Day 217

Spoiler Alert! May contain planning-stage plot/character details or other spoilers!

14 Jul 2017

Still working through renaming and sidling up to the larger changes, lol. Lots going on in the real world; major fires in the interior and some family members getting new jobs, which may or may not mean lots of change in my world over the next little while. Allergies aren’t so bad today, though, so that’s a plus! I need to get this month’s newsletter written up and do a bit of a push on IG, my FB Beta group, and a proper news blog post ‘cause otherwise these journal entries end up being the world’s most boring, worst written blog, lol, but also it all contributes to general procrastination and not moving BtE forward, so… yeah. Priorities.

Been more involved on Twitter lately, which I enjoy the most out of the various channels, but which is also the most inflammatory (closely followed by FB comments section!) Particularly concerned about discourse issues lately; seems to be a lot of hyper ‘woke’ peeps out there railing against authors for failing various litmus tests, and it’s getting so they seem just as bigoted as the original hyper conservative crowd. Writing’s hard, kids. Seeing your own prejudice and breaking out of the lanes the whole industry’s been running in (and you’ve been familiarized with/reading in) your whole life is hard. Getting published and/or getting anyone to read your book is hard. Which isn’t to excuse bad behaviour or bad content, but generally empathy and understanding work toward change more than accusations and attacks. Want to see more #ownvoices diverse authors and stories? That’s awesome, but maybe don’t go around screaming at authors for not going far enough (oh, dark skin but no ethnic backstory? shame!!) and recognize that there are a lot of ‘privileged’ white authors too that aren’t making a living and are desperate to even get a ghost of a career out of their work. I understand that anger is a big part of discrimination (um, woman in business?), but it really looks terrible when the strongest voices on attack are white kids too; like it’s one thing to get upset over your friend’s raw treatment, but don’t go making things worse for them out of your own privileged sense of outrage. Keep discourse open, help people learn, don’t shame them for ignorance. And respect that your opinion isn’t necessarily truth whether or not society applauds you for it at the moment. Also it seems offensive that the push for racial equality and diversity has so quickly been coopted for gender/identity/sexuality diversity - like, I understand if you feel like you got a raw deal within your lifetime, but that’s not the same as multi-generational disadvantages and discrimination. Especially with orientation, you may not feel like you should have to hide your preferences to be treated equally, but that entirely discounts that you have the remarkable privilege of being able to, where the instant, long-standing discrimination towards visible minorities is something they have no capacity to opt out of or put on hold, whether or not they’d be willing to make that sacrifice.

I dunno, for the most part I don’t want to get into the unending battle royale of this stuff online, but on the other hand it gets scary when you look at the way America’s headed and see extremist behaviours and a lack of true seeking to understand on both sides of the equation… I get that you’ll be creamed for proposing a ‘moderate’ voice, and I’m kind of a crusader by nature, but really, seems like we all need to be reminded that it’s both ok to disagree and fight for what you believe in, while at the same time required not to just try to obliterate your opponent. Seems like there’s quite a bit of historical precedent for letting both sides keep some dignity in the fight, for one thing… #worldhistory

Anyways, today’s project: deal with naming conventions/renaming for Refuge costuming sp. uniform, headbands, hood & mask. Justification? Binding? Trade? Sub? …brainstorm, lol. And then maybe actually do the bigger rewrites like I desperately need to…

Friday

Start Time: 2 pm

Location: Abbotsford; home; couch

Drinking: water

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