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Can't sleep.
I have been sleeping so poorly again for the last week. Too agitated. Too wildly shifting in my emotional states. My breathing control exercises should help there, as I get back down towards six breaths a minute... that's one of the reasons I started doing them, back before WisCon.
I'm short on distractions at the moment that don't involve injuring myself by looking at horrible things, so I'm going to talk about my fundraising plans.
I have no clue what I'd planned on doing back in July. My mind just went to other places. I know that I was thinking something more low-key compared to the previous two... I picked things that people were really competitive about the previous two times, and my fear is that if I always do that then people who find themselves on the losing side of the vote might feel like they have no point to contribute next time.
So this one isn't going to be competitive.
And I also don't want to make the incentives based around writing side stories because I have enough of those piled up. But I definitely don't want to just say "I need money to live. Give me money." after so many weeks of my attention being so emphatically on other things. So I thought about what I could do that might be fun, for you and for me, and the answer came to me when I put on my headphones last night at like three in the morning after realizing I had no idea how the sound from my speakers might carry down to my housemate in a bedroom below me.
These are the USB headphones I got for Christmas last night that I found to be so marvelous and useful for their playback quality. They also have a microphone that I have barely used, but which is likewise superior in quality to anything I've had before.
So here's my plan: for every $250 I raise during the fundraising period, I will record myself reading one story aloud. I'll burn them off at a rate of one per week. That might sound like I'm not giving myself enough time, but the deal is not that I'm producing studio quality recordings... see, not only do I not have a studio, but I am terrible at reading my work. I'm nervous and self-conscious. It took me multiple oh-so-many years of speech therapy to even be able to talk intelligently and even now my lips and jaw and tongue can occasionally catch on certain sounds.
So this little incentive project is meant to help me... it's an incentive for me, too. An incentive to practice and get better, and to be less self-conscious. Because I might do multiple takes. I might do some minor clean up/edits. But whatever I have, whatever I produce, whether I think it's any good or not, will go up. It will be rough and raw and you will hopefully get to "see" me improve as I go.
I realize that doing this now almost guarantees that someone out there is going to be listening to my efforts and having a good laugh. But that's the other reason I want to do it. I won't say "to show I don't care"; I'm talking about it so clearly I care. I do care, but I don't care enough not to do it. I'm not afraid.
The actual fundraising period will kick off on Friday, assuming I have completed my goal of two chapters this week. I'm not going to announce it on the site until then, but if you're among the MU readers who happen to read my blog and you kick into the pot before then, yes it'll count. I'm also going to count the three random donations I've received in the past few days; assuming they all clear then I'm going to start this sucker already owing you all one recording.
I'll talk about the specific things I'll be recording later on, especially if it proves necessary to inject a little more interest into the proceedings. At least half of them will be MUniversal stories, but I'm going to reserve the right to record other things because some of my stand alone stories might make better audio thingies than chapters of a serial.
Anyway, that's the plan. These recordings will be free and they will be released with some sort of share-alike license on them. You won't need to donate to get them. There will be some sort of little bonus for people who do donate; details to follow. I'm not going to set an upper limit on the number of recordings/fundraiser goal immediately, because even if this fundraiser's in the neighborhood of the last two it won't produce an onerous obligation.
I have been sleeping so poorly again for the last week. Too agitated. Too wildly shifting in my emotional states. My breathing control exercises should help there, as I get back down towards six breaths a minute... that's one of the reasons I started doing them, back before WisCon.
I'm short on distractions at the moment that don't involve injuring myself by looking at horrible things, so I'm going to talk about my fundraising plans.
I have no clue what I'd planned on doing back in July. My mind just went to other places. I know that I was thinking something more low-key compared to the previous two... I picked things that people were really competitive about the previous two times, and my fear is that if I always do that then people who find themselves on the losing side of the vote might feel like they have no point to contribute next time.
So this one isn't going to be competitive.
And I also don't want to make the incentives based around writing side stories because I have enough of those piled up. But I definitely don't want to just say "I need money to live. Give me money." after so many weeks of my attention being so emphatically on other things. So I thought about what I could do that might be fun, for you and for me, and the answer came to me when I put on my headphones last night at like three in the morning after realizing I had no idea how the sound from my speakers might carry down to my housemate in a bedroom below me.
These are the USB headphones I got for Christmas last night that I found to be so marvelous and useful for their playback quality. They also have a microphone that I have barely used, but which is likewise superior in quality to anything I've had before.
So here's my plan: for every $250 I raise during the fundraising period, I will record myself reading one story aloud. I'll burn them off at a rate of one per week. That might sound like I'm not giving myself enough time, but the deal is not that I'm producing studio quality recordings... see, not only do I not have a studio, but I am terrible at reading my work. I'm nervous and self-conscious. It took me multiple oh-so-many years of speech therapy to even be able to talk intelligently and even now my lips and jaw and tongue can occasionally catch on certain sounds.
So this little incentive project is meant to help me... it's an incentive for me, too. An incentive to practice and get better, and to be less self-conscious. Because I might do multiple takes. I might do some minor clean up/edits. But whatever I have, whatever I produce, whether I think it's any good or not, will go up. It will be rough and raw and you will hopefully get to "see" me improve as I go.
I realize that doing this now almost guarantees that someone out there is going to be listening to my efforts and having a good laugh. But that's the other reason I want to do it. I won't say "to show I don't care"; I'm talking about it so clearly I care. I do care, but I don't care enough not to do it. I'm not afraid.
The actual fundraising period will kick off on Friday, assuming I have completed my goal of two chapters this week. I'm not going to announce it on the site until then, but if you're among the MU readers who happen to read my blog and you kick into the pot before then, yes it'll count. I'm also going to count the three random donations I've received in the past few days; assuming they all clear then I'm going to start this sucker already owing you all one recording.
I'll talk about the specific things I'll be recording later on, especially if it proves necessary to inject a little more interest into the proceedings. At least half of them will be MUniversal stories, but I'm going to reserve the right to record other things because some of my stand alone stories might make better audio thingies than chapters of a serial.
Anyway, that's the plan. These recordings will be free and they will be released with some sort of share-alike license on them. You won't need to donate to get them. There will be some sort of little bonus for people who do donate; details to follow. I'm not going to set an upper limit on the number of recordings/fundraiser goal immediately, because even if this fundraiser's in the neighborhood of the last two it won't produce an onerous obligation.