Socially Inept

Anyone remember ICQ? I miss ICQ. I miss logging on with a made-up name and talking with people from all over the world who are also using made-up names. It was fun and harmless. It was the first social media I ever experienced and I remember it fondly.

I have to admit, I find a lot of the social media for this day and age a little intimidating. Okay, make that a lot intimidating.

Chat rooms don’t seem to be much of a thing anymore, but I found them a little scary. It’s like going to a party where you don’t know anyone and by the time you work up the nerve to join the conversation everyone has moved on to a different topic.

Twitter is worse. It’s like a chat room the whole world is using all at once. Sure the messages are short, only 140 characters, but the speed with which those messages stream by is insane. By the time you type a reply to one message, another 100 have appeared.

I do spend a fair amount of time on Facebook, it’s more my speed. Admittedly most of what I do is scroll down my newsfeed, occasionally post, and sometimes comment on something a friend has posted. It’s a great way to kill an afternoon or evening.

I have not yet signed up for Instagram, but I know a lot of people who have. From what I understand it’s owned by Facebook and used mostly for sharing photos and videos. So why wouldn’t you just post them on Facebook?

I have yet to be sucked into the Pinterest universe either. Many have tried, but I have remained steadfast in my resistance. I actually know very little about it, other than you can “pin” interesting ideas or images or whatever to “boards” and then put them in categories to keep them organized. Sounds like an amazing time suck, and I already waste enough time on the internet.

I don’t know much about TikTok either, other than it’s Chinese in origin and seems to be geared more to the younger crowd.

I admit to being a little envious of those people on TV who use their tablets like video phones – I’d love to be able to do that. The camera in my lap top doesn’t work (something about the drivers that I can’t seem to resolve) so I have not Facetimed or video chatted and to be honest Zoom seems too much like a chatroom, only worse because you can see who you're talking to and they can see you.

Jeez, I don’t even think I was this socially inept in high school!

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Wordage Report

New Words:

Driving Into Forever – 0 words
Blog Posts – 1056+581+526+1290=3,453
Total = 3,453

Still working on the index cards for Driving Into Forever. I think this might take forever.

While I managed to do Monday’s post last week, I probably won’t this week. Once again there’s been nothing interesting going on and we’re not expecting the final delivery from the cabinet people until Tuesday, so there won’t be any kitchen progress to report until after that.

Editing:

I slacked off last week, according to TraxTime – only 8 ½ hours of editing. In my defense, we had several grey and dismal days in a row and I spent more time crocheting.

What I’m Reading:

I finished Window on the Bay, by Debbie Macomber, and then there was a gap in the reading until Friday when I started Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts, finishing it Saturday.

I was sad to have finished Captured & Seduced, book three of Alien Shenanigans by Shelley Munro because I really enjoyed it. Actually, I loved the whole Shenanigans series. It didn’t take long, however, to find another series on my Kindle, this one the boxed set of the Silverlake Shifters by Anastasia Wilde. I started Fugitive Mate on Friday and, um, couldn’t resist finishing it Saturday. I started White Wolf Mate this morning and I can’t promise to make it last. ;-)

Goals

I met most of my goals from last week, which isn’t too shabby (in my opinion).

The editing on Blood Ties is progressing nicely – I only have about 60 pages or so to go before the first round is done. I solved the guilt feelings about the deletions I was making by starting a new document to copy/paste the deletions into. That way they’re gone but not forgotten.

The index cards for Driving Into Forever are going slowly. It’s a process, I tell you what. I don’t know if it’s because I’m working with a story that’s already been written, or if I’m missing something, but I’ve really been struggling with this. I still think it’s a good idea, but if I haven’t made any headway with it by the end of this week I’m going to abandon it.

Okay, I might be doing a little too well on the crocheting now. I got my yarn delivery early last week, and I’m on ball four already. I think I said I was only going to work on it while I was watching Netflix or Prime, but that’s not the way it’s happening. And I paid for and downloaded a new afghan pattern last week - maybe it’ll be my Netflix/Prime afghan.

This Week’s Goals

1. Continue, maybe even finish the edits on Blood Ties.
2. Finish the index cards for DIF or find a new way to outline.
3. Continue with my balanced reading time.
4. Ease back on the crocheting a little.

So. What have you been up to.