Syntactic Sugar

The downside, of course, is that I don't have the luxury of ensuring everything makes sense before people read it. I have a strong tendency to fall into plot holes, even when I already have an outline. And this still doesn't really solve the problem that I have shiny-new-idea syndrome, and I'm just as likely to lose interest in something I'm sharing regularly as I am with something I'm working on off-screen. I don't want to shoot myself in the foot just because I'm impatient, you know?

The typical update rate for serialized novels is once a week. More ambitious people can churn out something daily. Even in my best fanfiction days, I could probably write an instalment in two weeks, and I'm nowhere near as agile as that anymore (hello chronic illness). In fact, the reason I even started thinking about serializing my next work is I thought it would free me from the cycles of 2-3 months drafting sprints I did for my previous novels. But if I'm expected to update weekly, I basically get no breaks for a year at best.

Also the average length of each instalment tends to be between 1k-2k words. What? What can even happen in something that short? And it's even more astounding, because in addition to this expectation, there's also the expectation that each chapter needs to be a "mini" story in its own right, with cliff-hangers that will entice readers to come back for the next chapter. Maybe I'm just reading really long books or what, but I don't think a meaningful mini story with a cliff-hanger can develop in a space of 2k words?

Doing a final project in my stats class, we have to pick a subject and collect data on it. We need at least 100 data points, and I figured this blog is big enough that a poll on here could get to that pretty easily!

Doing my project on if it’s more likely to be born in certain months :]

*crickets chirp*

i also like prehistory and am very interested in ice age philippines and our pre-austronesian ancestors in mainland china

*crickets chirp again*

would anyone like to talk about the earliest trade networks connecting what is now the philippine archipelago with modern day southeast asian states plus taiwan?

*crickets continue to chirp*

have you guys heard of that cartoon starring liza soberano and h.e.r.?

@austerity-audacity-asceticism not so much as precolonial but prehistorical, but here they are:

both excerpts are from “Coastal Connectivity: Long-Term Trading Networks Across the South China Sea” (2013) by Hsiao-chun Hung et. al. related works (open access) include:

Taiwanese Prehistory: Migration, Trade, and the Maritime Economic Mode by Chin-yung Chao and Timothy Earle

i've always been vaguely aware that prehistoric merchants from the philippine islands traded with other south east asian countries (thank you, sibika!), but i always had the impression that this exchange of goods happened in the western coasts of the philippine islands. to know that that nephrite was found in central visayas.... interesting!

(and as a side note, it's so interesting to note that researchers believed that the jade was traded as blanks and later on carved by prehistoric filipinos; i wonder what their methods were for carving jade were, and if other carved jewelry would be sold to the neighboring asean countries)

which makes me now wonder how quickly goods were exchanged from SEA merchants to the hands of merchants belonging to the regions of the visayas and mindanao, and if prehistoric filipino merchants traveled as a group or individually.

i'll be sure to check out the other sources that you listed, as well as "Coastal Connectivity: Long-Term Trading Networks Across the South China Sea.” i really wished that this knowledge was taught more in (at the very least!) the university level

good practical reflection for artists who feel like whatever theyre making just isnt working is the sit down and VERY HONESTLY ask yourself: what is the gift here? it can be a lot of things. what am i giving to myself? to the world? what feeling? what expression? art that resonates is art that GIVES

i think this is part of why theres such a disconnect for people who try to make 'art with ai.' if you REALLY ask yourself 'what is my gift here with this ai art?' the answer is nothing. no story to give, or real feeling, or new idea. then these folks they are confused when it doesnt resonate