficulty of tasks before I start on them, and there’s a chance that the same is true now. If so, then that just means that I need to write this post, and I may have the energy needed to rewrite the draft. We’ll see what happens.13
Anyways, onto the meat of the post. I’ve written before about how I’m learning embroidery. Today, I finally finished with my blocking to see how many strands of thread I should use and started on another project.14 I went to a local tea shop with some friends15 and we all worked on our own crafts.
I did my counted thread embroidery, the friend of mine who cross stitches cross stitched, another friend is learning how to weave bookmarks and worked on that, and the final friend16 worked on learning how to do traditional17 embroidery with a starter kit he got. It was really fun to spend time with friends, and it was also really fun to spend some time working on a craft for its own sake, with full knowledge that the skill will likely never benefit me in any professional sense.18 There’s something really fulfilling about having a rough idea for a pattern, trying it out, seeing where you can improve, and then trying again in a matter of minutes. It’s even nicer when the failed attempt is still pretty and has a nice texture.19 I think I might want to start looking at getting higher number aida20, because it’s a massive pain to thread six or more distinct strands of embroidery floss onto a needle to sew. The larger the number, the tighter the grid.21 Right now I think I’m using 20 or 24, which I saw a recommendation online for six strands when embroidering. In either case, I’ve also learned that doing even numbers is nicer, because then you can just cut a length of floss twice as long as you want to use and then double it with the needle. There are a fair number of benefits to doing that, most of which revolve around the fact that you don’t have to worry about the floss falling out of the needle as you sew.22
Ok so wow this post absolutely needs to be cleaned up. Even though it’s been dark for hours,23 it’s still pretty early, so I should have time to revise.
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I did! I also kind of plotted out what my goals are for writing each day plotwise for the rest of the month, which is nice. It made it a little easier to get to the wordcount today, since I had a real goal in mind.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I was halfway through a chapter at the end of last night, which I did not end up finishing. I finished that chapter and started on another one, though, which is like writing a chapter. One chapter was finished.
Did I blog? I did! And I think I’m even going to revise it wow.
Did I stretch? I should stretch. Before revising, I think that I’ll do that.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? I don’t think that my rosary last night was particularly rushed, and I did pray an Angelus today, though that one was very rushed.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? So I did legitimately mean to do a good job writing letters to friends. But, when I went to write letters between embroidery projects, I found that my pen was almost completely empty of ink. That was a shame, but one that I should have remembered, since we’re like two weeks into the month, and that’s usually when I run out of ink.
to me, at least.↩
which is, as it turns out, a form of counted thread embroidery↩
that feels like the better term than traditional↩
in the sense of creating↩
as opposed to my writing, which I’ve recently learned also helps me to write for the work that I do↩
it’s soft and well oriented. What’s not to love??↩
I don’t know if I’m explaining it well, but I think the concept should be easy to grasp↩
which tends to come in asides like this (wow (though I did initially type ow, which feels equally fair) that’s really meta)↩
hey look I remembered to do it that time↩
see the fact that every post starts with Draft 1 and has a first posted date↩
ooh I do love lists within lists. Still, I’ll refrain from doing so here, if only because I’m already almost two hundred words into explaining how I was going to write today’s musing, which is about embroidery, without even mentioning the skill once.↩
truthfully, I barely feel like writing one.↩
oof, three hundred words of filler before I even get to the embroidery. If I do draft 2, this is all absolutely being cut. That does raise the interesting question, though, of what the point of my drafts is (are?). If the goal is to tell the same story with each draft, then I should repeat this content. If, instead, the goal is that each draft attempts to muse most effectively, then I probably shouldn’t. Eh, we’ll see what I feel like doing to that bridge when it’s time to cross it, and not before.↩
ok, to be fair, the new project is also a test swatch, but it’s a test swatch with a much more intricate pattern, which is like a real project.↩
I’m realizing now that the group of us who went to the Embroidery Guild and who went to tea today were identical↩
not that I only have three friends, just only four of us did all the embroidery events.↩
honestly I have no clue what the relative age or prestige of different embroidery styles is. He was working on a free piece of fabric doing non bit-wise (is that the term? if not, I feel like it should be) stitching.↩
that may sound sarcastic, but I do truly mean it. Ever since I realized that my habit of writing a lot of fiction also transfers to writing academic text faster, I feel bad, as though I have corrupted that joy somehow by making it useful. It’s a similar feeling I get when friends tell me that I should set up a way for my readers to financially compensate me. It isn’t that I’m opposed to making money off the work that I do, it’s that a part of me feels like it will stop being a hobby and start being a job, and that will change my desire to write/what I write. I don’t know how valid that fear is, but it’s one that I’ve had for a while, ever since I read an article talking about how paying children to solve puzzles makes them solve fewer puzzles than just telling them to do it because it’s a fun activity. Once again, I feel like I’m getting off the point of the post, though. It will be fun to actually do a word count versus footnote count again for this post, because I’m beyond certain that there are more footnotes than in text words for this post.↩
like wow I love the texture of embroidery floss that’s been stitched. It’s soft but also incredibly aligned and ordered, in a way that’s a little hard to describe.↩
I’m sure that this has to be an acronym of some sort, but I couldn’t tell you anything about what it stands for↩
I’m positive that the number is holes per inch or holes per cm or some other metric like that, for all that the specifics don’t interest me right now (right now absolutely the key phrase, because I know that I’m going to geek out about everything related to embroidery someday soon, I just don’t want that day to be today)↩
I can’t help but feel like sew is the wrong verb here. Maybe it is the right one, though, since I guess it does describe the action taking place? I guess that’s something I should look up before I do this musing again↩
wow I love the winter (this one is sarcastic)↩
First Published: 2023 November 10
There’s a tumblr called Flash Fiction Friday Official. I’m not entirely sure why they feel the need to call themselves official, given that I haven’t seen anyone else claiming the title, but it’s that nonetheless. The concept is fairly simple. Every Friday, they1 post a new prompt, and anyone can respond to the prompt for the next 24 ish hours.
I’ve done it a few times. At first, I tended to do some short form fiction. As time went on, and I felt less inclined to write small short stories, I used it as a way to write some poetry. Of course, I’ve fallen almost completely off the wagon of doing the prompts at all.
Today, since I’m a little over a week into my one month goal of writing as much as possible, I looked to see what the prompt was. It was “By any other name”, which of course made me initially think of the Shakespearean reference. I immediately wrote that line down and thought about how untrue it was in so many situations.
Of course, that immediately pushed my mind into something poetic. I don’t think that I want to write a poem today for the prompt, if only because poems take me far longer per word and I haven’t really been writing any poetry recently. So, that means I need to write prose.
One interesting thing I’ve realized about my FFF2 responses is that they tend to be far more emotionally driven and first person centered than most of my writing. In part, I think that’s because they tend to be far more poetic, and I find that my poetry tends to be much more emotionally connected than my prose writing.3
Since I didn’t want to write a poem, I then started thinking of what story I could tell. Because the prompts are “Flash Fiction”, there is a maximum word count of I think 1000.4 That’s both a lot of words and not very many all at once.
I’m not writing fanfiction, unlike a large number of the people who respond to the prompts.5 In some regards, this adds to the struggle. In the very limited words I have, I need to not only introduce characters and scene, but then have something happen. When working with fanfic, these constraints are slightly different.
With a single name, you can give the audience the entire background of a known character. There are of course many difficulties to writing fanfic that are not true of an original story. Because I’m creating the entire world wholesale, nothing I do in the 1000 or fewer words can be contradictory to what people know about the characters. If I was using established works, though, then I would have to be careful to explain why my own interpretation diverges from the canon, if it does.
I’m not planning on writing the actual story for the day in this blog post, if only to keep the slightest barrier between the different online presences I maintain. I do want to spend some time and words considering the story I want to write, though.
I think that I want to talk about how changing a name does, in fact, change the thing it describes. Maybe it’s just that I spend too much time around scientists, but there’s a lot of thoughts around me that language does not, in and of itself, contain any meaning or power. I’m sure the fact that I read lots of fantasy inspired by Earthsea also leads me to the idea of names being important in and of themselves, but.6
Probably because of the literary inspirations, I have the initial idea to write something fantasy adjacent. I’ve also got the voice in my head telling me that I should write a very emotional and relationship focused story, for a few reasons.7 Something that keeps popping into my mind is also the idea of how a relationship is, in many regards, defined by the words we use to describe it.
I don’t want to write a didactic story, where I expound on that explicitly.8 However, being too subtle comes with its own drawbacks. I don’t have hundreds of thousands of words to carefully dance around a topic. The medium really encourages direct, if not blatant writing.
Ok, I do feel pretty strongly that it’s in my best interest as a writer to do some realistic fiction exploring relationships. Now I suppose I should figure out the perspective. First person has the advantage of feeling intimate right away. Third person has the advantage of seeming objectivity, which contrasts to the emotional statement that I’m trying to make. Second person has the advantage of being a little weird, and in many ways feeling even more intimate.
From that little reflection, it definitely seems like I’m leaning towards second person. Ok, so then the question becomes who I’m addressing.9 That question also goes hand in hand with the presentation style.
Lately I’ve really fallen in love with epistolary fiction.10 Some famous examples include much of Dracula and This is How You Lose the Time War. I like the fact that there’s an explicit passing of time, and I also like the way it connects me to the letters I write to friends generally.
Ok, so then the question becomes how many letters to send and what story/ plot I want to send out.11 So, things that I know I want are a relationship developing. Since I have such a limited word count, it could make some sense to start not at the first meeting.
I think I want it to take place more or less in the present, so I probably need to address why they’re writing letters to each other. Starting it with just like “I see why Dr. so and so recommended we write each other letters” could be fun. Ooh hey, look at that, we’ve got an implication of them going through marital issues. Ok so I guess that is a question, do I want the couple to be married already?
Ooh, something fun I could do is start each of the letters with a different name, like (person), then love, then etc..12 That feels maybe a little forced, but maybe it could work. With a thousand words, I have room for five to seven of the standard length letters I write, which is pretty nice for storytelling purposes.
Ok to frame this for me13: second person, directed in an epistolary fashion, where I use the openings of each letter as a way of framing what the emotions are at each point. I should probably brainstorm a few different names, but I think I’m ready to try writing the story for today! Exciting.
Well, I have a rough draft done. It’s about 500 words, which is nice and in the middle of the allowed word count. I don’t know if I love the story as a whole, so far, but I think that there’s some potential in what I have. I think that author’s notes are allowed, so I might throw one in and go “so this is what I was trying to do, idk if it worked though.” There’s always a part of me that cringes at author’s notes that try to explain what their goal was in creating a work, but I don’t really know if there’s any way around it. Anyways, I feel like I should probably try to revise the story.
Update a few hours later: I no longer feel like there’s enough time in the day for me to feel like I want to edit the short story. I also don’t know if I’ll post it. On the one hand, it isn’t bad writing, and I kind of like the story. On the other, I can tell a bunch of ways that it could be much stronger, which is almost always true for something I write. I don’t know what my goal is in putting the writing out there, I guess.
I suppose that for the people who make the prompts, seeing responses is probably validating on some level. They do also tend to repost anything you submit with compliments. Ok, the more I think about it, the more that I feel like I should just post it and accept that it’s not as strong as it could be. Maybe I’ll be lucky and someone will be willing to comment on how to make the story better.14
Well, it’s posted now. We’ll see if I get any interaction with it. In either case, I will probably forget it exists for a while, because I posted it from my writing tumblr, which is very far from connected to my real one. My real one is also kept fairly isolated from any other social media that I keep, which probably says something, but I don’t really want to get into what it says.
I might try to look at the post/ the prompt in the future when I run out of things to write about, but for now, I’m just going to leave it in the drafts.
For all that this is probably a rambling mess, I think that it was actually really helpful for me to think about what I wanted to write today. Maybe I should spend more time doing free writing to plan out the books/whatever I want to write in the future. It’s certainly something that’s worth thinking about. Maybe tomorrow before I write for NaNo I’ll spend some time thinking about where, exactly, I’m trying to lead the story.
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I did! I also have in the intermediate days that I haven’t posted here.15
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I finally finished the chapter I’ve been working on for a few days and I’m halfway through another chapter. I’m hoping to have enough energy to finish it off before I go to bed, but we’ll see.
Did I blog? So I have managed to write a post every day this month. The past two days, though, I haven’t felt comfortable posting them to the semi public reality that is my website. Is that still a blog post? Great question.
Did I stretch? It’s been far too long since I stretched. After finishing this, though, I’ll do it.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? No. My prayer life is starting to suffer, which in part is probably because of how sick I’ve been feeling these past few days. Still, that isn’t really an excuse, so I’ll make sure to pray tonight.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? I’m ready to write letters tomorrow, but I’m ok with the fact that I didn’t write any today either. I’m sick and I need to be ok with that fact.
since it’s a collective, as I’ve learned↩
the obvious initialism for the site↩
is there something to unpack in that? Probably. Do I have any intention of unpacking it? Not even a little right now↩
though I should really confirm this number↩
not in a judgemental way, just in a statement of fact way↩
but nothing, honestly. It absolutely does, and it’s wild to me that people forget that she kind of created that entire genre trope.↩
in short, because of the aforementioned desire to do things poetically, and because I don’t do much of that writing generally, so practicing seems like a good idea right now.↩
though why I don’t is probably worth investigating. It certainly has something to do with the fact that I don’t love didactic fiction, but there’s probably more to it than that↩
obviously the reader, but that’s too meta for me right now↩
that is, fiction told through letters.↩
hmm, is this what people mean when they say that they’re plotting a book? Because I kind of like this, and would like to get better at it. Right now my NaNo book is kind of stalled because I feel like I’ve got nothing to do but fill space before the final climax of the book, since I’ve hit more or less every plot point that I meant to hit.↩
it feels weird to put two periods back to back, but I think that’s the proper stylizing for etc. at the end of a sentence. I suppose I could look it up, but that seems like a lot of work that I don’t really want to do.↩
since I’m about to go try and write the story, will report back with findings↩
for all that I do sincerely doubt that will happen. The site is not super encouraging of unprompted criticism, which I generally think is a positive.↩
more on that later↩
First Published: 2023 November 7
As I alluded to yesterday, I’m currently playing a Pathfinder 2E campaign with some friends. It’s an interesting concept, where we groundhog’s day1 back to the start of the dungeon every time that we die. Due in large part to that being the agreed upon mechanic, the game is primarily combat focused.
Our GM had the stated goal of getting better at creating and executing combats during the course of the campaign. He is one of my alleged cousins,2 and the party consists of me, my brother3, the GM’s brother4, and the GM’s former roommate.5 It’s been a fun experience, in large part because of the lack of consequences. Often when I play DnD or an equivalent game, I try very hard to both focus on the specific combat and having a good time there and also on the broader story arc. That can be a little exhausting, because fighting optimally is fun for me, but is not necessarily reflective of the characters I enjoy roleplaying outside of combat.6 In this game, however, I’ve decided to play a character who is concerned about the fact that he hasn’t died yet.
More than that, the DM has given us free reign to rewrite our character sheets between attempted delves, which adds a layer of dehumanization as an RP’er. My character no longer really knows what is real, since he truly remembers being born of Black Dragons, but now seems to be born of Blue Dragon.7 It’s been really fun, and I’m excited to play again. The rest of the post will be written tonight, when we’re finished with the session. It may be a first person log, from my character, depending on how I feel.
Well, this time I was the only fatality. The issue with playing a game where everyone8 has an undergraduate degree in chemistry, and the majority of us are getting degrees in something at least vaguely related to chemistry is that you run into some dangerously real world interactions. In PF2e, there’s a Class9 that allows you to create metal structures. There are a number of monsters which create acid, which our GM ruled can erode metal structures, because metal, as we know, dissolves in acid.
One of our group members, being a chemist, recognized the redox reaction that implies. Iron, when dissolved in acid, converts to Iron Oxide. The oxygen, obviously, comes from somewhere. In the case of dissolving in acid, that tends to come from water.
Now, water, as we all know, is made of two hydrogens and an oxygen. When you pull the oxygen out of water, you are left with hydrogen. Through potentially relevant situations, the monster we were fighting ended up on fire.10 When the monster then ate away what the GM decided was 60 pounds of iron, that meant that we had reacted away approximately 550 moles of iron.
That ended up making something around 1200 liters of hydrogen gas.11 The GM ruled that was worth 40 d6 fire damage. I, stupidly, had just jumped next to the monster, and so was caught in the blast as well. Had I been at full health, it would have almost killed me at once. Since I was doing my job as a bartender and tanking the hit, I completely died at once. I’m excited to be revived next week, and to have learned absolutely no lessons from the experience.
Update a few minutes later: I apparently got to come back to life.12 Now we’re going sailing, for some reason.13 Thankfully, I have taken the nicest feat in pathfinder14 We found a river drake, and through situations completely outside of our control15 it tried to fight us. It’s very fun being a barbarian, because my strategy is very simple. If I am close enough to punch, I use a war flail and smash it. If not, I either throw a bomb or a javelin, depending on how much of a threat the object appears.
In the case of the water drake, it was very easy to dispatch, likely due to the fact that we are all fifth level and got a turn off before it did. With a couple of lucky criticals, we dispatched it before it had a chance to fight. A part of me feels bad, but that voice is a small one. I realized the group did not know that I dislike dragons, which is the only part I feel bad about.
We then encountered some other creatures that also do not speak Draconic. As a result, we were able to tell them that the river drake had attacked us for no reason. Unfortunately, they also wanted the eggs, so we had a bit of a disagreement over how to make that happen. After offering them other foods, they tried to fight us.16
Annoyingly enough, I failed my single attack roll, which meant that I mostly just stood around as the rest of the party killed the monsters. I did my job, however, and soaked up the damage that they wanted to output. In such a regard, I really do a great job of playing damage sponge for the group.
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? Once again, it was a successful day of writing for NaNo. I still don’t love the story, and I don’t think that I’m going to at any point, but that’s fine. It’s good for me to do something I only kind of enjoy sometimes.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? So, I did not end up finishing last night’s chapter. It ended up being exactly six hundred words shy, which I wrote this morning during my hour of writing time with a friend.17 I have not yet finished today’s chapter of Jeb, but I have hope that I will do so before I go to sleep. If not, I’ll have to finish it tomorrow as well, or accept that a long chapter of a book a day may be too optimistic of a goal for me to take on in addition to everything else I’ve done. I did, semi-relatedly, write a 1200 word draft of a methods section for a manuscript my PI has asked me to start writing. Maybe that explains some of my lack of desire to keep writing right now. For all that my creative writing total is about 5200 words today, my total wordcount is apparently closer to 700018
Update as I kept working on this blog post: I’m now much closer to 6000 creative words today, and I’m almost positive that I’ll finish the chapter tonight, if only because I still have like a hundred words left to write and I have nothing to write here.
Did I blog? Did I ever! Look at me, continuing to send out content into the void that is the website I have.
Did I stretch? I ended up falling asleep midstretch last night, which isn’t great. After this post posts, I’ll start.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? Not really, honestly. My rosary last night was done while half asleep. I did the Angelus today, and I tried to focus on it, though.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? Not today! I got another friend’s address, which is a form of progress, I suppose. In terms of putting ink19 on paper, though, I did not make any progress. There’s always tomorrow.
I’m not capitalizing this even though it’s a holiday (should be capitalized) and referencing the movie, which was then verbed (should be capitalized). If pressed, I’ll argue that it’s like a double negative, for all that I just really don’t want to capitalize it right now↩︎
if you don’t know what I’m referencing, just substitute family friend↩︎
the one I have actual blood with (if you know from outside of this ’blog that the number of brothers by blood I have is not equal to one, you’re welcome to ask me for clarifications, because I presumably know you in real life↩︎
who is technically the person I claimed to be cousins with, but that was more a system of convenience than anything else↩︎
who I don’t know if I’ve ever actually met in meatspace (an expression I love)↩︎
for those not seeing the issue, the optimal way to fight in a game like DnD is to be a complete sociopath. I generally like to play characters with empathy, which makes killing hordes of defenseless creatures have some cognitive dissonance↩︎
Barbarian with the Draconic Primal instinct. We started fighting monsters that were resistant to lightning, so changed the design so that now I deal Acid Damage instead.↩︎
I think, at the very least 4 of the five of us↩︎
I think, maybe it’s an ancestry↩︎
persistent damage in pathfinder is great, and my only regret is not having more sources of it↩︎
don’t ask me for that conversion, because I just relied on a friend’s number↩︎
in universe reason: we keep respawning because shrug. Out of universe reason, it was early and everyone else wanted to continue exploring.↩︎
being totally honest, I tuned out a little bit while I was dead, because I role play very hard.↩︎
assurance, which just lets you always roll a 10 and ignore any circumstances on a skill of your choice. As a barbarian, that means athletics, which is my most useful skill, and meant that we navigated with no struggles at all↩︎
read: I am the only member of the party who speaks draconic, and my character hates dragon related creatures, though the party doesn’t know that↩︎
this time I don’t think it’s my fault, because I tried hard to make peace and failed unintentionally↩︎
got a pr for it i think, with 2819 net words at the end of the hour↩︎
I really don’t trust the count on this site, so I don’t use it for anything real↩︎
I write with a fountain pen, yes, why do you ask? I really like the ink color, and wow it just writes so smoothly, it’s such a nice change. I tried to write with a mechanical pencil the other day and it was so hard.↩︎
First Published: 2023 November 6
Oh gosh, it’s been a long time since the last time I blogged about dnd. I had a fun campaign with that druid, though it fizzled out for reasons.1
Since then, I’ve started playing pathfinder with another set of friends, and I just had the session zero for another dnd campaign that’s about to start. I’ve realized that I really enjoy playing a simple character in DnD, probably because my own life is less than simple. Barbarian is a class that tends to take a direct path to the solution of each of its goals, which is something that I really like.
This character is a plasmoid2 zealot barbarian3 For my background, I took something that was called like raised by giants, which has the fun effect of making my first attack each turn do even more damage. It’s going to be a fun character to role play and roll play4, and I’m excited to hang out with these friends more.
One consequence of session zero just happening today, though, is that I lost the evening, which is when I tend to do a majority of my writing. I was told that the event would end by half past eight at the latest, but then we started chatting and playing other games. I certainly don’t regret the time I spent with them, for all that it will absolutely make getting to my writing goal today a little more difficult.
I don’t have much more to add about this, so I may as well start brainstorming some information about my character. I randomly rolled myself into Neutral Evil, which I think means that I’m intrinsically selfish but have a normal attachment to the laws. I think that works well with the background I gave my character, who I’m realizing probably deserves a name. Let’s go with Goob.
Goob landed in the wild mountains outside of (insert setting’s mountains)5 when it was a small creature.6 As I grew, surrounded by the giants, they adopted me as one of their own.
I always knew that I was different than the other children. For one, they never seemed to relax quite as much as I did, always holding onto their weird bones. For another, they were all much larger than me. Still, I grew up loved and supported, as much as my parents were capable of expressing what that meant.
In time, I grew older and chose a path for myself. Something about the stark beauty of the mountains called to me, and I found myself meditating on the beauty that I saw. One day, some goblins7 came up to our mountain and disturbed the peace. I felt a divine presence guiding my blows as I grew more enraged, throwing the goblins off of the cliff.
When the fight was over, I found that I had gone into what my people called a battle trance. It did not seem safe for me to stay among them any more, for what if I did something I would later regret while under the throes of a trance? I went down the mountain to learn to control the urges that called me towards violence.
While in the (insert name of whatever political entity the campaign starts in)8, I began to make a name for myself as a sword for sale. Well, to be more accurate, as a battleaxe for hire. I joined with9 my party because (insert whatever plot reason here). My dream is to control my rage well enough that I am once again safe to live with the other giants.10
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I did! I don’t love the way that the story is going still, but I’m hopeful that it’ll start to turn around. If not, eh, I will finish it anyways because I want to practice some skills that writing it will help me practice. Maybe if I start each session with what I hope to learn, I’ll do a better job of writing.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I’m about a fifth to a sixth of the way through. I’m planning to finish the chapter after posting this blog, since writing the blog felt easier when I got home.
Did I blog? Wow! Another day with another blog post.11
Did I stretch? Whoops! Need to stretch still.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? My rosary wasn’t rushed last night, but it wasn’t particularly good. I did the Angelus at around noon, but it was somewhat thoughtless.12
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? I did end up addressing another letter to a friend last night, and I posted the letter that I wrote on Saturday this morning. That’s technically progress, so I’m counting it.
people got busy and then moved away, to be exact↩
which is a race I’d never heard of in 5e. Wildly, it also is not a humanoid, which I suppose makes sense like explicitly, but is a fun thing because of how many low level spells explicitly only target humanoids↩
a subclass I’d never heard of. Tl;dr, it gives me extra damage on the first attack of each turn.↩
get it?↩
I legitimately have no idea, it’s some homebrew campaign, so this whole story is of course only as canon as the DM wants it to be. I think it’s good to consider what my character’s motivations are, on a slightly more visceral (fundamental? low?) level than the DMG often recommends↩
Using it here, because I’m going to say that plasmid has no gender/sex. Given that I’m explicitly an amorphous blob that can change shapes if I want to, I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to think that I wouldn’t have any explicit sexual characteristics.↩
n.b. I’m happy to switch this for whatever other cannon (or canon I suppose) fodder mook we’re going to be killing by the million in the campaign↩
wow this is a fun game of madlibs↩
or am about to join with? Not totally sure what the party is getting together over↩
hmm not a great character motivation, but I suppose it’s as good as I’ll get.↩
I keep forgetting to type ’blog, but I also don’t know if the two words are identical to me. Might be worth thinking about at some point↩
it’s kind of cool that I now know the prayer well enough for it to ever feel thoughtless, not going to lie↩
First Published: 2023 November 5
It’s been quite a while since my last reflection on the Sunday Mass readings. There are a number of reasons for that, but especially in light of my recent musing where I said I wanted to do more religious writing, spending a musing a week explicitly reflecting on the Bible feels like a good way to practice that. Also, since the last time that I’ve written a reflection on the readings, I finally learned at least one reason I tend to have trouble connecting the first reading and Gospel to the second reading. According to the notes in the edition of the Bible I use most, the Gospel passages were chosen to try to give a relatively full accounting of the different Gospels over the three year sequence. Each of the first readings is chosen to match the Gospel, whether by showing something prophetic Christ did, or simply just by focusing on similar themes. The second readings, however, are not chosen to match the other two. Instead, they are just supposed to trace through the letters, with the goal of giving a good summary of each letter.1
Anyways, nearly two hundred and fifty words later, let’s talk about today’s readings. The first reading comes from the book of Malachi, which I’ve now learned is the final of the twelve minor prophets in the Bible, and is the final book before Matthew in almost every translation of the Christian Bible. Malachi, as it turns out, means messenger, which leads some to believe that the name of the book is referencing a title, rather than the given name of the author.
The first reading is a warning to the priests of the Jewish people. It can be read a number of ways, I am certain. However, the choice of Gospel passage makes it clear to me what interpretation we’re expected to take from the reading.
In the Gospel, Christ talks about the way that the Pharisees and scribes of the people are not living in accord with the covenant the Almighty established over His people. Despite that, Christ acknowledges, along with, it seems, every Gospel and New Testament Letter writer, that the Pharisees still have authority over the people of Israel. He says “do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,”2 before immediately warning the listeners not to act as the Pharisees do.
That is an interesting admonition for me to reflect on. I feel like I tend to have difficulty accepting truths that come from people who I know do not act according to them. If someone tells me that something is healthy and will make me a better person, but does not do it themselves, there is a level of disconnect that I personally struggle to connect through. And yet, as the Gospel points out, this is not a unique or novel situation that I find myself in.
There are two ways that I can read the instruction.3 First, people in authority over us making orders that are within the standards of their authority should generally be obeyed.4 That is, if a boss tells his employees to clean the building, that is his right.5 If the employees do not clean, even if the boss does not, then they are in the wrong.6
The other way that I can understand this is that people can be flawed and recognize that about themselves. I, for instance, know that exercising regularly makes me feel better physically and emotionally. I know the same is true for me about having a regular prayer life. Despite this, I do not exercise regularly, and my prayer life7 needs plenty of work. If someone was feeling generally down about things, I would8 advise them to try praying and exercising more. Even though I do not do it, it’s still good advice.
How much more true can that be for people who have dedicated their lives to studying and interpreting the Word of the Almighty? When a priest or bishop today makes a theological point that I disagree with, I have to recognize that he has gone through significantly more formal theological training than me. Even when what they say is clearly wrong to me, it is still worth the time it takes to understand where they are getting their thoughts from.
In the time that Christ was preaching, the Pharisees were the voice of the people, speaking with Mosaic authority, rather than the priestly power that the Sadducees spoke with.9 It’s interesting that we start today with a reading discussing how the priestly caste will be ignored, and then we see Christ disagreeing with the major opposition to the priestly caste. I’m sure that there’s something deep and profound in the framing, but I can’t find it right now.
The second reading, in stark contrast, is simply a message of evangelization. We, as Catholics, are called to spread the faith to the whole world. I know that I’m not great about doing that, both because I am afraid to evangelize and because I do not live a good Catholic life. There is nothing I can do but try better tomorrow.
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I did, but I don’t really like where the story is going right10 now. I hope that’ll change tomorrow, but I’m worried it won’t.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I finished the chapter that I started last night. It felt either like a really strong chapter or a really weak chapter. My beta reader thought it was an incredibly strong chapter, which is nice. I think I’m a little in my head about the book because I got a review which glowed about how different my writing style is from the normal. I didn’t think I had a distinctive tone, so that was a bit of a shock to me.
Did I blog? See that? It’s been almost a full week of daily posts, all of which are quadruple digits.
Did I stretch? Oops! I’ll stretch when I post this.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? My rosary was incredibly rushed last night, I did a rushed Angelus today, and I struggled to pay attention during Mass. So, all in all, prayer is not going great.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? Shoot! I knew I forgot something. Ok, before I stretch, I’ll address the letter that I wrote last night so that I can post it in the morning. Depending how I feel after a few minutes away from the computer, I may also write another letter or at least address an envelope.
I’m less positive of this claim, but it’s what I remember interpreting the answer as. At the very least, I am positive that it said the second reading is not inherently connected to the other two readings, but that the other two readings are intrinsically designed to work together.↩︎
Matthew 23:3a (ish)↩︎
standard disclaimer: I am not a theologian or a consecrated. This is me thinking and reflecting as I write the musing, not a guarantee of a normative theological opinion, let alone the absolute truth↩︎
even with all of these disclaimers, I feel uncomfortable with the sentence, which says a lot about me↩︎
interesting that I A, assume that the boss is a man, B, call it his right.↩︎
again, in this entirely hypothetical situation I’m constructing↩︎
as I’ve discussed numerous times↩︎
of course assuming so many things here↩︎
apparently, if I trust Wikipedia↩︎
typed write at first↩︎
First Published: 2023 November 4
I think I mentioned this in my last monthly reflection, but last month I went to an embroidery showcase!1 It was a really cool experience, in part because i hadn’t realized how diverse the field of embroidery was. I had in my mind an image of just like the way you can add a small pop of color to a piece of clothing as the whole of embroidery.2 I was3 wrong about that.
The first exhibit4 was a display of temari balls. Temari, as the display informed us, is a Japenese form of embroidery where you make intricate5 designs in a ball filled with rice hulls.6 The designs were beautiful, and they had pieces at every level of finish, beginning with raw rice hulls and ending with a beautiful almost fractal pattern.7
That, of course, was only the first table we saw. There was a lot of free form embroidery, which I had expected. There was also a lot of cross stitch, which I had not realized was considered a part of embroidery. Again, in retrospect, it makes sense that cross stitch would be featured in the Embroidery Guild, if only because the materials and skills cross over so well between the two hobbies.
There was another kind of embroidery that instantly caught my attention, however: counted thread embroidery. Similar to cross stitch, it is worked in a regular fabric8 Unsurprisingly, as a child of the digital age,9 the fact that the designs were worked onto grids was fascinating to me. By and large, the designs worked in counted thread embroidery did not rely on different stitches to add texture and design elements, instead relying on color, material, and to a small extent, thickness of worked thread to make their designs.
Anyways, as the four of us walked through the exhibit, we were stopped multiple times by older women who encouraged us to join the guild. It was really sweet, and all of us were tempted, though I think we all decided independently to wait to join until next year. When one of the recruiters found out that we were all getting our Ph. D.s in Chemistry10, she was elated and told us that there was a former chemical engineer for the state DNR in the guild. We met her, and we bonded a little bit over the fact that embroidery, especially counted thread embroidery and cross stitch, are very rewarding if you have the sort of mind that a Ph. D. chemist does.11
In a fun turn of events, she was the one who had set up the temari ball exhibit, and was more than happy to tell us a lot more about the craft. It was fascinating to consider the fact that a lot of the skills I’ve been working to develop as an analytical chemist12 apply really well to a craft like making a temari ball. The fact that all four of us had taken a course on machining and CAD made the conversation all the more enjoyable.
When we’d gone through all of the art at the show, we stopped by the sale they had. I got a book on designing Bargello patterns, mostly because it was filled with pretty designs and had a section explaining terminology. The others each got their own different books, and we went to a craft store to get supplies.
Since then, I’ve started trying to learn how to embroider. Right now, I’m still new enough that I keep being surprised to learn things. It’s fun, especially since I haven’t been a novice in this way in something for a long time. Dealing with not knowing what questions I should be asking is a skill I’ve let fall a little bit by the wayside, especially during my latest degree, which is meant to focus almost entirely on delving deeply into one or two small questions. Still, it’s something that I really enjoy, especially because I can see the ways that it intersects with so many other skills that I have or want to have at some point. The fact that there will be a social aspect to the craft in the future, as my friends and I join the guild, only adds to that.
For all that the only print resource I have for embroidery is a book on designing Bargello patterns, I do not think that I will likely end up doing too much Bargello work. Bargello embroidery, for those not in the know, is a form of counted thread embroidery based off of some extant art in Bargello, Italy. Its emblematic style13 is relatively long vertical stitches being used to the exclusion of any other stitch. As a person who personally loves the textural differences that vertical and horizontal lines can make, I don’t think that I’ll be too reliant on the style. That being said, I am also now enough of an adult to do the scales of my different hobbies.14 I’m perfectly willing to believe that practicing a simple Bargello pattern will become essential for my development as a fiber artist, and I’m willing to grit my teeth and bear it, even if I do hate working on the pattern.15
Thus far, I’ve almost exclusively made a small pattern with gradually increasing numbers of threads, to see the way that the shape differs as it gets thicker. It’s interesting that the object seems shorter when it has more threads, especially since I can pull out a ruler and see that the grid based fabric is, in fact, still a grid. I also find that I generally like the more filled in look more, which makes a fair amount of sense. I’ve always been interested in texture as a part of creative media, but that interest has tended to be more in the way that light reacts16 with the media being worked. I suppose the canvas I’m stitching into is, in many regards, the media I’m working, but it doesn’t really feel like it, at least right now. There is a part of me that really does enjoy looking at the canvas underneath the thread, which I’m now realizing might be my issue.
I do enjoy negative space in art, but I tend to feel like its use needs to be intentional. Right now, the designs I’m working don’t feel like the sort of art that need explicit negative space. It’s more than plausible that I will change my opinion as I continue into the craft and make more intricate artwork. In fact, I’m almost positive that I will find a use case for nearly every thickness of thread I’ve worked so far. I just don’t know that they’ll be my standard block.
Anyways, this has been a shockingly long and rambling musing. In summary17, I went to an embroidery show with friends a few weeks ago. It was filled with really cool art and decorations. I’ve started embroidering and I really enjoy it.
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? I didn’t start the morning with a writing coworking session, which meant that it took me far longer to write the NaNoWriMo words. That being said, I still managed to get them all out.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I’ll say I finished it, despite the fact that I need to find a way to wrap it up. It’s only 2000 words, which feels too small nowadays. Then again, that’s longer than an average chapter for the book has been, so I guess I could stop here, but I’m about to go write with a friend, so that feels like a bad idea.
Preposting edit: I did end up finishing the chapter, and I added about five hundred words. It’s now the longest chapter of the month, clocking in at a solid 2465 words18. Actually, I think that this may even be my longest chapter ever for the book. I’m not going to fact check myself right now, but it feels at least mostly true.
Did I blog? Woo! The streak is extended to day five.
Did I stretch? Oops! Forgot to stretch today19 I have stretched now, though I don’t know if the way that I stretch these days is very similar to the way I used to stretch. Lately, I’ve focused almost entirely on my neck, shoulders, and hips. Historically, I think shoulders used to be a focus, but I can’t remember ever really focusing on my neck or hips. Eh, I’m older and live a different lifestyle than I used to. It makes sense that my flexibility needs have changed.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? No. I was very rushed in my rosary last night and forgot to do the Angelus today.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? There was some reason I thought that I would be able to say I did a good job today. As I think about it, it was probably because I thought that I would, in the completely empty day I had, write a letter to a friend. I suppose I could do that during the coworking session with a friend tonight.20 After all, there’s nothing that says I have to be doing the same kind of writing. You know what, I think I will!
Preposting edit: As of beginning this21 edit, I have a total daily word count22 of almost 6400 words, trumping Thursday’s record of 5367. It’s possible that I would have beaten that yesterday, but I had to draw a line for what words I would and wouldn’t count in my word counts. On the word writing site, where I’m explicitly incentivized to inflate the numbers, I’m more or less just writing everything that I can justify doing on a web platform. On the spreadsheet that I keep for my own purposes, though, I only count creative writing.23 That means that I’m not counting the work I did on a manuscript24 for the group, despite the fact that the website thinks it was almost a thousand words. Anyways, that’s a very long winded way of saying that I am not counting the writing I’m obligated to do for work or anything analog in my counts for the month. While that may not totally reflect the number of words I write, I feel like it’s more accurate to my goal, which is writing more creative words. Sorry, I lost the thread there. I did end up writing a letter to a friend, and I think it ended up being around two hundred words. As I said above, though, I’m not going to count it in my word total. It is nice to have made progress on that monthly goal, though! Now I just need to address and send the letter!25 Unfortunately, as I mentioned in yesterday’s musing, my writings do not always align perfectly with the word goals I have in the application. When that happens, I find that I tend to put the extra words here, which is certainly an interesting reflection on how much I value this blog compared to the other two writing exercises I’m doing this month.26
as it turns out, I did not. Interesting. Ah, I put it in my daily reflection, so unsure why it didn’t count for the month. Anyways.↩
it sounds ridiculous to say so now, but I didn’t have anything else to connect the word to then↩
obviously, in retrospect↩
I feel like that’s the wrong word. Table? unsure↩
and, relevant for the crowd of physical chemists I went with, very mathematical↩
traditionally, at least. As I looked up the art elsewhere I saw people using more or less anything you would use as a replacement for filling.↩
the entire room was filled with signs asking for no photography, which we respected.↩
wikipedia informs me this is called even weave fabric, and happens when the warp and weft are the same size. I had never considered that a fabric might not be like that always, but I suppose it makes sense.↩
we’ll ignore the fact that not all of the people I’ve known feel similarly about grid based designs and imagery↩
which, in retrospect, is probably not the most common answer for a group of four twenty somethings at an event to give, for all that it’s a common one for me↩
I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s there↩
e.g. tolerances, how to fix mismeasurements, how to understand what a physical change on one part of an object will do to the rest of it, how to fudge (which is technically slightly different than fixing a mismeasure)↩
as far as I have been able to ascertain↩
I think that the common phrase is eat my vegetables, but I happen to enjoy eating vegetables. That is, doing the parts of the hobby which feel less rewarding as a task you have done but which better enable you to achieve what you would like to do in the hobby. I feel like the concept of practice your scales is something I could (should) absolutely go into much more depth over sometime this month, both because I’m realizing as this footnote grows ever longer that I have a lot to say about it, and also because I know I’ll run out of ideas for what to blog about well before December rolls around (to say nothing of the fact that I also would, as of now, at least, like to continue this blog well into December and onward. I’m a little sad when I look at the whole month of October and see only two posts.↩
not that I think I will. Truthfully the only part of embroidery I haven’t fallen in love with is threading needles, but that just seems like a skill I’ll get better at with practice, especially given how little I see people complaining about it/struggling with it↩
I tried a number of words, and even though I don’t really like reacts, it’s the best one I could find↩
for the youth, tl;dr↩
by count of the software I’m writing uncompiled .tex into. I don’t know if that’s one to one for actual words written, but I assume that it’s at least relatively true.↩
read: the hours passed by me in a flash because I motivated myself to write 100 words by reading 2000 (numbers rounded less than accurately, but the general gist was that I had many breaks)↩
in retrospect, writing all day before doing a fun writing hang may not have been my best choice. I count a net words of almost 5700, which is already a personal best. Another hour of writing means that I’ll have to find something else to occupy my writing anyways, since I’ve already done as much writing for NaNoWriMo as I’m letting myself (I forget if I mentioned why, but my goal is to write one fifty-ish thousand word novel this month. If I let myself write too much in a given day, that means that won’t happen, probably)↩
second↩
not counting the letter I’m going to say I’ve written in a few more words↩
fairly consistently, though I’m pretty sure that I have counted other writing before. This month, at least, I’m not planning on doing that.↩
research paper draft↩
and write the other letter I’ve addressed an envelope, and address and write the other letters I was planning to send↩
anyways, this now puts me to almost sixty eight hundred words, which really goes to show you how needlessly verbose this entire edit was, given that I started it at around 6400 (can you tell I needed just a few more words still?)↩
First Published: 2023 November 3
Interestingly enough, one day ago today I sat in front of my computer without any idea what I would blog about. Today I have a slightly different issue. I am going to play games with friends tonight,1 and had2 every intention of musing about that experience. However, as I may have mentioned before,3 I’ve started writing on a website which I find very helpful for getting me to write often and well. One feature of the site is that it sets semi-arbitrary goals for me to hit with regards to word count and pace.
Unfortunately, though the overlap is close, it does not always align perfectly with the number of words that I have left to write in a chapter of my web novel. In this case, I finished a longer than standard chapter with 200 or so words in my arbitrary goal.
“But wait,” I hear you4 ask, “why not simply let those remaining words go to waste? Or, even better, why not simply start another chapter?”
To that, I reply,5 “I hate losing progress for work that I’ve begun, and I need a blog post more than I need another chapter of my book at this exact moment.”
Now that I’ve addressed the concerns, I can start writing about the game night I went to tonight. It was a good time! I got to spend time with friends, and I got to play a fun game of chance and skill!6
Daily Reflection:
Did I write 1700 words for NaNoWriMo? Once again, I managed a 2000 word hour with a friend, and did my writing for the day.
Did I write a chapter of Jeb? I did! I finished it and sent it to my beta reader hours before this post. Once again, it felt even easier today than yesterday.
Did I blog? As you can see, we are now on day four of the streak.
Did I stretch? I did! This morning no less.
Am I doing better at prayer than a rushed and thoughtless rosary? Once again, I did the Angelus. Last night’s rosary was pretty rushed.
Am I doing a good job writing letters to friends? I got a friend’s address, which is technically progress in writing letters. Tomorrow I should actually write a letter, though.
specific games not listed for a variety of reasons↩
have?↩
though I’m not sure when, given that I more or less stopped blogging↩
I don’t know why I assume my readers (who don’t exist) are going to loudly comment on my writing↩
I guess that since I did, in fact, take a break from writing in the middle of the last footnote, I am the reader↩
or many iterations of a fun game of chance and skill, I suppose, depending on the framework you take.↩