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Lets Talk About Our Lives

Journals sound a surefire way to get embarrashed by a nosy relative/friend plus to the slothful me way too much effort.

Today.

They:Don't sprinkle too much ground cheese on your pasta.

Me: Sprinkles in the bottom. Sprinkles in the mid. Sprinkles alot on top. And the sauce.
It's true! That's why I don't reveal everything in my journal. Not at all.
 
Alright, another day, another completed draft run through of my writing project with it's 209,986 words, including titles. Not a bad run through if I say so myself.

Other than having to go back and tweak a few writing tics of mine and adjust one or two small segments so the story still makes sense... I have a feeling that the story I have been working on for nearly five years, and a setting for ten or more years even... at least the first part with a bit of luck... well... let's say I have a feeling it might well be complete.

Yep, short of those final adjustments I may have well finished the novel.

Now I have to actually work out who I can trust to beta-read the novel... partly because I don't trust my family to look at it without either praising it or just telling me to publish... but I don't know who else to go to incase they run off the work and say it's their own...

Then there is actually sending the completed work to maybe an editor and then an agent so it goes straight through to the right publisher.

Hell, it might be there is still alot of stuff that needs doing with it... but I'd rather know for a certainty rather than blow it all sending it to a publisher and find that it never gets through the system.

So... things are going to be interesting during the next few days and weeks...
 
Today is November 1, the start of NaNoWriMo 2020.

Those who enter, it's time to write till your hand hurts!

Write, write, write!
I might, if I weren't illiterate. :(
Alright, another day, another completed draft run through of my writing project with it's 209,986 words, including titles. Not a bad run through if I say so myself.
What's the title of that one, and how many pages do you think it'll cover? :curious:
 
Today is November 1, the start of NaNoWriMo 2020.

Those who enter, it's time to write till your hand hurts!

Write, write, write!
I should participate sometime since I'm something of an aspiring writer myself, but I don't think I have it in me and I'm already devoting time to outlining and planning out a story for Royal Road.
 
I might, if I weren't illiterate. :(

What's the title of that one, and how many pages do you think it'll cover? :curious:

Sorry for the late reply, I'm hoping for the title Chimera, as for pages, hard to say, but the upper limit is around 210,000 words.

I have tried to cut it down, but I cannot find any other method, and I feel splitting it in two will cause more harm than good.
 
I got fucked by Category 5 Supertyphoon Goni which passed almost directly overhead, and am looking at up to three months without power. It's only been today that they managed to fix the cell towers, and there's faucet water for only half a day.

But on the positive side: I GOT PHOTOS!

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This is from when the power and phone connectively finally cut out. I was wondering why I had 4G for so long even when the power was out.

The winds are already sounding like planes taking off and the whole house was shaking.

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Then the winds intensified even more, and the windows burst inwards, and I had to secure them back with curtains, cardboard, and batteries.

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Photos can't do it justice, but everything is shaking just from wind force.

The first photo had the winds lashing in from the north, then the eye passed and the wind direction reversed even stronger.

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As night passed and day dawned and the wind force receded, that left only rain.

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It's a bit difficult to see, but there's a foot difference in height between the floodwaters of the river and behind the dike.

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That's the first floor flooding to chest level.

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Well those houses are gone.

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And that next-door neighbor's house is gone.

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If it wasn't for the dike, the flooding would be street level by now.
As it is, you can't see it but all the flooded areas are well below street level.

There used to be a row of wooden small shop buildings obscuring view of the street. Now they're all gone.

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You can't see it because of the flooding, but there's supposed to be steps leading down into this little cul-de-sac.


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The winds did not spare this house under construction.

People below are stepping on the tops of piled gravel sacks.


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Well shit, so that's why.

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It might not be clear, but that's the river floodwaters rushing in from a break in the dike.
 
Well... glad you're in one piece. Looks like worse than Harvey.
Thanks. I got lots more though.

Excuse me for a bit while I continue to post. :)

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Now the winds have mostly stopped and people are trying to see what they can salvage.

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The junk you see below are shattered houses and belongings that have rammed themselves onto the first floor walls of our house.
It might not be easy to see, but all that shit is floating.


---(lost 4G internet data download for a moment here while posting) ---



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It's all around that level.

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It may be weird to still have houses with thatch roofs in 2020, but this house is largely protected by two rows of taller concrete houses to either side.

As you can see, the thatch actually mostly survived the winds. The downdraft ripped open the wood to their attic though.


(I can't take photos of my own house for a. privacy and b. I can't get up to my own roof yet).
 
SKIP A DAY LATER

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And this is what the river level usually looks like.



If you compare this:
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To this:
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The flood was at waist to neck level at times.


A lot of Asia has the superstition that you need to build your first floor a bit higher than the road to get good luck. Well, if luck means 'not getting the shit flooded out of you', that's just practical.

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And yet, quickly people are already rebuilding their little shacks.

I guess that's the advantage to building with wood.

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Only the finest in Tropican technology.



... should I keep posting or make a new thread if this is spamming the thread with images?
 
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The local government unit is surveying the damages.

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This is from me waiting in line for cheap generator fuel.

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Two seven-liter jugs, that's all.

Consumption goes about a liter per hour, so I'm trying to eke this out over three to four days.

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And the on the way home is that oh nooo

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Not the Old Spanish house!

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That's a historical landmark!

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Olden houses needed to be built light and airy because air conditioning hadn't been invented yet.

First floors of thick stone, second floors of wood against earthquakes.


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The old building survived storms over a hundred years, and only now did it finally get ripped open.

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By sheer size and land area occupied, even today it would be considered a mansion. All of it got rekt.


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This old house which dates back to around 40s or 50s fared better.

Maybe it's because it's much lower, so didn't suffer 240kph gale force winds as much. The higher you go, the stronger the winds.

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Well there's another proof why you shouldn't built houses out of wood in the Philippines. This one got rekt as well.

The reason why there seems to less damage and it's high and dry a couple of days after the typhoon is that unlike say Florida suffering Irma, we get a supertyphoon like every fucking year so everyone tries to build in stone and concrete as much as they can. And b) not building real estate on top of a fucking swamp.

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Wait, is that a concrete pole that was split in half and then ripped through this house?

Well, shit.

That's unlucky.

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Another structure gone; this used to be a bakery.

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On the way home now. People are burning what debris they can't repurpose by the roadside.

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And finally, a photo of the little river and its usual water level. You'd think it was in danger of drying up, no?
 
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What a mess. I'm glad you're okay, bluepencil, and I hope that reconstruction goes well.
Sadly, I can say that it's not - because there's another goddamn typhoon on the way and no one wants to start repairing power lines before it gets rekt again and all their work goes to waste, like what happened in the week before this. On Oct 26, typhoon Molave ripped through my area and downed power lines for a week. I got a day of resumed power before supertyphoon Gomi arrived on Nov 1 and ripped through everything.

Such a waste of effort.

I'll be honest here. I have a desperate need for some extra gas money. Anything via paypal to [email protected] will help. Even $20 gets a week of gas. I specifically and separately need to budget for up to three months of this.

The bad thing about building houses out of concrete with small windows is that at night all that tropical heat and humidity makes feel like you're a steamed bun being cooked.

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Yes, these things.

I need to keep those batteries charged for everyone's overnight usage with electric fans or else we literally would go mad. 😭

Previous other months-long experiences returning to the pre-electric age had showed me people also return to the pre-electric amusements. Which means getting drunk and getting into fights. The darkness means that people have to go to sleep early, but the heat says they can't fucking sleep.






In the meantime, I have more pictures from my after-typhoon walkabout if that's okay?
 
Holy moly @bluepencil. First, I'm glad you're safe. Second, Do you have a bank account number? I don't have PayPal but there is a Merchantrade branch near my house. Actually, I'd better PM you to ask for those details.
 
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A better look at the damage on the Old Spanish House.

I really hope they can recover from this instead of selling the property. We don't another generic commercial building.


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Power poles are now supposed to be metal filled with concrete, in deeply buried foundations.

As you can see, the newer power lines survived the storm just fine. I'm hoping I'm looking at an old power pole repurposed to string up phone and internet lines, or else getting power back to the city center is going to involve loads of cable and wire fuckery.

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Well that's... discouraging.

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Oh, the Church. I wonder how the church fared in the typhoon?

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Not much to damage in the church plaza.
I remember when this place used to be like a zen garden instead of this flat slab, but I suppose this allows for more free movement.


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The church got rekt.

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The church got super-rekt.

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Not even the stained-glass windows were spared.

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I wonder how it looks inside?

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Let's have a peek.

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Shit.

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Usually the church is an evacuation center, but they started using a high school for that.

If it were zombies, the church would be an awesome place to fortify. It is literally a mini castle.
Those are real granite stone walls two meters thick! Heavy galvanized iron bars on all windows!

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Looks like it's going to take some time and a lot of work before services can resume.
See that bright alcove over there?

It's not just the roof that's gone, but the ceiling too. Normally the church should be somberly dark all over.
 
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Another wooden pole split by the wind.
Those are phone and data cables though, I recognize them.


What are these straight woods we use for poles anyway?
Can't be coconut. Coconut has a much different grain pattern.

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Another house demolished, but this one more severe because you can actually see where the concrete walls had collapsed inwards.

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Yeah I'm sure power's coming back reaal sooon.

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More troublesome power poles.

This one is actually more concerning because that is a solid concrete power pole that should have been largely weather-proof.


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There used to be a house here, now just an empty lot.

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Facing it however, low-income housing is already in the middle of being rebuilt.

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Who left this velvet club chair out here? I'mma steal it.

(I didn't. Repair costs would have eaten up gas money.)


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And finally, night.

Peace out.




Also, for those in the know:
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Thank you for saving this cat!
 
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Keeping my dad company in the hospital for the night. Seems like he's doing alright and is now sleeping soundly.

Unfortunately both of us forgot our type-C USB cord. Conserving battery power is a drag.
My prayers as well.
 
Mind if I post more photos?




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Garbage trucks aren't operating yet, so people are just burning whatever they don't want.

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That house on the left with missing walls was visible from our back windows, and I pity all those who only have tarp for protection in the face of the next typhoon.

It's probably going to be just a normal storm, but a sheet of tarpaulin is no replacement for a wall against wind and rain.

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Oh no! This used to be my favorite restaurant to get a Halo Halo!

Restaurant went into all in to their theme building with wood and logs and a tall airy roof but sadly it seems like it wasn't as structurally sound as it could have been.

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That's the elementary school I attended.

They just managed to fix the roofs, and now they're ripped open again. Fortunately there's no classes due to covid anyway.

Classes should start in June, but the kids got a whole year of no classes at all through 2020. This would have been amazeballs to me as a kid. I used to love the approach of typhoons.

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Seriously?

You guys are literally selling generators off the back of a truck.

I thought that was just a movie cliche!

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My phone camera's color algorithm is shit under the hot noonday sun, but that sign says
LA FUNERARIA POPULAR
CHARGING
STATION

The death toll was actually only 10 dead and 3 missing. That is super low for the population and area, helped by mass evacuation.

Fortunately it seems through months of isolation covid had mostly been eradicated here, but mask wearing is still mandatory. If there's a super spreader with no symptoms... well, we're just fucked.

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And here we go.

Went out visiting relatives. Why is there so much earth piled up beside the road?

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Because their dike broke and the river flooded over, bringing mud-filled waters crashing into their homes.

(more later)
 
Welp, I never thought I would say this... but I've opened up my laptop to crack on with some more stuff related to my story and yet... I don't know what else to do with it. Inspiration isn't a problem, it's more like... what else should I be tweaking or editing? As far as I can tell... yeah... my book feels complete.

I already have a list of agents at the ready, so in theory I could send the story out now and if it's successful, I can hopefully work closely with the editors who will probably end up looking at it. However, I'm still uncertain about sending the story out until I've got some feedback in the form of beta readers beyond any particular familar member. The thing is there, I still don't know who else to trust beyond that save for dropping off little samples in places. The responses to those samples have mostly been positive, and an experimental showing in the past was also very positive... but I'm still nervous, as the last thing I want is, as stated before, for the entire story and setting to crash and burn.

Gonna have to make the choice sooner or later to rely on family and agents, or find other beta readers.
 
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