#ScribesAndMakers day 1: Does the change to a new calendar year affect your creativity in any way?

@kagan My top ten original series episodes, in the order they come to mind:

The Doomsday Machine
The Ultimate Computer
The Menagerie
Court Martial
The Enterprise Incident (yay season 3 had one great episode!)
Amok Time
Arena
Balance of Terror
Errand of Mercy
The Trouble with Tribbles

Outside looking in:
City on the Edge of Forever (good ep; I am not as ga-ga over it as many are, and I have no opinion as to whether Ellison’s original script - which I have read - would have been better)
Mirror Mirror
Space Seed
Day of the Dove (hey, another S3 episode!)
(The Tholian Web is also good!)

I guess my favorite NextGen episode at this point would be “Q Who”. I wasn’t a fan of the show the first time around and it’s aged poorly.

#ScribesAndMakers day 25: You're going on a creative retreat. What's the most important thing you need to bring with you?

My laptop, obvi! I can't write without it.

Okay, assuming "whatever tools you need to do the creating" are considered to be already included, then... what the hell, I'm going with the alexandrite earrings and pendant my sweetie gave me as things to spur creativity.

@mrawdon For me, I can't honestly do a fair "off the top of my head" comparison between TOS and TNG. I saw nearly all TOS episodes multiple times in my childhood, and reinforced that with readings of the James Blish novelizations. I *know* those things, really well. Give me any title and I'll give you the plot summary; give me any plot summary, and I'll spit out the title. 1/4

@mrawdon For TNG, there are some episodes I know by title ("The Best of Both Worlds" comes immediately to mind…), but then there are others that I have to just call things like "the one after 'The Best of Both Worlds', where Picard deals with his brother and his trauma, and Worf deals with his Russian adoptive parents… it's not called 'Family', is it? That'd be too on-the-nose?" or "the one where the collector guy kidnaps Data and nearly gets shot with a Varan-T disruptor for his troubles". 2/4

@mrawdon And I think there are at least a few TNG eps I haven't even seen once yet.

So, if I had to try to answer your original statement ("more good episodes than..."), my methodology would be:

Watch each series. For each episode, just assign it "good/medium/bad". Yeah, broad bands, but that's okay, and that seems to be what was set up by the statement. And there's no restriction on how many assignments of any given type can be made; if one thinks a show is full of good episodes and... 3/4

@mrawdon ...has hardly any bad ones, well, that's okay! That's what we all *want*, right? So no bell curve or stack ranking here. But do the votes honestly.

Then check the numbers. (Both absolute and by percentage, since 79 episodes vs. 178 is not really fair.)

It sounds like a fun project, but a time-consuming one. Maybe when I'm retired or something. 4/4

#ScribesAndMakers day 27: Are you good at threading needles?

No, but I have hardly any practice at it. I'm sure I'd improve quickly if I started sewing on a regular basis.

#ScribesAndMakers day 30: Hogwash?

Folderol! Stuff and nonsense! Indeed, as the kids say these days: that's AI!

@kagan folderol is new to me.

#ScribesAndMakers day 31: Share something about your creative work this month.

My first version of chapter 9, scene 1, was a real banger. And then I realized that the whole rest of the chapter would be stronger if I decided the MCs (including the one who was the POV for that scene) *don't* know the thing I'd had her agonizing over.

So I tore it down and redid it.

That's a good capsule summary of my creativity for this month.

@saposcat @kagan "Hell's bells and cockle shells!" as a long-ago co-worker used to say.

@dancingtreefrog @saposcat Ooooh, I like that one!

@kagan @saposcat She was a sweetie. She was in her 60s when I worked with her at a medical transcription service, so she'd be 95-100 now. She was from Minnesota, wore a light muumuu at the office, had all the air conditioning vents and a fan pointed at her. Her skin felt like ice, but she thought it was perfect! I guess it was like being back home for her!

#ScribesAndMakers day 1: What's one creative thing you'd like to get done this month?

At least one chapter of my WIP. Preferably two, but I know that's not a reasonable target.

#ScribesAndMakers day 2: Do you have any annual traditions not tied to holidays?

None that I can think of.

#ScribesAndMakers day 3: What's a creative project you would want to give someone for their birthday?

Well, I can bake a pretty nice chocolate cake...

#ScribesAndMakers day 4: Our next featured creator is a comic artist. Tell us about a comic strip or web comic you enjoy.

It's an oldie but a goodie: I'm still enjoying Questionable Content (https://questionablecontent.net/) I'm still impressed with how much Jeph Jacques has managed to change the comic while still keeping it so much the same.

#ScribesAndMakers day 5: You now have the same occupation as the main character of your current WIP (or book you are reading/last read). What job are you doing?

Looks like I'm simultaneously:

1. An architect;
2. A librarian;
3. A radiologist, specializing in MRIs;
4. An unemployed ex-accountant who might be able to make a living at painting if I gave it a shot; and
5. A front-end web developer.

(By a curious coincidence, #5 is, in fact, my actual job in real life.)

#ScribesAndMakers day 6: Our featured creator makes graphic novels. As a reader, which do you think is more important in a graphic novel, art or words?

By their very nature, graphic novels place equal importance on both of those things! (That said, I tend to focus much more on the words when I'm reading them — but that's a tendency I'm trying to overcome, because I think it's a bad one.)

#ScribesAndMakers day 8: How do you define a book? Do audio books and graphic novels fit your definition?

Audio books yes, graphic novels no. To my mind, the addition of all that art makes the graphic novel a different form. Not worse (or better), just different.