Patreon! What I've been up to.

[aldersprig]

It's been a busy month on my Patreon, and I got a little behind in telling you all here on the blog what I've been doing. So here's a summary!



Third Step
a story for the Liminal Spaces prompt call.
🚪
That door.

It would be too easy to say it looked like an ordinary door.

The thing was, it didn't look ordinary.
🚪
read on...

---

Seasons's Change
a winter repost story
Free for all to read!

Happy Sunday from my favorite Oligarcy
Kitty Pics

Another Door Opens
a repost story of Addergoole
Free for all to read!

Corning Museum of Glass
Glass Pics!

The Purple
a winter repost story
Free for all to read!


Patreon News




The Sea Eats
a story for the Liminal Spaces prompt call.

The sea ate boats.

In the villages along the coast, they spoke of this solemnly: Harun-sha has taken another boat. Harun-sha must be very hungry today.

In the cities, they either spoke cynically of it: "this criminal population is getting out of hand. We need to send an exploration ship out," or they spoke of it negligently, "Ha. Harun-sha must be tetchy today."

read on...

---

Tree on the Hill
A Trunk Story
For $3-and-up Patrons

February Prompt Call
Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Homer
For $5-and-up Patrons

Month of Letters

Go take a look~~

Comments

[natf]

"Less people panicked at this place, but there were still a few."

"Less" should be "Fewer". You might want to change "few" in some way, then. Perhaps:

"Fewer people panicked at this place, but there were still some that did."

I loved this otherwise!

[natf]

The Sea Eats:

"and then he'd move to the capitol"

You have mixed your tenses in that sentence. Mostly past tense but "he'd move" is a future tense.

[aldersprig]

Thank you!

I may not have relayed this to you, but I prefer typo comments to come with or in addition to some actual content comment.

[natf]

Wow. Okay. Way to seek empty, worthless compliments.

Well, instead of wasting spoons trying to make something up, how about I just add the following to all of my freely offered copyediting advice in the future:

"I liked this enough to read it all the way through. I would not read your writing if I did not like it. I have not noticed anything that I need to say right now. Please forgive my Aspergers but I did notice a relatively minor copyediting error and so feel compelled to offer this advice free of charge. If I did not respect you as a writer and respect/like your writing, I would just close the tab without commenting at all."

Or perhaps I should not bother to even read your stories any more. Perhaps your are too far above us mere mortals these days to accept freely offered advice without some hollow compliment attached.

I admit that your comment has upset me and caused me a number of perseverating sleepless nights. This is another of those nights and so I am just going to leave this here and then try to forget / let it go, however much easier that is said than done.

[aldersprig]

I have to admit, this response startled and hurt me.

I’m not seeking “empty, worthless compliments;” the problem is that I have anxiety, and when I see a comment on a story of mine that is only typo-catching, it reads to me as there was all this wrong with your story and nothing right.

Thus, I ask all my readers that if there is something they enjoy about my story, to tell me that, even if it’s simply a “:-)” before the typo-catches.

[natf]

As your comment startled and hurt me. Hence how long it has taken me to reply. I too have anxiety and it felt like you were saying, "If you have nothing good to say then don't say anything." This is one of the tapes that play over and over again in my head. Thanks childhood, parents and cPTSD.

I did not mean to upset you. I was trying not to lash out but seem to have failed in that endeavour. Yay two anxious people possibly misunderstanding written English - that *never* happens! Can we just put this to one side and try to carry on as before? Can you take the ";-)" as default in case I forget to add it? I am now anxious about forgetting it. LOL!

[inventrix]

As someone who has been in your shoes before, I have a small piece of advice! Try to convey that your feelings have been hurt without adding any emotional content or accusations; it helps avoid escalation and often will get an apology, which also helps. And if it doesn't get an apology, try to remember that it usually means the other person is a jerk!

For example, replying to the first one with, say, "I don't always have something to say about the story, but I wanted to be helpful to show that I enjoy your writing and I'm hurt that this isn't good enough" would've been less antagonistic and probably more on point than "wow okay, way to fish for empty compliments".

I'm also not entirely sure how "please leave comments about the actual story, too" got interpreted by you as "tell me you like my story", since something like "that character was really annoying!" counts as a comment about the story - but that isn't a criticism, just something for you to think about to maybe avoid a future misunderstanding.

Knee-jerk emotional reactions just make people attack you more, usually. I have a lot of experience with that. >.> Giving people the benefit of the doubt and asking for clarification on something you are reading as an attack or hurtful sometimes annoys people, but in general I've found the outcome to be overall less stressful and upsetting.

Anyway, sorry if I'm butting in unwanted, but it was looking like you two were unintentionally stabbing each other with thorns and I thought someone should intervene before it got worse. >.>

[eseme]

Ooooo, I liked the Purple a lot. And Cameron and his shapes were amusing!