Ariele's Vlog: Brain Metaphors

Honestly, I think about brains too often. They’re the weirdest organ. And baby brains? Growing and expanding and shoving around their skull bones? And two sets of teeth!? Okay, that’s a little different.

But anyway, I have some neurodivergence, and so I am constantly trying to figure out how to cross the gap between the way I think and the way other people think. And sometimes, I just can’t. But I do try.

This ramble goes a bit into that, as well as gives some of my thoughts about how to think about thinking.

Yep. Enjoy.

Losing Streak: A Poem

Last year I had a procedure, though I prefer not to go into gory details, and went through a period of experiencing regular and ongoing pain.

You guessed it! I wrote a poem about it!

Physical pain, like emotional pain, is unique to the experiencer. One of the things I found myself thinking a lot about during this period was the language we use to describe the pain. How can a doctor know how to handle our situation, when everyone a.) had their own unique experience of pain and discomfort, and b.) has their unique way of describing it?

Great question, and I have no answers for you.

Anyway, here’s the poem I wrote while on painkillers.

Losing Streak

It’s weird when the pain leaves
the place it’s supposed to be,
and travels down and in and through
to my extremities.

It hurts to move and it hurts to sit
and nothing feels quite right.
Chair’s too soft and floor’s too hard
and shirt, pants, socks too tight.

I just can’t win, I don’t think;
the medicine is weak.
Nothing matters; all is pain.
I’m on a losing streak.

Introducing Badger Camp!

I’m excited to announce my newest initiative: Badger Camp!

If you haven't heard, the National Novel Writing organization got caught up in a scandal last November involving accusations of volunteers grooming children, among other things. They shut down the forums and sent out an email saying they were working on it; and we didn't hear from them again until March 1st, which conveniently enough, is one month prior to the April Camp NaNo.

The update they sent, if you didn't read it, was fine, but less than satisfactory. Typically, when I read these things, I want the organization to own up to what happened and take responsibility for making changes. And to some extent, they did that. They admitted to being neglectful in properly managing volunteers and running background checks, and outlined some of the changes they'll be making.

However, they did not acknowledge the accusations, attempt to put rumors to rest, or even offer any information for when they would be addressing the accusations. It felt mostly like a way of getting back on the "good side" of their participants right before a big event.

Anyway, I had built NaNos into my writing life in a pretty significant way, but I won't be doing that anymore. So I had to come up with something else. There were a few things about NaNo I did like, and a few things I didn't. So some friends of mine and I decided to create our own event that creates some sense of community around writing, while also being distinctly different from NaNo.

Introducing: Badger Camp!

Having trouble staying motivated working on your writing goals? Want to be more consistent about working on said goals? Want to do a word count or page count push?

Badger Camp may be for you!

It's called Camp Badger based on my writing friends' tendency to send badger gifs to encourage each other to stay focused and keep working. Badger, badger, badger!

We are doing Badger Camp starting April 1st.

The rules are simple:

1. Set a goal!

2. Tell someone about your goal!

3. Track your goal!

4. Badger! Your friends, yourself, your cat!

5. Update your friends on your goal!

This is a choose-your-own-adventure model, so no need to try to hit 50k or write every day or anything like that. The idea is to pick a challenge that will push you, based on where you are at in your life, writing life, and all that jazz. And, because as you know, I'm not a fan of rules, you can do it however you want. Maybe you want a one-week goal. Maybe you want to do it in September. Maybe you want your cat to be your accountability buddy.

Whatever works for you, works for me!

We have also created some helpful tools, like writing bingo boards, a word tracker in Google Docs, and digital stickers!

I want to also call out my friends Beth Martin and Melisa Peterson Lewis for all their hard work helping me brainstorm, organize, and manage this event! It takes a team, and I've got a great one. <3

For more info on our event:

• I set up a web page with all the info on it. Click here to read all about Badger Camp!

• If you want to meet some other friends who are doing the event, you can click here to join my discord server!

• If you want email updates on the event, you can click here to sign up for the Badger Camp newsletter.

• If you want fun t-shirts that have badgers on them, click here. Any profits on sales of these items just goes to me. I'll use it to cover costs associated with running Badger Camp and/or my time in setting stuff up and organizing. Right now I'm doing it all for free of course, so any sales are helpful.

I'm all about meeting writing goals, and I like having friends to motivate me to keep pushing forward.

Join us for Badger Camp!

Ariele's Vlog: Dividing Lines

Today I bring you another vlog! I’m a bit late in posting it, but being behind is sort of my regular state of existence. If you want to know IMMEDIATELY when I post one of my endlessly fascinating rambles on YouTube, you should follow me there. Then you’ll get an email from YouTube and won’t have to wait around for me to get my shit together lol.

Anyway, this vlog includes thoughts on how complex issues often make people draw lines in the sand, causing them to lose friends and connections. And it's a little sad.

I’ve lost friends this way, and I’m still sad about it.

The thing about drawing lines in the sand is that they’re just lines in the sand. We choose where to draw them, and we choose whether or not to cross them; we are the ones who get to decide whether or not they make sense. And every so often, a big gust of wind comes along and blows them all away. And sometimes, people redraw them just the way they were.

Yes, my analogy is getting a little out of control there, but I think it’s easy to frame emotional arguments as rational, and it’s worth considering not just the logical reasons for why we put a line somewhere, but also the emotional reasons.

Ariele's Vlog: Thoughts On Indie Publishing

Ever wondered how indie publishing works? Well, this isn’t exactly a how-to manual, but it is a nice ramble on what its like to exist within a system designed to exploit creators to feed the corporate overlords. I have a lot of opinions about this stuff to be honest.

Hot tip: you can change the speed of a YouTube video! Whenever I rewatch my own videos, I do it at 2x speed. I can hear things a lot faster than I can say them lol