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Elena's Blog

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Talking to the walls

I am desperate. I don't know what to do anymore. It feels like talking to the walls... and I wonder what I have done so wrong in my childhood in order to deserve this at mature age. I wish that, as so many parenting books exist, how to make a stubborn child obey, eat or take medicine, it should also exist books how to take care of old parents. How to make a stubborn 89 years old eat, or take the medicines according to the posted schedule (and to my phone calls, because I never let it only to the

Elena

Elena

I don't care anymore

I DO care about my site. I love it, and I am glad that our interactive swashbuckling story is already eight years old, and counting, and that I can also count on a few people since six- eight years ago. This is an important achievement.    BUT I DON'T CARE ANYMORE if some people think it's not active enough (it is, just way slower than it used to be). I don't care if those newer members decide suddenly a long time investment isn't worth and they leave. I had to accept the idea that the

Elena

Elena

The world is functioning upside down

It is nothing new that the world is functioning upside down in various aspects of life. Why not in the writing realm too? 😢   As you know already, and as you can see from the blog image, I have published three novels up to now. Two others and a short stories anthology will follow soon, almost certainly all three to appear this year. I published with small indie presses, because this is what I have the possibility in the current book market conditions. Many writers more seasoned than me

Elena

Elena

Feeling cheated

Sometimes I am feeling cheated of character development. Cheated in my writing, in the story we are writing together, not receiving the same thing I am offering, but only a tenth part. I have said before that Nothing happens if you don't write. Everybody knows it is true, still they don't write even if they all declare they love their characters and they want the plots they have suggested and we have planned for months, waiting for their free time to actually write the story.   In some

Elena

Elena

Longing for a real community

This was posted more in depth on my personal blog, where I can insert the photos how I want them to look (what here I can't manage. Probably it is possible, but I am too anti-technicus to figure out how. Last time I tried I got my whole gallery linked to a blog post.)   Longing for a real community   The struggle is real, and I am more and more convinced that what I am actually longing for does not exist.    I wish for a dedicated community of writers – as many or a

Elena

Elena

About NaNoWriMo

Posting here what I have posted in English, at their time, on my personal blog, on this subject. The other times I did the opposite - first wrote here, then transcribed it my blog.   NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow   NaNoWriMo conclusions   The fantastic five NaNoWriMo winners

Elena

Elena

I am lazy

Yes, I am lazy. Or, rather, tired, both physically and mentally. I am 48 and sometimes I feel 100.   I wish I was feeling and thinking differently, but not anymore. My mother was shocked when I told her that I have another priority from now on than my carreer. She had taught me to hold my carreer the highest, and I have done it. I got a PhD and I honoured it through having well thought projects, through teaching others and writing a book and various teaching materials and contributions

Elena

Elena

Involve your members

Don't write alone, they say. Involve your members, because RPG means interaction. Well, it means interaction between characters, and this could be achieved even if they are written by only one writer.   What if the members CAN get involved, but they don't want to? I would have liked to involve them in all threads, to have characters of all kind (not only NPCs) shared, or at least to have discussions among writers even if I have to write some threads alone. They seem to simply not be interested.

Elena

Elena

Inactivity

I admit I am confronted with an activity problem on my nearly six years old site. Most of the sites have one, at a moment or another.   I feel it is something wrong with the very slow pace we have progressed with this year, and with people posting, instead of each week, only 1-2 times a month. In one year of writing, we have covered only two story months. In other years, there were three to six story months for a year of writing. If a quicker pace was possible before, and it created mo

Elena

Elena

It should have been...

How can one overcome frustration and regret?   Yes, I know, one would say "be happy with what you have/ actually is, instead of focusing on what you don't have/ what should have been". But is it so easy?   It is again tied to the frustrating missed opportunities I have been blogging about almost two years ago, to the fact that nothing happens if you don't write and to me claiming that I don't care anymore, as advised above... just that I actually do and I just pretend I do no

Elena

Elena

Somebody has to do it

It seems that people have interest in writing only certain characters, or only certain aspects of the characters' lives, while a story implies writing several character types in several circumstances which make sense for their lives.   E.g. a Navy officer has in the story not only the role to charm ladies at a party, but mainly to take part in battles or to lead work scenes as well... to show only a few aspects. He should interact also with his superiors, with allied officers, he can l

Elena

Elena

Perceptions

Once I believed that there is one truth in everything, and all the other perceptions are wrong. This was how I was educated, and how my mother still believes. (But she also believes she is right in everything, when she isn't, and often what she knew isn't applicable at the current society).   As I grew up and gained experience, I understood that there is no absolute truth, everything being various shades of gray. Whiter or blacker, but still gray. And that, unfortunately, everyone has

Elena

Elena

My father

My father died on the fourth day of Hannukah,  3 weeks before turning 93. May God rest him in peace!    He is in the photo, at his 90-th anniversary, with the granddaughter who ressembles him the most, Raluca.    93 years of life means a full, accomplished life. Three daughters from two wives, four grandsons and two granddaughters from the first two (as I can't have children), and he lived long enough to play with three grand-grandsons and two grand-granddaughters. A new gran

Elena

Elena

I don't care anymore

I DON'T CARE ANYMORE (Or so I say in this moment; tomorrow I might discover that I am actually caring, and just attempting to grow a shield around myself).   I want to write with everybody, and I see lots of character opportunities which remain unused. No fault of mine; I have shown them to everybody, they have been invited into threads, for certain plots the NPCs and characters for adoption had been publicly advertised, together with their plot opportunities. If nobody is interes

Elena

Elena

Love and friendship in roleplaying

I had another entry on relationships a while ago. This is a spinoff on it, based on the creative writing articles at http://www.springhole.net/writing/relationships-romance-and-shipping.htm I fully agree with the writer, and I know I have found these concepts before, in other creative writing books and articles. Some of the rules of writing romance are: 1. The characters need to communicate with each other, not only to gaze silently and sigh. To engage their love interest in meaningful convers

Elena

Elena

I feel I am the strangest exhibit in the window

I feel like the strangest exhibit in the window Yes, I do, every time I read certain posts on a resource site - be it this one or another. As if I am the oddest being among the others.... who think in a hivemind. And I am still trying in vain to find a writing buddy to match my way of seeing things. It is impossible to be the only one, since my opinions weren't created in a void, but after reading enough creative writing articles from various writers. It is impossible to not find somebody who

Elena

Elena

Character development

It comes with being on the site for a while, and with actively writing. It comes with character's goals too, no matter how time and concrete conditions might twist them.    After a while, characters can switch factions, and it is all right.     It took a while for me to understand that it is all right, but now (and for a while, not only now) I understand it. In the first two years of roleplaying, I didn't understand it because I was thinking only at the freshly reopened slot

Elena

Elena

Nothing happens if you don't write

You say you like your character. OK, then maybe you know that no character development can happen unless you post regularly and get involved with him in the story. That a character grows through interaction with other characters, while doing his duty, while partying or while fighting. There can be (and are recommended to be) individual plots too. But, again, just planning them and not actually writing them doesn't count. He has to be actively part of the story if you want exciting things to happ

Elena

Elena

Write a novel instead!

One hears it so often from RPG partners - "If you don't like it, go write a novel (or fanfiction) instead!" But is this really the solution, instead of talking with the writing partners and finding by negotiation and compromise a solution matching everyone's writing needs, halfway? Writing a novel? Been there, done that (in my mother tongue) - several novel-length stories. (The list is somewhere here, in this blog, but given that it doesn't allow me to past links in words anymore, I give up sea

Elena

Elena

Religion

I understand that not all the characters are religious. However, if a religion is mentioned in a character's bio, one should use it at least a little - even if it means to highlight that he has evolved and doesn't believe anymore, and that his current beliefs aren't the same with the ones he was taught in childhood. Not to have it written in the bio, then act as if it was never mentioned. Why bother then to mention it in the first place?   This is twice as valid when it is about somebo

Elena

Elena

Pieces of wisdom from another site

I wrote them on pictures and kept them as motivational posters. And it doesn't matter that one mentions a site, since said site closed in 2013: Everyone has high and low moments. These help for the low moments.

Elena

Elena

Another one bites the dust

Another site I have been writing on, gone. Another time I have been among the most devoted members, left, together with a few others, to switch off the light. I feel hurt and sad because this happened... and at the same time, somehow relieved that it's a place where I don't owe posts anymore. But the petty relief is trumped by the sadness. I am sorry, Morrigan, if you are reading this, because the gif I asked was for this site, which during this week-end announced its closure. Man

Elena

Elena

Guilty of fangirling, still I hate it

I am annoyed with fangirling over playbys, especially when it happens in the c-box (or in the messengers where I want to discuss plot twists, not how cute/ hot/ etc is one or another actor). I thought I wasn't doing it... But it seems I am wrong, and maybe I am annoyed because I have different tastes.   Still, I prefer fangirling over plots, characters and writing techniques, not over playbys. Over the action per se, the story twists and the character motivations, because these should

Elena

Elena

Everything beautiful has an end

It just has to come sooner or later, in a painful or natural and serene way. Why now? Because the bells were tolling. Why now? Because the new moon in Sagittarius is the moon of unexpected changes. And I have to open to them, no matter what they would entail. To mourn my losses, to gather the remained pieces... and to go forward. I had moments of hesitation, when I thought I'd give up. But I can't. There is no turning back, ever.... just forward. "Caminante, no hay camino, se hace

Elena

Elena

People are seeking only things to complain about

And so do I now. I arrived to the conclusion that some people want always what they can't have right now, and lose interest when they can have it, just to have always something to complain about. It has happened every time when I did my sort of activity check - it happens about 2 times a year on my site, and it includes ideas for further inclusion in the story in the next story months - "what would inspire you the most in order to write more consistently? What story is growing inside you an

Elena

Elena

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