Books and Intentional Ink

First, the bookish content:

Currently reading:

audio: On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed--winner of the Pulitzer Prize

ebook: Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather L. Clark--finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

hc: Never Flinch by Stephen King

Red Comet is a passion prject, all 1158 pages of it. I have had to take a break because it punched me in the solar plexus. Clark was discussing how happy Plath had been choosing to work on a farm the summer before she headed off to Smith College, meeting people she never would have met otherwise, riding her bike home exhausted at the end of the day, soaking up the sun, and with so much to look forward to, and then she hit me with "Half of her life was over."

I knew that, but I was hanging out with oblivious, sunburned Sylvia that smelled like the strawberries she had been picking and was fantasizing about her writing career and all the books she would devour in her upcoming classes, and if any of her professors would be as amazing as her high school English teacher, as she pumped her strong young legs on her bike.

And now I can't breathe.

That kind of math is too poetic for this motherly heart. Let me stay with the Sylvia that doesn't know yet that she will go missing while at school, that she will frighten herself over and over, that this might be the zenith certainly not of her talent but of her emotion, perhaps. Let me stay a little longer with the summer breezes of Wellesley and dreams of The New Yorker and of kind, intellectual boys. Don't do the devil's math just yet.

Stay with the strawberries.

So I turn to the Sims. Please indulge me as I rattle on about my writers' group.

I have to tweak things. Y'all know that by now. Hence the allure of The Sims. My Intentional Ink writers' retreat participants lives in Dachshund's Creek, Cavalier Cove, in the world of Brindleton Bay. Brindleton Bay is the universe associated with the Cats and Dogs Expansion pack. With the Bay's gorgeous dock and lighthouse...I had to touch things!

Once I got done establishing the historical home that the Intentional Ink group was able to rent with their writing grant, I set my customization sights on the whole world. Luckily, some lovely modders paved the way for me with some amazing changes for Brindleton, and I have adopted them allllll:

bench override from LargeTayterTots: turns the mint green public benches into a natural wooden brown

also from LargeTayterTots, freewayoverwide: turns the green freeway to a natural grey

same designer! fresh coat of navy blue paint for the lighthouse on Deadgrass Isle

same designer! boats override

and one more...even upgraded the styles of the adults' and children's fishing rods, muting the colors

From The Sim Side of Luca, a more natural replacement for the orange brick in the square

crane override from orange to grey by Solarlines

I also installed an incredible library from the EA Gallery by designer Bonzoodle, and tweaked it some...so now the writers have a library also housed in an historical building right next door. That should help fuel their creative juices, and give them a little more space to write should they need to get away from each other to work at times. I didn't make many changes beyond adding computers and planting dogwoods in the corners of the lot, because look at it! It even has a sunlit dome, y'all. I want to crawl inside it and live there.

This lot does not have a challenge assigned, but has five traits thanks to the More Traits in CAS and Lots mod (which helped to create the writers as well) by thepancake1 and MizoreYukii.

Here they are in context on the map; the writers' home is the one next door, marked in green.

And here both buildings are both in-game, after all the above tweaks were installed, on an early spring evening:

I haven't updated all the Sims' pages yet, but I'll continue to link to them. I've added Genesis' passport; she got hers while she was still in college, so it's from Britechester, rather than Brindleton Bay, like my Simself Clara's. I'll finish Genesis' page next, then onwards.

• Clara King as in Stephen
• Genesis Lee as in Tanith
• Silas Shelley as in Mary
• Lila Jackson as in Shirley (yes, I seem to have accidentially created a Tori Amos Sim)
• Ethan Dahl as in Roald

Stay with the strawberries, and stay safe as you can, y'all.