February shitposting, day 6 (and a tiny writing update)

Today's randomly chosen theme is: monotonous primitivism

I know very little about primitivism as an art school, though some works within that tradition are interesting, nice to look at, or occasionally both.

Primitivism as a social philosophy strikes me as inherently sociopathic, considering that the renunciation of modern civilization would essentially consign millions of people to death (through lack of the medical technology and social support systems that keep them alive), if not billions of people through renunciation of intensive agriculture. I think it's also inherently hypocritical to consider human technology something that must be gotten rid of when things like beaver dams are "natural," because the difference is really only one of scale. Life changes its environment to suit itself -- even plants do this. Furthermore, primitivism is inherently futile because it's human to create and connect, so how anyone expects to change human nature to remove those impulses is anyone's guess, particularly if your ideal social organization removes any way to coordinate large areas and populations, let alone compel them via force.

(...Apparently I have more thoughts on primitivism than I realized. Okay.)

Primitivism as a diet philosophy is just nonsensical, considering primitive humans' approach to food was basically "is it edible? then eat it!" and also would probably kill me given my allergies to most raw fruit and many raw vegetables.

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In writing news, I have started scene 4 of "Guardian" ch. 17, and have written ~225 words so far. This doesn't need to be a very long scene, so I think I can probably knock it off in another day or two after which I can go back to scenes 2 and 3 to flesh them out and make sure scene 3 is hitting the right emotional notes. (Scene 2 is already fine on that front. I just need to make sure I've done the layout correctly so readers won't get lost when I start moving pieces around in scene 3.)

addendum to the tiny writing update

My total word count on "Guardian" ch. 17, by date:

1/26/16 - 125 words
2/10/16 - 250 words
2/20/16 - 700 words
2/21/16 - 900 words
2/22/16 - 1,225 words
2/23/16 - 1,325 words
2/26/16 - 1,525 words
4/11/16 - 1,850 words
4/23/16 - 2,075 words
10/3/18 - 2,375 words
2/5/19 - 3,125 words
2/6/19 - 3,375 words

As you can see, the first scene went pretty easily, despite my general lack of time during tax season. I got interrupted by life halfway through the second scene but finished it fairly easily as well... and then I stalled out for over two years, partially because fight scenes are a pain but mostly because depression and then college. *hands* But I am hopefully back on track now.

I don't keep writing progress reports-by-date on most of my stories, but when a particular story or chapter is being annoying and I want to remind myself of when I last worked on it, they can be useful. Also I just kind of want to brandish this at the universe and say, "See? You can delay me, but you can't make me stop!"

(To give you a scale to judge my glacial progress, I aim for 4,000 to 4,500 words per chapter. *wry* Also, all word counts are approximations, both because I am guessing at how much extraneous stuff MS Word miscounts as "words" and because I round to the nearest multiple of 25.)

wherein Liz gripes about colds

One minor annoyance about winter (and tax season) is that it takes forever and a day to recover from any colds I happen to catch.

...Okay, context. Basically I don't get sick, except for upper respiratory infections. Those hit me like a ton of bricks, to the point where literally every single symptom that's supposed to distinguish influenza from ordinary colds is something I get as a cold symptom. Fever, chills, bone aches, muscle aches -- you name it, I get it. Basically it's like being crushed flat by a road paver for two to five days, and then a week of slow recovery. And that's a best-case scenario.

In winter, the weather conspires against me. And in tax season, I'm working at least 50 hours a week, and either 6 or 7 days a week, so my ability to catch extra sleep is, shall we say, impaired. Also my background stress level goes up. So if I get sick, it lingers indefinitely.

Which is a long and largely unnecessary lead-in to my complaint that I have now had to postpone my blood donation appointment twice because of this stupid cold that refuses to definitively go away. ARGH.

Well, I rescheduled for 2pm in a couple weeks, at the mall just next to my Not the IRS office on a day where I've been issued a decreed-from-above lunch break. Hopefully I will not have caught a new cold by then!