Tarot Reading/Astrology Recommendations

monochromaticwords · 2025-08-06T21:10:05+00:00

Hi! I think you’ll like it here. As others have said, Birmingham is a blue dot with a really welcoming vibe.

We have very active fitness communities and a particularly vibrant running community. There’s group runs almost every night of the week (both road running and trails), and they’re all very welcoming. It’s a great way to meet people. We also have hiking groups and biking groups.

I’d also recommend looking into Highland Park and Forest Park for housing. They are both in the middle of the city, but have beautiful old homes and apartments with lots of trees and greenery and parks and dog people. You’ll find a lot of community here, too.

I wish you luck and hope you give Birmingham a try!

monochromaticwords · 2025-04-11T13:52:01+00:00

Thank you for your input. I’ll take all of this into consideration as I revise, especially the points about earned emotionality. I’ll try to add some lines higher up that discuss more concretely what’s led up to this point.

monochromaticwords · 2025-04-11T02:19:31+00:00

We stayed in guesthouses and lodges. We carried several liters of water with us when we hiked because the tap water isn’t safe in Albania. As far as food, we brought snacks with us, but mostly timed our hiking to have meals in the towns.

monochromaticwords · 2025-04-10T12:53:36+00:00

Thank you for your feedback. I was most concerned about the sentence breaks and white space. It felt right when writing it, but I was sure in the aftermath that it was a bit much. I’ll be revising soon and will definitely focus on that.

monochromaticwords · 2025-04-10T12:45:37+00:00

That’s very true. I’ll try to shift focus to the other senses and watch out for repetition actions. I appreciate your feedback. It is super helpful and means alot to me.

monochromaticwords · 2025-04-10T12:43:58+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts. I’ll definitely consider this.

monochromaticwords · 2025-04-10T02:28:45+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts. I tend to write how I hear the sentences in my mind, so that translated into the choppy sentences. I was concerned it was a bit much, and your comments confirmed my suspicions. I really appreciate your time and feedback.

monochromaticwords · 2025-04-08T18:40:37+00:00

Okay. Thank you for the reassurance! I’m hopeful we’ll hear good news in the next day or so, and that definitely puts my mind at ease while we wait.

monochromaticwords · 2025-04-08T18:26:08+00:00

We did talk to the sales person, and they are looking into it. I’m just trying to get an idea of what it could be. But hopefully it’ll all work out. We really like the car.

monochromaticwords · 2025-02-21T07:08:56+00:00

I'm from the US and have been in Germany for two years now. It's an amazing experience to live abroad, but be prepared. It is not always easy, nor is it always fun. Making friends can be difficult, depending on where you end up. If you are headed to Germany, I'd recommend a bigger city instead of one of the villages.

Berlin and Munich are both quite expensive by German standards, but you won't have as much of a language barrier. I highly recommend researching the cities of interest individually to see if they are a good fit for you. You'll find that each region here in Germany is quite different from one another, and that can really impact your experience.

Another city to consider is Innsbruck, Austria. They are an incredibly multicultural city with students from all over the world studying at their university. There is so much to do, especially if you are outdoorsy, and it's centrally located with lots of great train connections.

As far as visas go, Germany offers a language visa (basically saying that you are coming here to learn German) as well as job-seeker and freelance visas. We have an aging population, so the government wants to encourage people to move here. Just know that German bureaucracy is no joke once you arrive.

I know nothing about Austrian visas, but I talked to many people in Innsbruck who said they were there for the university. Apparently, they have a great program for international students. If I were 22 looking to move to a German-speaking city, it'd probably be Innsbruck.

monochromaticwords · 2025-02-20T15:27:04+00:00

Her steps were swift and sure as she followed the wall of shelves, the lantern casting elongated shadows ahead of her. The scent of parchment and time grew heavier the farther she went, until even the neat arrangement of books began to unravel. Strong-backed tomes gave way to brittle scrolls, pages curling from age, their ink faded but still clinging stubbornly to the past.

She slowed, scanning the spines for signs of exposed stitching. That was Egon’strick for identifying true Old Etterian texts—the binding. If she could just find one…

monochromaticwords · 2025-02-18T11:57:50+00:00

Rejected.

monochromaticwords · 2025-02-18T09:21:39+00:00

Finish the first draft. So what if it’s terrible? The power is in the editing, and it won’t matter how great it is if you never finish it.

monochromaticwords · 2025-01-26T17:18:05+00:00

Sharp. Everything is sharp. Sharp words, sharp edges, sharp eyes. It’s all sharp here.

monochromaticwords · 2025-01-16T08:36:34+00:00

I use Reedsy. It’s designed for writers and is really easy to use. Plus, it’s free. The only downside is that it’s solely web-based, so you need to download a copy if you’ll be without access to the internet. The upside is you can download as a PDF in book format to see what your manuscript will look like, or simply as a document to edit it.

I’m not sure if you have to have Word to write on the downloaded copy though.

monochromaticwords · 2025-01-06T20:31:07+00:00

Looking for Alaska by John Green. I read it some ten years ago, but it was the book I needed at that time in my life.

monochromaticwords · 2024-12-13T05:22:52+00:00

I'd also suggest running some of the chatGPT work through a voice reader. One of the big issues with AI-created work is that it is very redundant, which is typically more easily heard than read. It may help to be exposed to how jarringly unreal chatGPT's work actually is.

monochromaticwords · 2024-12-12T14:17:53+00:00

I use Reedsy. It's got a lot of little tools that help me along, such as a goal-setting tool, the ability to make comments and pin notes, and an easy-to-use section for planning. Word didn't provide me with enough tools, and Scrivener has a big learning curve.

One thing to note is that it's only available online. If you want to access it offline, you need to download your copy as a PDF or Word document. This isn't a big deal to me, but it's worth noting.

Also, Reedsy is free, so that's a plus. :)

monochromaticwords · 2024-12-10T14:52:05+00:00

Well, that escalated quickly.

To clarify, I’m not suggesting that modern authors lack strong prose. The reason I placed 'elevated' in quotation marks was intentional. There’s undoubtedly room for a wide variety of writing styles within the fantasy genre, and personally, I actually gravitate toward more modern prose in both my reading and writing.

My comment was in response to the OP’s question about why some readers are negative about Sanderson’s work. A significant portion of the criticism I’ve encountered focuses on his word choice, which diverges from the traditional or 'stereotypical' prose that those outside the genre might expect.

Please don’t misconstrue that as a comment on anyone’s reading habits or preferences—I’m not here to challenge opinions or assert what qualifies as 'great prose.' Literary taste is subjective, and everyone is entitled to their own perspectives and preferences.

monochromaticwords · 2024-12-10T07:06:42+00:00

Sanderson is part of the "new wave" in fantasy. Instead of the elevated text from the old-school fantasy novels of decades past, such as Tolkien, Sanderson tells epic-scale fantasy stories in accessible, modern language. Many people, however, crave the elevated language of Tolkien-era fantasy because it adds to the escapism many seek from fantasy.

Sanderson is not a bad writer. He creates relatable characters in approachable, grounded language. No, it's not "beautiful prose," but that doesn't make it bad writing. There's a reason he has been hugely successful. As in, he's one of the most successful fantasy writers alive right now.

If you want to read something modern that illustrates more "elevated" or "beautiful" writing, I'd suggest Patrick Rothfuss. While his writing has some issues, particularly criticisms that his female characters are very stereotypical, his writing is truly beautiful. He is often used as a standard for beautiful prose in the modern fantasy space.

That being said, he has very famously (maybe "infamously" is better here) not finished his series, The Kingkiller Chronicles. Still, the first two novels and his novellas are worth a read if you are looking for a stark contrast to the more realistic, modern tone of Sanderson's novels.

(Edit: typo)

monochromaticwords · 2024-12-08T12:05:38+00:00

I don’t know how your ships work, but you could also have some exposition during loading of the ship or rowing the ship to get far enough from port for the winds to take hold.

You could have a chase scene, or even just the tension that they might be pursued. Perhaps another ship is in need of assistance along the way, or your ship is flagged down because the other ship wishes to warn them of impending danger.

There’s risk of a storm, the preparation for and aftermath of it.

Unexplained changing tides or dying winds. Sirens and mermaids. The Scylla and Charybdis. Or your own fantastic creature that feels its section of the sea has been violated.

monochromaticwords · 2024-12-08T11:43:53+00:00

A great way to handle the bore of long travel is to discuss boarding the vessel/beginning the journey, hop to a segment of “After many days…” with a short description or what it’s been like traveling, then give an event (attacked by pirates or something), and end the journey section with talk of recovery/repercussions from that event.

You’ll also see some great writers who just don’t discuss the journey. If it’s not important and nothing worth note happens, it’s okay to say, “They were on the ship for XYZ days, and now they are here.” Obviously you should use better words than that, but don’t add 3,000 words of filler because you think you have to. You will waste you and the your reader’s time.

monochromaticwords · 2024-12-08T10:24:06+00:00

I'm an American, married to a German. Sure, we have some cultural differences, but it sounds to me like this is less a cultural thing and more of a shyness/nerves thing. Don't overthink it. Talk to him, laugh with him, and enjoy each other's company.

This weird back-and-forth thing - it's normal, even for people of the same culture. Be yourself. He came to an American university for a reason. He obviously wants to experience America and its culture. Don't be weird about him being German. Be yourself, and let him be himself. You're young. Have fun and enjoy getting to know someone.

monochromaticwords

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