Distractions

Last night was one of those nights where I couldn’t string together a coherent thought. I lost track of how many words I actually wrote. Somewhere between 229 and 261. We kept getting interrupted by phone calls. There was an ENORMOUS apartment fire in town and my husband, a 911 Dispatcher by trade (though he’s been off for weeks due to his leg), is often a hub for info. He checked in with coworkers to see what was going on, and family and friends kept calling to get updates. 100 people are displaced, losing everything but the clothes on their backs, but there were no injuries or deaths, which is a blessing. The blaze started at 6 in the evening instead of the middle of the night, so residents were either not home or were successfully evacuated. That was a major blessing. The last apartment fire we had a few months ago killed eight people because it was the middle of the night.

Between all the calls about that, unrelated calls from family about other stuff, my stopping to make evening coffee/tea, putting a loaf of fresh bread in the oven, pulling it out, etc., etc., I have absolutely no memory of actually watching Episode IV of Star Wars.   Thankfully I know the story by heart and can probably quote most of the movie, so it’s not like I really missed much.

In other news, somebody tweeted this link to The Gender Genie, this is this fun site based on some algorithm that is supposed to predict the gender of the author of whatever text you plug in.   I tried plugging in my opening scene from FBS, which opens in my hero’s perspective.  I came out heavily leaning on the male side.  So then I plugged in the first scene in my heroine’s perspective, which happens to include a big part of a fight scene.  That ALSO came out heavily male.  So then, for the heck of it, I plugged in the whole shebang.  Apparently somewhere along the way I manage to balance myself out to be just slightly edged higher on the female side.  I just thought it was fun and interesting to play with.

I am contemplating starting a livejournal.  Actually, I already have a livejournal that I NEVER USE that I was contemplating giving actual purpose.  Not to replace this blog.  I had originally kind of thought about cross posting here and there.  I don’t actually like livejournal.  As a blogging platform it has a lot of deficiencies.  But it’s not really meant to be a blogging platform like WordPress or Blogger.  It’s about building relationships and community.  And that’s the thing I like about it that has me contemplating doing something with it.  Because I really LOVE the community aspect of LJ.  I also kind of think I’d have a different audience there than the people who follow me here.  A lot of LJ folks seem to be a bit of a different breed, following friends lists instead of using feed readers (because I can’t REMEMBER the last time I saw an LJ with a subscribe button, which also drives me nuts).  Anybody have thoughts on this?  Do you follow folks on LJ?  Do you think it’s too much trouble?  Are you an LJ user?  Do you use the dashboard or do you have a standalone post client?  This inquiring mind wants to know.

4 thoughts on “Distractions

  1. In fact, I am looking for a similar thing myself. Kind of like DC blogs, but local Portland writers. Personally, I don’t like the livejournal format, but I’m finding I don’t like too many formats, even in the local forums. Hmm….I just want to read interesting people, who are local, who I may eventually get to meet! I know there are cool people in this city who blog, write, whatever, but I’m having a helluva time finding them. Let me know how livejournal works for you. Some sites, I find, are too big, and I get lost.

    1. In my case there’s…kind of nothing. Part of living in small town south. My writing life is largely online. I’m not nuts about the interface of LJ, though they have clients that make posting easier. I was contemplating starting my own community. It’s not Portland but you’re cool, so you can come join!

      1. I. Am. There. I too was considering staarting my own. There are forums in Portland, but nothing is really catching my eye. I did find a lot of awesome literary sites for this city though. It just seems that most of my local Twitter people are kind of lame. Well, not necessarily lame, but not people I would hang with or have that much in common with. I can’t be THAT odd! LOL

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