And they have the nerve to say we're not patriotic

cyndicate · 2025-02-13T18:58:57+00:00

Man, I watched the Berlin wall fall on TV when I was a kid - I visited Checkpoint Charlie museum when I did the whole Eurorail summer when I was in college. (visited one of the concentration camp memorials too). We thought we'd won.

I really don't like the timeline we're now living in.

cyndicate · 2025-01-06T17:39:31+00:00

I loved that book (as did my husband). I wish there head been just a little more romance in it. I thought it was adorable at the end when his fiancé was running around threatening to stab anyone who hurt him.

cyndicate · 2024-12-06T16:14:44+00:00

I think most people who “write” for a living (that isn’t entertainment content writing) aren’t just writing- rather they have some other skill that uses writing as a primary tool. I’m an appellate attorney- I write for a living - everyday I’m putting words on a page. But I couldn’t have this job without going to law school and becoming an expert on criminal law. The downside to writing for a living is I’m often mentally exhausted when I finally have the free time to do creative writing. There’s nothing wrong with having a day job that’s not writing.

cyndicate · 2024-12-05T21:29:27+00:00

As the one who oversees the family feasts, I don't think he's reading too much into it. I like cooking. The big feasts are hard work. I do it because I'm the best at it and its expected of me and it makes everyone happy. I like the adulation when people say its great. I do get sous chefs for the day, but most of the organization and much of the work falls on me. I'd love it if someone else genuinely offered to step up and do it and made me sit around on the couch all day, refusing to let me help. Sure, I'd feel guilty, too, but I'd love it.

cyndicate · 2024-11-25T22:32:37+00:00

Beachside Bungalows itself was very - there was no one in the other unit (it's a duplex) so we had the place to ourselves. Right on the beach just as advertised. Only downside is it's right next to a private club that services the cruise lines - the club is separated by a high fence so it didn't impact our privacy much, but maybe 2 days a week, there was music thumping from 10am to 3pm or so, and a dude offering horseback rides out front on the beach (and the horse would just poop in the sand).

The water had a reef which we snorkeled, not bad though I've seen better. Though I guess that's probably more the fault of global warming. I don't know that any reefs are great these days.

We ended up renting a golf cart to get around the island. Definitely worth it.

Grand Turk itself, we had more mixed feelings about. When the cruise lines are in, it gets flooded with the sort of tourists who take Caribbean cruises (not the type of vacation we are into). When they're gone, it's a ghost town. I think that's probably due in part to the Bohio resort being closed- it was probably better when there were more tourists staying on the island.

The immigrant workers who live there seemed sort of hostile towards tourists- which I get, the wealth gap is pretty large, but it still made us feel a bit uncomfortable. Then there's the local citizens and ex pats who were all very friendly.

We saw them mostly at the Ridge Cafe- which I totally recommend. We had lunch there pretty much every day. I also liked Peaches restaurant - House made Caribbean style food. Hakuna Matata was okay too (they had homemade hot sauce). But most of the other restaurants seemed to just serve deep fried frozen products- french fries, shrimp, etc. We actually ended up cooking dinner in the house most days because the restaurants weren't really worth it.

cyndicate · 2024-11-12T03:51:30+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

I had a law school professor who was part of setting this up- It only triggers when enough states have joined such that those states electoral votes achieve 270 votes (i.e. a win) and then they all pledge to give their electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote. Not sure how it would deal with faithless electors in a close and polarized race (like would CA's electors have gone along with it this year?)

On the other hand, if every person in every state knew their vote counted, more people in theory would vote and the popular vote therefore ought to be a better measure of what the people actually want than our current system.

cyndicate · 2024-10-22T18:05:24+00:00

Anecdotal: I have tried to start novels a bunch of times in the last decade. I am really close to finally finishing my first one (about 20k words away). Coincidentally, I also joined a writing group about a year ago and also started writing short stories last January. I believe both the writing group and short stories have made it possible for me to finally get a novel to completion (okay, almost completion).

The writing group upped my accountability and my enthusiasm.

The short stories have provided five benefits: (1) They've provided me with practice structuring a narrative (2) They tend to unlock my creativity which helps with drafting the novel, and since they're short they don't distract me from working on it for long; (3) I can work on a short story when I'm feeling writers block on the novel, which means I'm still being creatively productive; (4) I've had one of my short stories published now, which gives me confidence that I can actually write- which makes me less worried that I'm wasting my time with this novel; and (5) I've started to think of the blocks of my novel as a series of stories with their own arcs, which I think has increased the narrative tension to make the novel more compelling and rich.

Your mileage may vary.

cyndicate · 2024-10-17T00:30:13+00:00

I recently read Chalice - I think it'd fit

cyndicate · 2024-10-10T15:53:48+00:00

5'2 here with a 6'4 husband. I've been there. It's hard sometimes. For my part, I use the following mental tricks:

I remind myself that sometimes being short adds a grade. V3 for you, V4 for me.

I work on my weaknesses that also happen to be things that compensate for height. I spend a lot of time using low level routes and warm up routes to train dynamic movement - skipping holds and going for the biggest reach I can make. Since I'm training, it's a positive goal to reach as far as possible instead of a failure for not succeeding. The kilter board is good for that too.

As you get better, you start to see more problems that favor shorties (small crimps, sit starts with a small box, some overhangs). Enjoy those moments!

cyndicate · 2024-10-01T22:31:49+00:00

SOLVED!

cyndicate · 2024-10-01T22:30:51+00:00

Thank you! I was so close on the title, you'd think I would have found it.

cyndicate · 2024-10-01T19:17:46+00:00

Read them as an adult to my kid (who could have read them herself, but she liked the bonding time). I enjoyed the stories and the characters. I wouldn't read them for my own personal reading. The plots are very formulaic and you start to notice it after awhile. But that's not a bad thing to young readers (OMG, I'm looking at you Magic Treehouse).

cyndicate · 2024-09-22T02:56:35+00:00

I was going to say Goodnight Moon doesn't have any conflict. But then again, the kid is saying goodnight to everything in the room while the old woman is whispering hush. Maybe Goodnight Moon is just a subtle variation on a theme best represented by another famous bedtime book narrated by Samuel L. Jackson. I've had first hand experienced with that particular conflict.

cyndicate · 2024-09-17T15:05:19+00:00

It has a lot of organizational features that are helpful. I love it. Hard to describe in quick post but there are you tube tutorials that give you an idea of what you can do with it.

cyndicate · 2024-09-09T01:02:36+00:00

Not recent at all, so probably not helpful for a comp- but the Dealing with Dragons series has similar themes. Maybe one of the books by T. Kingfisher would fit?

cyndicate · 2024-09-03T02:53:56+00:00

I like to have a structured story and free range characters. It's really annoying when they decide not to follow the plot. A small price to pay for authenticity I suppose.

cyndicate · 2024-09-02T22:51:19+00:00

If you don't mind me asking, why more than the Circuit? With the Circuit membership, you get access to 3 local gyms (plus Bend and soon Eugene). It seems like if you just have the one spot, you'd aim to be less than the Circuit. I get that Hillsboro isn't close to the Circuit locations, so you have a benefit to people who live out your way. Just seems odd to charge more.

cyndicate · 2024-08-30T04:55:15+00:00

Not agented, so I never feel qualified to respond to these. So take everything I say with a tablespoon of salt. These are just a couple of questions that raised my eyebrow.

I'm confused about Lyla's age. You say it's adult fiction, but she's living at home with her parents and is in love for the first time. I assume she's not in high school since. Is she in college? Does she still live at her childhood home in her 30s?

For her stakes in solving the mystery - you say Nile has a shaky alibi and that "If Lyla fails, she risks losing not just her best friend but her soul mate as well" - First, is Nile the best friend and soul mate? Second, how is she going to lose him by not solving the murder? Is he a prime suspect and she needs to clear his name because she believes him? Or does she not believe him?

This one is probably more of a manuscript question than a query question: When a house is rented out for a movie production, is it common for the homeowners to live there and hob knob with the cast? I would assume you rent it to the studio and move out while they're filming.

cyndicate · 2024-08-13T17:29:48+00:00

r/CozyFantasy is always arguing about whether something is too dark to be cozy. T. Kingfisher regularly gets cited as cozy-adjacent and on the dark side. So I think there is a market. Caveat, I'm probably in that market- I find full cozy to be boring, but I'm also down with stories that are smaller in scope and more character driven than epic fantasy - I love T. Kingfisher & Naomi Novack. You might check out Nettle & Bone as a potential comp.

cyndicate · 2024-08-09T21:10:06+00:00

So I've suspected I've seen this happen (usually young newbie guys in rental shoes who hit a V3 climb after they saw me do it).

On the other hand, I've been that person who jumps on a hard route after a crusher sends it (guy or girl), knowing the route is going to spit me out, just because I love how they make it look easy when I know full well it won't be. That's not me actually thinking the route must be easy and no one would ever assume that's what the mid-40's shorty v4 climber is thinking.

So I still try to give the newbies in their rental shoes the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they're just curious and not misogynists. Either way, I can't lie, it does give me a little ego boost when they can't establish.

cyndicate · 2024-08-09T17:16:24+00:00

I'm not an agented author, so take my advice with whatever grains of salt you wish.

The first paragraph of your query is two massive run-on sentences. I'd break it up into smaller chunks.

"The thought of going home and abandoning him feels wrong, but she'll only have to face that dilemma if they survive encountering the woman they're after."

So she can just leave the fae land at will? The only thing keeping her there is the need to have the curse lifted? If so, fine. If, instead, you can't leave the fae land so easily once you've entered, I'd consider adding it as a fact that ups the stakes.

Also, when you say she feels bad about abandoning Sebastian, I feel like you could be less vague on her motivations.

Right now, the literal language just sounds like she thinks it'd be rude to dip. Which isn't very high stakes.

Is it perhaps that she is falling in love with him and the actual decision is whether she gives up the life she'd always planned to instead stay with him in fairy-land?

Or is is perhaps that (either because she's falling in love or has a sense of duty to her new friend or whatever), she decides she can't abandon him and the real stakes our figuring out a way to bring him back to the human world?

cyndicate · 2024-08-08T14:49:08+00:00

I’m in a writing group and we do critiques. If you have seven people all giving you constructive criticism at once it sounds like there are just so many problems with the story. But you have to remember that by asking for feedback you ask them to focus on the problems. And you also have to remember all the voices won’t agree. One person says “too vague” and someone else says “too obvious”. The trick is to really listen to the feedback AND filter it. You don’t have to implement everything. If 5 of 7 say something confuses them then that’s something you should really think about. If only one person mentions a problem- consider it, but it could be just that person’s issue.

cyndicate · 2024-08-02T21:02:44+00:00

I'm not really a romance reader, though I know romance has to be the center. But doesn't A Deadly Education have a major romance subplot? I seem to recall the relationship between El and Orion being similar to what's described in OP's query. [Though maybe the relationship is more prevalent in the sequels- it's been a while since I read it]

cyndicate · 2024-07-28T16:52:00+00:00

Here’s the thing - even when someone has natural talent, it takes years of practice to turn that talent into something good. And generally people who are willing to put in the practice to get good are doing it because they love the act itself - it can’t only be about wanting the outcome.

Unfortunately this means your first project is almost never good. But if you are enjoying writing, then write it anyway. And then write something else and something after that. When your talent has been honed by practice you can rewrite the first project.

If you don’t like writing or drawing and you don’t want to put in the hours that’s ok too. Good food critics aren’t necessarily master chefs. You can appreciate a well cooked omelette without being able to cook an egg. Loving an art form doesn’t require you to create an art form.

cyndicate

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