aesmael

When I logged in to LiveJournal the other day they had a nifty video as a splash that was very clearly tailored as a response to the concerns people have been voicing about all the other social sites going. It certainly did a good job reminding me of what I've loved about LiveJournal as a platform that no other has lived up to.

Of course these days and for a long while I've favoured DreamWidth over LiveJournal itself, but they're both forked from the same codebase. Either way that's where I'd rather be, despite the dried-up tide pool of a user base.

Sex?

A while ago I wrote a bit about erotic writing being perceived as less worthy and even shameful, and of resolving to defy that stigma by being not secretive concerning the writing of it. More recently and prompted by conversation I have been wondering if I ought do the same with sex generally.

To be more open? It seems a fair goal to me for a topic that is sold to us as something to regard shamefully and reluctantly. However it is also true (and perhaps because of the ways we are taught to regard it) that sex is thus a subject many would not be comfortable seeing discussed as broadly and casually as other topics... I suspect I would be discomfited by that. Depending also what precisely was being talked about, I would anyway not want to share without discrimination. I think that is not a sharp conflict with a philosophy of openness.

Practically speaking. I had been using a filter for discussing sexual matters, which people had to request access to. I might swap that policy and include people on the basis of whether I am comfortable speaking in front of them - which, mind, would mainly be based on whether I had seen them express an interest in such matters, and those posts would still be behind cuts, and anyone who said they didn't want to see them would be disincluded.

Hm. Does that sound still open? Writing that out I felt it portrayed talk of sex and sexuality as something people need to be shielded from by steps I wouldn't take for just about any other topic. Explicit, gory violence? Maybe, would have to be relatively extreme. And yet there are certainly situations in which writings about sex could cause problems, so if for no other reason than that it makes sense to mark content advisories and give the option to defer access so far as I am able. I cannot after all control the circumstances in which others might read what I write (beyond a line), and it seems a likely enough circumstance that people might benefit from at least a content cut to make them well worth using.

Placing sexual content behind a (labelled) cut, okay. That makes sense. And a filter? Looking at the 'friends list' for my account right now it seems I have purged probably everyone I would be uncomfortable speaking in front of, so for my own comfort I do not currently need to use a specialised filter. And other people probably don't need more than a cut for their own utility and comfort. However, I cannot guarantee this will always be the case. With LiveJournal, everyone I 'friend' for reading also has access to my friends-locked, unfiltered posts and I might at some point subscribe to reading someone who I would not feel comfortable having access to that aspect of my life. Nor can I guarantee there will not be shifts in my comfort levels concerning the people currently flisted. So it makes sense for me to use finer controls than all-access / no-access.

I think attempting a participatory role in decreasing social shame and stigma concerning sexual matters is something worth doing. I am not comfortable talking about all things with all people, and although I think some degree of that is due to socialisation which I have just declared deserves opposition my existing feelings and comfort levels remain. I also believe I have the right to determine when I will push the limits of what I am comfortable with and when I will not, so... we shall see if anything more visible than the attitude with which I approach posting changes. It is not as if this is a subject I write about especially often.

Just pretend nobody reads this.

This morning I got some messages from someone unknown by the name 'SadisticSalmon'.

This afternoon I looked them up; it appears to be a known (recent) bot taking advantage of the information listed in profiles to contact people and attempt to harvest their information.

Links here and here.

I have linked two posts by one individual: here, in which he subjects himself to torture and here, in which he is attacked by a blimp.

Yes, I thought this interesting enough to post.

    November was a big month for me, I think. I did post 96 entries to this journal, although I do not know how it compares to previous months. November 12th was a big day for me though, or at least the evening of the 11th. I remember that, though my wretched time sense sweeps away so many details.
    Perhaps it is foolish of me to write a retrospective post when I do not actually recall many details of the past month. What I do recall, I shall not say, for it is too personal. I do not feel as if I have made any progress, exactly, but possibly enough wounds have been reopened that I can in the future.
    I need some space to think. It is my intention to drop away from the internet as much as I can for the next few days and see if I can find some room in here for myself.

    In more concrete news, I wrote 184 new words of my sekrit projekt on the 23rd of November. This is also the night on which I watched Haibane Renmei, which counts as a significant event in the past month. It was a disappointing output because I only wrote two-thirds of what I was intending to and I had been meaning to write that and more on the 22nd, except I turned out to be in too much pain to concentrate that day. Ah well. Not used to it, that's my excuse. Well, I finally finished the remaining 149 words of that part last night, and would have liked to get to the next today except I found myself caught up in administrative tasks. Also, someone has set the 'rate of flow of time' dial too high.
    I did manage to write a total of 10,589 words last month which, while far short of 50,000, is still 4,589 more than my personal target for the month. Now in December to keep up my plan my daily target is increased from 200 to 300 words, for a total of 9,300 in the month.
    This is the point at which my plan of increase has broken down every single time so far, so I am nervous. Since I only wrote 149 words yesterday, I need to maintain an average for the rest of the month of 305 words daily to make my target. Should be able to make it since I had that many words in sixteen days last month, but last month was slightly crazy.
    I miss writing but, even though my time is technically my own for the next couple of months (although I shall also be looking for work), I am afraid there will not be time for it. Too much needs to be done and my creative heart feels dead whenever I sit down to use it.
    To continue even when words are ash, that is perhaps a lesson I need to learn.

Here is a graph, because everyone loves graphs:

149 / 9,300 (1.6%)

You can guess what it is a graph of yourself because I know you kids enjoy that sort of thing.

The surface is unstable, shifting, swelling, falling, never so much as cracking. It is soft, yielding to touch. My hand pushes through easily and I am suddenly aware that it is completely cut off from the atmosphere. No air, no oxygen, only cold pressure.

Yes, we have a pool. It is filled at last.

Internet is very slow for some unknown reason. Very difficult to check other people's journals (or even to update my own) for now so please accept my apologies for any tardiness. The process of configuring and familiarising myself with Ubuntu continues slowly.

No point making a monthly writing update after the long catch-up one last week. So far my writing progress seems to be patterned fortnightly, with alternating weeks of every day writing and weeks in which I write on only one or two days at most. Last week was a non writing week. I managed only 1,506 words in two days of writing, all of it on the Epic Fantasy which has been delayed. This puts last month's total word count at 8,793 out of an intended total of 3,100.

Last month the target was 100 words per day. This month the target is 200. Hopefully at the end I will have at least 6,000 new words to show for it.

Except, to finish the Epic Fantasy on time (for given values of 'on' and 'time') I estimate I will need to actually write ~18,000 new words. I shall consider this a secondary goal. Or the other way round. Not sure, too tired to care.

Because of Custom Groups one can never be sure of seeing all entries. There is always the possibility that, between any two visible entries lives a swarm of others, crossing, networking, referencing. Whole conversations and theses reside in the spaces between every entry. The sparking of these off one another is what powers LiveJournal.

[Disjoint Connection]

Writing these entries is much like folding paper swans and dropping them into a river. But rivers have different currents. It would be nice to be able to control the current of this river.

I'm going to bed now because murder is wrong...

Well! I managed 13 words of the story still called Fantasia today. It is not very much at all but at least this is one story I know the overall shape to so hopefully more will follow. And if not, I shall push it.

In other news, the changes to the posting screen for LiveJournal are nice and all but they completely invalidate my first post. This is clearly some kind of conspiracy to make me look foolish and I will not have it.