Urg. LiveJournal sent me notification that my paid account is expiring in ten days. I suspect hoping for another visit from the LJ fairy is foolish, so I’m resigned to letting my paid account lapse. Bummer. It’s a silly thing, but I like all the paid features like being able to customize the appearance of my blog, and all my pretty user icons. But I really can’t rationalize buying myself a paid account when money’s so tight. There are decided disadvantages to not having a reliable income.
[Edit: Squee! Thank you, thank you anonymous patron who gifted me with 2 paid months! 
Edit2: mouseferatu just bought me 6 paid months! Thank you so much!
Edit3: teflaime just got me 12 paid months as an early Christmas present and sartorias transferred the remainder of her paid account to me! Mwaaa! I love you all! 
]
Blackberry pie v3.0 turned out quite well. I was going to take another picture, but it was so bubbly and seductive, it got sliced up and pieces devoured before I could set the camera up.
Writing Stuff
Got an email from Absynthe Muse. They’ve assigned a mentee to me. I feel all grown up.
New Words: -300
On the folk tale. I hacked off 300 words from the beginning and it’s still over 2K. And it’s still not even at zero draft yet. I debated whether I should try to keep cutting or plow on ahead. I ended up doing neither and fiddling with my writing logs instead. Cat waxing, anyone?
So… when you say “zero draft,” what exactly do you mean?
“Zero draft” is what I call it when I complete a story and hit the end but that’s still too rough and raw to show to anyone but my hubby. Once he first-readers it and I give it a couple editing/rewrite passes from his input, I consider it at “first draft” and ready to upload to Critters. After it goes through the critique circuit, I give it a thorough clean-up and rewrite, and then it’s at “final draft” and ready to make its way in the world.
That makes sense!
I have a mentee too, but she doesn’t write. 🙁 She’s a really promising writer, but she’s been taking college classes all summer.
I’ve just started corresponding with my mentee. She starts college in two weeks, so she’s hoping to get her feet wet with this mentorship in that time and we’ll see how busy she is once classes start.
The twelve months from me is probably your Christmas present.