On Friday I worked on my story... I have four critiques so far from the site. I responded to the first, read the last for the first time, and thought about them all. This story needs a lot more work than I realized. A couple of folks have said there's too many characters for such a short story, but I'm having trouble cutting any of them. They also say the introduction is too long for such a short story, but both scenes are needed. If there's too many characters and too long an introduction, but I can't cut either, then... maybe expand the middle, so it's a longer story that fits them all? There's also a request to differentiate the characters, but that lengthens the introduction... yes, i think I need to find more to put in the middle. {smile}
I ate dinner with Mom and read to her before that. Mom was sleepy but not fully asleep when I got there. She seemed to wake up as she looked at the pictures. She even responded a couple of times later in the session. The last time, she said she liked what I'd read to her. I began with scripture and thoughts about it first. Then I started her niece's long family Christmas letter from 2023. Next, I continued _Cats Galore: A Compendium of Cultured Cats_. After that, I read "The Peacock and the Crane" in _Five-Minute Stories: Over 50 Tales and Fables_. I ended with the 22nd of March's story from _366 Stories for Bedtime_, "Kind Miss Mouse." {Smile}After teaming for the evening and a break, I did my full salsa dancing warmup for 8 1/2 minutes of salsa dancing. Then another break, and I did 6 1/4 more minutes of salsa dancing. After a longer break, I did my head exercises, and my arm resistance exercises, but I was tired even while doing the arm resistance exercises in particular. So that's where I stopped, but that's the most salsa dancing I've done yet. When I can add one more piece to the second set, that will be around 20 minutes of salsa dancing. Then I can get the other exercises up to full. {Smile}
I played Cross Stitch World while thinking about writing in the morning, around the work with the critiques. I did read one or more articles, too. Then I finished Thursday's daily update before lunch. After lunch, I did more with the critiques. then I cleaned myself up. After that, I hopped into City of Heroes: Homecoming. There, I found Soothing Darkness, who I hadn't seen in a few months. I said hi, and joined the team they were on. They were doing a different kind of individual mission than my usual, though they switched to something in a story arc eventually. Pierogies came in and joined us around the time of my last mission before reading to Mom. {Smile}
After dinner, I began writing this up. Then I hopped into City of Heroes: Homecoming. I found Soothing Darkness on a team doing the individual missions again and joined them once more. Then Phonso came on and invited me to a few trials. I tried to ask the team. No one seemed interested. I finished the mission we were on and started to apologize for leaving to join Phonso. Soothing Darkness didn't want to abandon the team, but one other member was open to the trials, and no one objected. However, when we joined Phonso, two left because they were too low-level. We still ran the first trial with Phonso. The others all left after one, but I ran two more trials with Phonso. He recruited mostly new teams each time. I said goodnight to Nox; we missed talking again. Phonso himself left after the third trial. Then I read some comics, watched some videos, did my salsa dancing and other exercises, and did a little paperwork and solo play for a badge on my 5th best badge collector in City of Heroes: Homecoming. I also wrote some of this and made notes to finish it from on Saturday. {Smile}
