Here you'll find the rantings of a blogging fool and sometimes writer. My more personal posts, including progress reports on my various writing projects, are Friends Only. General posts on writing are Public. Please see my user profile for my other LJs and my friending policy, and browse through the sidebar for nifty goodies and useful info.

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Writing only leads to more writing. (Colette)

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Visitors from 1/30/05:

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What goes around really does come around. I started this blog in 3 places: AOL, Blogger, and here on LJ. I dropped the AOL version first, then remade the Blogger version as something else and moved all the posts here that hadn't been posted here, and now I've gone and made a writing journal on Blogger called Write Stuff, url: http://shellyswritestuff.blogspot.com/ The blog is fully active now. I'm slowly copying my favorite and still relevant posts from here to there. I am NOT dropping this LJ. I might rename it, though, and I will be flocking more posts. The general writing posts will be there and here. The personal type posts and posts about my actual writing, will be here, for my fl only. Nothing there will not also be here.

Previously, when I tried the cross-posting thing, it was a pain in the butt, but now with Firefox and tab browsing, I can have both sites up and cross-posting should be a snap and a click.

This lets those not on LJ more comfortably read my posts and comment over there and maybe it will get me more readers as that blog will show up on my Blogger profile page with all the rest. I like the look of the Blogger Write Stuff. It seems very grown-up. ;)

And again, I want to thank my fl for all the wonderful advice and support re: my whine, uh, post yesterday. It really helped.

I've been playing on Blogger's new beta site. If you have a Google account, you can create a Blogger beta blog. The new features are great and include categories, which they call labels, instant publishing, and a whole lot of things other sites like Typepad and WordPress have. And now Blogger's got 'em, and will be rolling them out gradually for all Blogger bloggers.

I'm moving my political and blogging blogging from Presto Speaks! to the new The View from Here, which has an LJ feed, too: shview
In case anyone cares. I also now have an excuse to create an icon for it for my user info page. heh. Like I need excuses to make user pics.

I'm considering using my VOX blog for posting actual writing or writing dilemmas. Still mulling on this. And I still have 2 invites for VOX if anyone wants to try it.

To help celebrate The Write Stuff's second anniversary, "Mal Reynolds" takes you on a tour of my apartment. You can see the photos here.

Here's a sample.

Well, this one, at any rate. I've noticed that I haven't blogged much here about writing, which is the purpose for this blog, so I thought I'd explain how my fickle brain works. I binge and not just on food. I binge on hobbies, especially when I'm working on something new. I get so narrow focused on a thing that everything else falls to the wayside and it takes months to blend the older interests back in for a new mix.

I finished my ms, for ex, by binge writing for 4 months. I threw myself into blogging where it possessed me for over a year as I learned how to tweak templates and wrote posts seemingly nonstop. I got icon fever here on LJ and was playing in Photoshop making them every night for weeks. I've gone on decoupaging boxes binges and reading binges. And recently, I've gotten into scan photos and upload to flickr bingeing.

And I'm also beta reading for the first time. It's interesting. I see things I don't do as well and things I do better. I'm hoping I can apply some of this to my own revising, but I'm so bad at extrapolating when it comes to writing, despite doing it well in other endeavors, that I'm not sure it will work. Still, I'm going to try to keep some things in mind when I get the comments back from the other 2 beta readers and get going on my revision.

I've also noticed that a few folks friended me, some of whom I've friendded, so, welcome! I hope I can manage to keep posting things you enjoy reading. I've also had a few folks unfriend me, so whatever I say about that here will not reach the intended audience, those people I've somehow bored. I hope it's just that my LJ turned out to not be of interest to them, rather than due to the lack of writing posts here. Because there will be more. I know there will be, because I'm like that. And the writing urge is creeping around in my head, and when critical mass is reached, writing will commence.

I have been writing, of course. I always am writing something. For now, it's bits for the self-published spy series and I'll soon be doing final proofing and corrections, then laying out the next book for a May publication. I just didn't think that was all that interesting to blog about.

I'm playing with Blogger's relatively new trackback feature, so don't mind this post. I want to see how/if it works when the blog I'm linking from isn't a Blogger blog, so I've copied out the code from the post window I got in Blogger when I clicked Create a Link. I suppose the only person on my fl who will care is mavarin.

So, here goes.
Presto Speaks! I Heart Flickr

An interesting question was posed by everyonesakitty in light of the friends survey a number of us took this weekend: "Why do you participate in LJ? Looking for friends? A place to vent? A place to pimp your artistry? Just nosy?" I started to answer there, but it got uh, long, so I'm posting it here, instead.

I started blogging, on AOL, out of curiosity. Actually, my first LJ preceded that, but since I had no clue what I was doing, I didn't actually post more than an entry or two on that LJ and subsequently forgot the username and password. I assume the account is gone.

I enjoyed the AOL journal, but soon wanted to be able to do more, so I got me some Blogger blogs. They have helped me learn a bit about coding, mostly html, but some css. I read blogs via Bloglines.

But a few friends have LJs so I decided, now that I knew what they were, to try again, so I created this one to mirror my original writing blog on Blogger and AOL, but I dropped those because cross posting was tiresome and I wanted to keep an LJ.

Why did I want to keep the LJ and why do I blog are somewhat different questions with somewhat different answers. I enjoy blogging. I enjoy playing with templates and having an outlet for my thoughts. I didn't start with the idea I'd reach an audience, but I like that aspect, even if the audience is small. I do try to pimp my blogs, I use Blog Explosion to find new readers, but readership isn't the be all, end all. First comes the chance to express myself.

The reason I have the LJ is related, but has differences. I enjoy the Friends List feature. I could read my fav LJs on Bloglines, but the community feel here is nice. I like the icons we can use to express ourselves and our moods. I like all the layout toys to play with. And I like the threaded comments that make comments feel like a message board. I like that I can create communities with my paid account and that I can easily share thoughts and graphics with like minded people. And I like the extras, like the Scrapbook, the very versatile User Info pages, tagging, and memories.

My perfect blogging experience would combine the best of LJ with the best of Blogger and maybe through in some trackback and a few other nifty features. I wish LJ allowed java so I can include my Bloglines subs in my sidebar, along with some other cool stuff. And for those features LJ doesn't have, I keep my Blogger blogs. After all, I can play with the templates on Blogger with my free account, but I can't see paying for more than one LJ and I do like having separate blogs for certain things.

First off, I love Flexible Squares. Or as the younger generation might say, I heart Flexible Squares. Or even better, I ♥ Flexible Squares.

Second, so far, folks seem to like this new look. Great. Thanks.

Third, the ability to add sidebar boxes and having the boxes accept html has meant I can add links beyond the 30 I got with my paid account, so I moved my blogs out of the links list and put them in a separate listing (with their LJ syndication names) which opened up some slots. I added some writerly links and reorganized the links to go from general to science fiction to my lists of relevant links on my website. I hope folks find something useful there.

I've added a Weather Pixie, mostly because I could. I think LJ says no Javascript, so I can't add the Moon Phases thingie which I have on some of my other blogs and is very cool and would've fit nicely here.

However, I was able to add my little alien guy dividers on the top nav bar and other fun things to the sidebar, so I'm pretty happy with this blog. And by being able to do the header, I was able to incorporate two of my icon themes (the abi-station me and the fancy title lettering), which freed up two of my 15 userpics, enabling me to add a couple of new ones. I'll use the bookish one now.

I've seen some folks complain about tags and the fear that Memories are being phased out. I only recently discovered how to do Memories and understand the frustration when they're not working, but tagging is something done across the greater blogosphere and I was happy to see them here. If only Blogger would add them. I do like that you can put other people's entries in your Memories, which is a nice feature, but I think LJ and its new owner want to line LJ up a bit better with other blogging services while maintaining the features that make LJ special. So, we'll see, I guess. But in the meantime, in terms of searching and services like Technorati, tags are good.

I tweaked a bit and redid the background because, much as I loved the old one, it didn't look good with the new header, so I made a background specially for this blog. And because I needed some cat vacuuming activity tonight (as if playing with the theme layer and style wasn't enough), I made a poll, too.

Poll #531353 New Look
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

Which look do you like better?

Apparently, if you comment via LJ to the syndicated versions of my Blogger blogs, the comments go on the LJ syndication page for that entry of that blog. I don't get an email notice of the comment because apparently, since anyone with a paid account can create a syndicated feed for a non-LJ, there's no email to send a notice to.

With one or 2 exceptions, my Blogger blogs accept anonymous comments, so if you read the syndicated version here and want to comment, the best way for me to find out you've done so is for you to click on the link to the actual blog and comment there. Thanks.

Okay, I give up. Anyone know how/where you code the text in a sidebar box here to left justify the text? I've tried a number of things, but without a preview feature (at least, I don't see any), it's been slow going and to no avail. I did get the non-LJ usernames into the sidebar, but they look really strange all centered like that.

In the meantime, I tossed out an idea on Cyber Chocolate to use Presto Speaks! for my blogging about blogging entries, and someone liked the idea, so I think I'll try that for now.

And as soon as I publish this, I think I'll go find some chocolate.

Okay, the feeds seem to be working here for my non-LJs. The photos didn't show up, but the text did, so I'll consider that a victory. Of course, I have no idea why the graphics didn't appear in the entries on my Friends page, so if any knows, feel free to leave a comment.

When I got the paid account, I figured 15 user pics would be fine. Now I want MORE. It's amazing how quickly we can adapt and take things for granted. And get bored with what we have. But I just want the icons to reflect all the aspects of me and I have a lot of interests and uh, aspects.

UPDATE: Maybe it was my server here at work. The photo in the ribbon entry on cchoc is now there. Cool.

Flush with success over the syndication of ImPRESSions Extra, I went ahead and made usernames for some of my other blogs. If anyone wants me to make an LJ syndication for any of my other blogs, just leave a comment and I'll do it.

You can, if you'd like, Friend the following:

• Cyber Chocolate (my main blog): cchoc


• Shelly's Book Shelf (my book reviews): shbkshelf


• Occasional Blog (my ranting blog): occblog


• Alternate Reality (my space blog): alterreal


• Presto Speaks! (blogging about blogging): imppresto


• Shelly's Comic Book Shelf: shcomics

I must say, I'm sure getting my money's worth out of this paid account. :)

It's truly wondrous how much can actually be jammed into an LJ sidebar, provided you are using a style that allows for a sidebar and you can figure out the code to add to add boxes which will accept html. No Java, but fortunately, the counter I'm using doesn't use Javascript. Yay. I guess this level of customization is allowed for paying customers (I don't recall seeing it when I was still in the free plan). At any rate, the counter, the writing fanlisting thingie, the Blog Explosion thingie, the rss feeds links, and some other stuff has now been moved there. I deleted the sticky entry, as you can see, which means no more backdating so the calendar archive thingie is now fully functional again, in that it actually shows the current month, not December 2010, the month of the backdating.

Normal posting here will now resume.

I added 2 boxes to the sidebar. I finally am coming to an understanding re: LJ's layers, especially theme layers. I plan to try to move some of the other stuff from the top post to the sidebar, but don't know offhand if the counter I'm using is Javascript or not, and I do like it and the sidebar can't take Java, so I might end up needing to leave the predated top entry in place. But meanwhile, I should be able to move a few things down. I am one happy camper.

Next up, getting tags on. I'm thinking of editing all the posts in my Memories so I can tag them. That should only kill a few days. Talk about cat vacuuming.

This was pretty funny: Shoe and the writer's muse. The comic in question is from 6/12.

I made it official. Presto Speaks! is no longer a writing blog, or at least it will no longer mirror this LJ. I took off the writing links and gave it a new look. Now to figure out what to do with it. I don't want to delete it. It's my first Blogger blog. Any suggestions? A theme I don't currently have a blog for, preferably. :)

Bad day at work, hence the mood icon. Or as I've been known to say, a Monday of Mondays.

Okay, I'm an idiot. What can I say. I'm so used to Blogger, that some of the ins and outs here on LJ are still new to me, even though I've had this LJ for quite a while now.

I saw the "rich text" link on the bottom of new entries when I started this LJ, then promptly forgot about it. It never occurred to me that I could actually find it useful. That I wouldn't have to keep typing in the code for links and images and whatnot. And that that would be where I'd find how to do a Friends link. But thanks to leapin_jot, I, too, can now take advantage of the wonders of LJ's rich text posting.

Now I just need to figure out what "LJ Cut" means. Does that have to do with how some folks have only portions of their posts show on the main journal page? I'd been wondering about that, too.

In my continuing, albeit at a snail's pace, quest to learn more about LJ, I looked at some community LJs yesterday. I searched writing and of the half dozen or so of the communities that popped up, all had most of their recent posts from the same person. Not just posts, but essentially the same posts. Is that typical?

I also have been wondering if folks read the Friends page of their Friends' LJs. I did that a lot when I first started this LJ last year, but not so much in recent months due to lack of time. I found some fun LJs that way. Anyone else?

Hot as hell again today. And back to work. Found out the A/C wasn't working on Monday. If ever I was glad to have been on vacation, that did it for me.

I finally got around to filling in all the links slots here in the sidebar. Mostly, they're links to pages of links on the ImPRESS Books site. I hope some of you find some of them helpful. I also added links for the ImPRESS newsletter blog (on BlogSpot) and for ITB HQ, the fictional LJ for the spy series I write with some friends. Username is itbhq.

Back to work tomorrow. Just when I've gotten into a cleaning groove here. Just about figures. And it's still hot and humid here in NYC. With occasional thunderstorms. Feels like mid-summer, not the end of spring.

And I've gotten back in the gym habit and eating less. Maybe I'll take those 12 - 15 pounds off. Finally. Yeah, and pigs fly. Or is that dragons that fly? heh

I've thought a bit about what I posted last night and realize that I was inaccurate. I do enjoy getting to know folks online, but that I can know only the personas they present which can be true to them or not. Even in real life it can take years to really know someone and they can still surprise you.

I fully understand and accept that not everyone will like me or want to get to know me, in real life and in cyberland. I am certainly not perky or affable or any other personality type that wins friends at first blush. I'm cynical, sarcastic, moody, and stubborn. I am also generous with people who have earned my generosity and respect. To me, respect isn't automatic. It's something one has to earn. I earned respect at work due to my position. I earn respect as a person by how I treat others. There is, to me, a difference in respecting a person because they are fellow humans who need to prove they don't deserve it, and respecting individuals. Different levels of respect. Different types of respect.

People online earn my respect by what they say and how they say it. They earn it by how graciously they accept contrary comments and opinions. If I ask them to consider how they're words could be offensive, even if I myself wasn't offended, how they respond to that says a lot about the person to me, at least of their online persona. Defensiveness (admittedly, subjective from my perspective) or explanations or other sorts of beating around the bush don't earn my respect. A statement that I made an interesting point that the person will consider goes a lot further toward that end. Similarly, I can't and don't expect I'll like everything I read online and when I don't, it helps form my opinion of the person writing it. If I get an "inaccurate" view of that person, why should that matter? We aren't in each other's real lives.

I learned on AOL's message boards that a lot of people online don't want honest opinions that don't agree with them, especially if bluntly stated. I've never been diplomatic and I doubt I ever will be. I have learned online to mostly keep a lot of my opinions to myself on message boards to avoid the flame wars or simply arguments that go on seemingly f'in forever. But on my blogs, I get to be as blunt and opinionated as I want. It's my forum in cyberland, after all. And that means, I get to decide whose comments stay and whose go. This isn't a democracy, nor is it an open forum. It's my little realm in cyberspace.

I spent my first 30 years being quiet. While I'm still rather shy (I've never mastered making small talk with strangers or even with people I know), I've also come out of the shell of my youth and I'm not going back into it for anything. If you like what I have to say here or elsewhere online, welcome! If not, no problem. It really doesn't matter to me. The audience has never been my first thought when I write something and never will be (unless I'm speaking in front of a specific group — book talks for teens at the library, a two-minute plea for more support for libraries at a community board meeting, for ex.). I write what I want to say, then put it out there for folks who might wander by and be interested. After the first blush of checking stats for my blogs nightly, I rarely look now except to see what interesting searches led folks to my blogs or to assure myself at least one person who isn't me is reading them. :) I like having an audience; I don't pander to it, nor do I cater to it.

This isn't the sort of thing I usually post here. It's better suited to Occasional Blog or maybe Cyber Chocolate. But it stemmed from things posted here, so I felt I should post the follow-up here, as well. And I'm sitting here listening to nothing because my oldies station abruptly fired all its DJs Friday and dropped its oldies format for something weird called Jack and I am not pleased. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find another radio station to wake up with.

[This has been revised.]

Was so great seeing Bast at MWC and meeting new folks, especially Misto whose I've friended (I so hate using that as a verb, but it is what it is). Back in 1985 when J and I started doing original fiction for fannish readers, finding readers was a real struggle. But we slowly built up a small though rabid readership. This year, it was gratifying to find people no longer made faces and headed elsewhere as soon as we mentioned original fic, but that many were amenable to the concept and willing to try something new.

So I spent some down time surfing around the blogs and discovered Patrick (yes, I'm not afraid to type the name), who I'd thought had posted a veiled post about me on his new writing blog (I think it was on the new one; my memory has never been great, but it's been fuzzier since I hit my 50s) since the situation seemed very similar to our little "spat." Oh no, he then said, in a comment (I think it was), he was talking about someone else. So, should I not assume that his post about an unnamed someone who mistook his post about someone else for a post about "her," isn't about me? Sheesh. I suppose I shouldn't bother posting this, but I have to discuss something here, so this is it. And since I'm reasonably sure he'll be reading this, it's for him.

And something he said was interesting: He said it was sad that there are people who aren't willing to get to know him for who he is and aren't likely to allow him to get to know them. I'm not surprised. People view the online realm differently than each other. Given that he seems to find my mindset of "it neither pleases nor displeases me that he reads my journal(s)" interesting, I can't be surprised. Life isn't always one end of the spectrum or the other. Some of us simply don't really care. So why, as he wondered, do I keep reading his journal? I don't. I found a reference to my journal on one of my Technorati searches. I saw he still had a link up to my journal despite my removing my link to his. Around that time, a friend told me he'd mentioned me on his blog, or at least alluded to me. I don't recall if my name was mentioned. So I skimmed, found references to me that bugged me, and responded. Since then, I've taken to skimming weekly to see if I'm mentioned. One can chalk that up to anything one likes, but I call it idle curiosity. Once I'm convinced he's past the urge to post about me or what I say, I'll stop. Not before. Maybe I have a touch of narcisism.

Do I respect his opinions? Only when they make sense to me. I do respect his right to his opinions. That's an important difference. To me, anyway. :) Do I want to get to know him or anyone online, the true people behind the posts? Not really. I can't really know anyone online. I can't know that they are what they claim, same as no one can know me that way. I read blogs that I enjoy. I don't worry about them being true. Ms. X can say she wrote 20 pages today and if she keeps me interested while saying that, great. But I don't know for sure she wrote those pages and don't really care. And I like to think we've had some wonderful discussions in each other's comments.

I do like to think I have some familiarity with folks whose posts I've been reading online for a while now, mostly via their blogs and also the rasfc folks (Y'all know who you are!) via their rasfc posts over the last year and a half, and finally, there are people I do know in real life, mainly Bast (my best bud's second best friend and I'm so glad J has her in her corner) and now Misto (Kitt) who, over ice cream and animal talk last Saturday night (well, 2 am Sunday) at Denny's, proved herself to be quite funny and entertaining.

But sorry, Patrick, there are always going to be folks who are just pixels on a screen to me. Nothing more. Nothing less. Skimming for references to someone who might possibly be me in a blog doesn't mean I'm reading what the person has to say on other things. I disagreed with most things Patrick says on his blogs, and for the rest, I found that other folks said it better. I have no reason to think any of that has changed. His opinions are simply his opinions and don't matter to me, unless I think he's talking about me. Then, I have something to say. But not on his blog anymore. I won't be commenting, nor have I emailed him for quite a while and have no desire to ever do so now. Maybe I've just become too jaded. Maybe I was just born that way. Or maybe, cuz one never can really know online, I'm just pulling a whopper of a joke on someone.

Oh, and does anyone know what the hell "Oooohh, burn!" means? Apparently, it's a playground phrase from maybe the '70s. It sure wasn't used at my college, where I spent the first half of the '70s, nor at my workplace in the latter half of that decade. :)

I've been reading everyone's LJ and other blogs while away, but didn't have time to comment. I figure now that I'm back, I'll just move forward and not go back to comment on old posts. And as soon as I finish unpacking and catching up with a few things, like download photos, I'll get the con report up, though I'll just be posting a link here because it will be long, with photos.

For any of you who are interested in ImPRESS Books, instead of just doing a newsletter (ImPRESSions) on the website discussing updates, I decided to create a blog for that: ImPRESSions Extra (http://impextra.blogspot.com). I'm pretty pleased with myself for being able to make it look a bit like the webpage for ImPRESSions, but I haven't had anyone with Firefox check out the look yet. One of my Blogger blogs wasn't coming up right in Firefox, so I had to fiddle. One of these days, I'll probably get Firefox, but not now.

I considered doing the new blog as an LJ, but I prefer the template versatility I get with Blogger.

I've been thinking about the direction of this journal and its mirror one on Blogger and have decided that while I'll continue to cross post, I also want each to have more of its own identity, so I'm fiddling with names. Originally, I came up with a journal called Presto Speaks! on AOL and shortly after, mirrored here on LJ, to be a supplement of sorts for my website blogging, ImPRESS Books. When I started the Blogger version, I dropped the one on AOL. I thought about dropping this version, but had grown enamored of the Friends feature.

Things often don't go as planned. Comments got left in both blogs and it was tedious to cross post them and having discussions in two places got even more tedious. Finally, I saw I was getting more comments here than there and the readership was very different.

I have more options on Blogger. Certainly, I have more room for links there unless I want to upgrade to a paid account here (I'm thinking about it). And I don't want to give up the Blogger version, not yet. So, what to do. How to give each an identity and yet have both of them focus on writing. I have a number of other Blogger blogs to cover other topics.

• Cyber Chocolate is my main blog.
  
• Occasional Blog is where I rant about politics and social issues that interest me.
  
• Alternate Reality is where I discuss science and science fiction, focusing on Mars and post links that are relevant.
  
• Malt Shop is where I do memes.
  
• Creative Endeavors is my photoblog.
  
• Retro-Spective is my new blog for reminiscing.
  
• Shelly's Book Shelf is where I post book reviews.
  

That doesn't leave much left, does it? :)

So there will be some growing pains, possibly more on the Blogger Presto Speaks! than here, but as with anything, it's a learning process. And for now, I like Write Stuff more than the first thing I thought of — Shelly Says — or the next thing — Shelly Writes. And you'll notice the change in my default picture. The old one was Presto the Imp, the mascot of ImPRESS Books. Since this is now a more personal blog, it didn't seem right to use Presto here. Let me know what you think. I do appreciate feedback.

I've noticed, not for the first time, that I might start with the characters sounding, well, in character, but at some point, the story takes over and while the characters do and say what fits them, they don't always say it the way they would, which means going back and adjusting dialogue. Lots of dialogue. And I have to hope they really were saying and doing what they would.

I realized the other day that I have a bit of a plot glitch and tonight I think I found a way around it. Which leaves me with the how to kill people on Mars/what happens to the bodies problem which I hope, once I get the answers, won't require major rewriting.

Comments in both versions of this blog in response to my entry on David Gates' review of Philip Roth's new book. I'm a big fan of alternate history, by the way, so it's nice seeing a mainstream author use the device. It's not that different than using real-life figures in historical fiction, as I see it.

Here's something else to mull: a LiveJournaler's response to an article hyping the benefits of self-publishing. Read it, especially if you're considering self-publishing. A dose of reality is required reading.

And it's Banned Books Week, or will be soon (I'm so bad with dates), so go read a Banned Book, okay?

And in other book news, I created a blog for my book reviews, called, for now, Shelly's Book Shelf. I'll still be posting reviews on the ImPRESS Books website, but the blog will make archiving a whole lot easier. I wasn't going to archive on the site, just keep the last few, but decided an online reading journal would be nice.

I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped during these 3 days off, but I did draft 3 more scenes, started a 4th, revised 2 or 3 scenes (I lost count) and added 2 more scenes to the scene list/outline that will bring me to the book's end. One of the scenes I drafted was a new one, something I hadn't planned, but I like how it fits.

I did start a new blog. It's going to be a group sort of thing for those of us writing in the shared universe I created. Called ITB Headquarters, it's a diary for our fictional spy characters (I created the International Taskforce Bureau about 10 years ago, based loosely on the UNCLE of The Man From UNCLE. It won't be officially announced until October's update of the ImPRESS Books website, but you can peek here if you want. We still need to figure out which characters will be posting and get them icons or avatars or whatever those little pictures are. The blog is on LiveJournal, so folks with an LJ blog can add it to their Friends (which we're calling Allies) if they want.