guanin

💀 The self-inflicted psychic damage of reading old journal entries and seeing one where I talked about lending my EHD to a coworker and forgetting that my doujin folder was there. I have no idea what she saw and she never mentioned anything, so. A memory I'd like to lose to the sands of time.

💼 A work meeting went around an hour over the allotted time. It was definitely past my end of shift by the time we wrapped up, but I can at least claim the time as credits for time off in lieu. I ended up having to cancel my gym session, though, because my stomach was screeching at me and I could feel the creeping fingers of an impending headache.

📺 Finished SPY×FAMILY S02! I need to set aside some time and gather my thoughts about the first two seasons, but they can be summed up as, "TWIYOR RAAAAARGH SO CUTE," "Why does Anya have so many weird faces lordt," and "I will stab anyone who attempts to hurt Bond."

👧🏽 While on the way home, my tricycle drove past a family on a motorcycle (little girl squished between her parents). With a complete deadpan face and her mouth slightly open, the little girl waved at me. I decided to wave back. The mom blinked at me in surprise then smiled when she realized her daughter was waving at me and I was returning the gesture.

Like Day 3's prompt, Day 7 felt familiar so I went digging and found the entry back in 2020. I'm opting to skip Day 7 since I can't think of anything else I'd like to list, and I don't want to just reuse what I already said.

Challenge #8

Talk about your creative process.

This one's a bit tricky because I don't really have a creative process 😆 But I'll do my best to outline what I do when I want to write fanfic.

1. (Usually) wait until it's after dinner so there's less chances of people interrupting me.
2. Close my door and if it's already night, I close all my shades. No one can perceive me, doesn't matter if I'm writing filth or fluff.
3. Look for whichever WIP file piques my interest at the moment, based on the filenames.
4. If I'm just starting out, I review whatever notes I've thrown into the file and begin writing from the very start of the story. If I've already written something, I'll re-read what I have so far.
5. Follow the vibes throughout. Go with the flow of consciousness and see where it takes me.
6. Delete anything that doesn't fit with the current vibe I'm trying to go for. If the section's already pretty long, see if it can be salvaged and reused for a different fic.
7. If stuck or running into writer's block, do a quick canon review of the specific moment that inspired me to write the fanfic. Get distracted and end up going on a mini-binge-watch/binge-read of canon.

Honorable mentions:

• I used to not be able to write without some sort of music in the background but these days I go without.
• Very, very rarely I'll have a very rough outline for the fanfic. If I do, I'll go through one bullet point at a time, fleshing it out before deleting the bullet point.

Day 1 * Day 2 * Day 3 * Day 4 * Day 5 * Day 6 * Day 7

‘How do you reduce a national dish to a powder?’: the weird, secretive world of crisp flavours

Reuben and Peggy’s jobs are not top secret in the way top secret jobs usually are. [...] But this is where things get odd: search the name of the company they work for – a name I have agreed not to print – and you’ll find little information about the work Reuben and Peggy do. You could click through every page on their company’s website and leave with no idea that it creates the most beloved crisp flavours in the world.

(I was so sure I'd already shared this, but I can't find the entry.)

I'll always be a fan of longform, deep-dive articles into the most obscure and/or everyday thing. Like, I eat chips fairly often and I'm aware that some countries have flavors that others don't, but I never considered how geopolitics could affect flavor availability.