#Alabama #delegates at the #UnitedMethodist #GeneralConference state "Removing #antiLGBTQ #language is their top priority"

#Delegates say the big issues are best summed up as the three R’s: "#Removal of #harmful #language regarding #homosexuality; #regionalization allowing more #selfgoverning in different parts of the world; and #revising the #SocialPrinciples."

#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #Spirituality #Religion #Progress #Representation #Culture

https://www.al.com/news/2024/04/united-methodist-general-conference-alabama-delegates-removing-anti-lgbtq-language-top-priority.html

Last night, my daughter shared a tip she'd read. Ask why each scene would be someone's favorite.

My initial thought? "That's kind of a lot of pressure." A less intimidating question, to me, is, "Which of the reader's favorite elements are represented here?"

The scene I worked with yesterday was flat and tedious. And looking it while asking, "What's to love here?" lead to me deleting all but a few paragraphs. Short is better than boring.

They had shared dreams before, occasionally, but often enough and in great enough detail they were convinced it was real.

For a while, they tried using code words to verify it, but Alice had a terrible memory in her sleep and always defaulted to "gazpacho."

So they used that instead.

Nobody else believed them, of course, but it was one of the few weird things in their lives that was actually useful.

Jude had rules about time travel:

1. If someone else has a time machine, you should steal it. Why should they have a time machine and not you?

2. Always travel to the future first. The past can wait. It’s not going anywhere. You already know what happens.

3. Steal future technology – including a better time machine, if possible.

4. Do not, under any circumstances, trust your past self with the fact you have a time machine. (See rule one.)

I finished the current draft of my polyamorous faerie romance! It's too long and I already have a list of changes, but the next round shouldn't be yet another complete rewrite. I'm going to take a week or two to focus on unpacking boxes, then hop into revisions. Because writing a book isn't over until you've stopped revising it.

Liara was not a fighter. She deplored violence. It had no place in the calm and beauty of her world, which she embodied through the geometric regularity of her tattoos. Order. Reason.

But her world burned.

How many times had she dreamed of it, wishing she had the courage to fight like Vivian, or even that she had burned, too?

There was no comfort in being the last of something, the last one alive to remember and speak of it.

Liara felt no peace whatsoever.

Especially now.

"It's like a muscle," Alice said with a faux cheerfulness Liara had learned to recognize concealed bitterness, "The more you work it out, the more it -- hurts?"

"I would like to not be crushed by a mid-century ranch house," Aurvandil said, "What an embarrassing end that would be."

"Ranch houses don't normally have two floors," Erik said.

"Oh, yes, that's terribly important."

Liara sighed. "Can the two of you just not?"

"I wish I knew how to not be afraid like Aya does." Liara admitted, "Or even Aurvandil. Or that I could make jokes like you."

"Jokes only postpone the emotion," Alice shrugged, "You still have to deal with it. I lie awake at night, scared, wondering if we're only delaying the inevitable. Was there something else I could have done? Like, to save Vivian. To make any of this right. Sometimes..."

"You saved us. Twice, in my case."

"That's what friends do."

On the rare occasion it snowed in Texas, Alice would gather a handful and put it in the freezer to preserve it, or the memory of it.

She was sometimes considered peculiar for caring about things more than people.

But then again, her life was strangely devoid of people and most of the ones who were there were assholes.

Finally fought my way through the bramble thicket of urgent business tasks and worked on my #NonFiction book for the first time this year.

I've been stuck on #revising this chapter for longer I was pregnant. In trying to wrestle it into shape I've written three times as much as I need, and I every time I try to work out what to cut I end up #rewriting it again.

Sometimes you put things off for no good reason; sometimes it's because they're genuinely hard.

No, you have files saved on your laptop called 'final draft', 'final final draft', 'definitely the final draft', 'absolutely the final draft, honest'!
#WritingCommunity #WritingLife #Revision #Revising #AmEditing #AmWriting​

I have long thought that a "draft" is just about the most useless unit of measurement of all time. I mean, I use the term quite frequently and I have a (vague!) sense of how I mean it. But some writers move a comma and call it a new draft, while others do a complete overhaul before they save as "draft2."

What constitutes a new draft for you? Maybe it doesn't matter as long as you keep moving forward, but I'm curious.

working on #revising some sections of a #paper and playing around with #ChatGPT to help me out #writing #research #AI #profadon

Good morning, #writer friends! Today’s a goal-setting day for me. I’m busy figuring out what I’d like 2023 to look like, #writing wise. Anyone else thinking about what they’d like to #write in 2023? Any dream projects on deck? Please share!

Also, greetings & salutations from my happy gingerbread buddy.